Busy Week

CAREFUL CUTTING: As you can tell from this portrait of Kirby, our lawn was overdue for a mowing, so the kids and I got on it first thing Thursday morning.

While cutting our eastern side yard, CJ stopped in his tracks. I asked him what was up and he said he thought he saw a bee fly into the foliage of a dandelion and he didn't want to run over it. 

Good job, CJ!

Without hesitation, Annabelle went over and brushed the leaves with her bare hands and out flew a bee. They repeated this process a few times. 

I love that they are such devoted protectors of the bees! 

You can see our hive in the the background of the photo below, behind Annabelle.

HEAD OF THE CLASS:  On Wednesday night, we headed to the Seattle Pacific University campus. The kids had been invited to speak to a class full of future teachers. The topic was inclusion and equity in education. They (and three other students) each talked about times they saw good and bad examples of each in school settings. 

IN APPRECIATION: Another big project we've had this week has involved appreciating faculty and staff at the kids' former learning center. Tuesday, we were in charge of hosting a luncheon for them. We were expecting a couple dozen guests, and had decided on a garden party theme.

We rolled some napkins into roses for the occasion.

And we baked three kinds of cupcakes (vegan, gluten free, and 'regular').

We hauled half of our house to the school on Tuesday morning. This was less than half of the pile. 
Would you believe we even brought all of our plates and silverware? I wanted to serve the lunch on real plates, with real silverware, instead of paper or plastic. Not only does it feel fancier, it's better for the environment.

We got to school at about 10, and hauled our carload of stuff into school to the room we were assigned to hold the event in. Once in the room, the first thing I wanted to do was set up the folding tables that are "always" stashed in a cupboard in that room. Except for that day. There wasn't a table to be seen! 

I come to find out someone had taken ALL of the tables out of that room. Hmm. How to do a sit-down lunch and a big salad bar with no tables? That wasn't going to happen. So we had to scrounge tables from elsewhere in the school, and that set us back about 40 minutes in our two hour set up time. Needless to say, things got a little hectic.

Once we had tables, we covered them in grass-print table cloths, and decorated them with huge floral arrangements (that another mom generously brought). We put out our rose napkins and also lined the middle of the tables with about 30 tomato, peppers and herb plants the kids and I had started from seeds weeks ago. The plants' pots all had little 'adopt me' signs stuck in them. 

We'd asked the community for donations for the salad bar, and boy did they deliver. It was amazing the amount and quality of the ingredients. Lots of lettuce, three kinds of meat, three cheeses, tomatoes, peas, mushrooms, olives, garbanzo beans, corn, croutons, sprouts, bacon bits, cottage cheese, potato salad and more. They all had a hearty lunch, and I even had take out containers so they could load up another meal for later. 

We even put together a 'Garden Party' playlist of music (songs about flowers, mostly). 

All in all, it was a nice event, if I do say so myself.

Clean up was kind of a bear, even with some great help. The kids and I and our dirty dishes managed to be back in our car by about 2:30. Of course, none of us had eaten any lunch, so we scrounged from a couple of leftover bags of stuff we had donated. 

Nothing like a fist full of bacon bits for lunch, right CJ?

Checking In

ON THE INSIDE: A couple of days ago, we opened the hive to take a peek. 

Boy, have our bees been busy!  Below is what the top of the racks looked like. The bees are even putting comb on top, and you could see some honey (right side of photo)!

 It's cool to see their new constructs.

And man, of man, there are so many more bees now than there were when we first picked up our hive! And many more are to come, based on the larva cells we could see. 

Spy the holes covered in gold below? That's capped brood (future bees - in metamorphosis stage between pupa and adult bee). 

They're so crowded in there, I don't see how they do their work! I certainly wouldn't enjoy such cramped working conditions.

Look at these four bees in the center of the photo below. It looks like some sort of teamwork, doesn't it? They're drawing new comb, which means they're building the actual honeycomb by exuding wax from their wax glands, chewing it up and then depositing it. 

 See the little button like formations below? Those are future drone bees. 

And note the bright yellow 'plug' in the comb below. That's pollen - the bee's pantry, if you will. 

CJ and Christian were the beekeepers for this visit. I questioned their clothing choice. Shorts seemed like a bad idea to me. ... 

And sure enough, bees started crawling all over Christian's legs. I admire his self control to not start freaking out, and I appreciate the fact the bees didn't sting him. They were just going about their business.

This coming weekend we'll take another peek. Can't wait to see the changes between now and then.

Magical

UNICORNY:  If you're a regular reader, you know we love Birthday Dreams. They're a local (to us) nonprofit that provides birthday parties (decorations, presents, cake and all) to homeless kids. 

We've baked a number of cakes for their cause over the past year.

This week, however, was about celebrating Birthday Dreams' birthday. They've been doing what they do for 10 years. They hosted a community celebration to mark the occasion. Christian and Annabelle were attending Bee's Ultimate (Frisbee) game and couldn't join in the fun, but CJ and I attended the party. 

There were a number of carnival games (darts at balloons, bean bag toss - that type of thing). There were also a number of "Minute to Win It" inspired games, including one where you had to try to make a cookie move from your forehead down to your mouth.

It's way harder than you'd think. CJ was super close, but didn't manage to make it. He did, however, eat the cookie anyway. :)

One of the other games he played was stacking as many pennies as possible with one hand in one minute. It's harder than you'd think it would be. 

Oh, and did I mention that Saturday was also May the Fourth/Star Wars day? So there were Star Wars characters and props at the party. 

Anyway, back to the cake. ;) CJ and Annabelle's unicorn efforts did not go unnoticed. They won first place in the youth category, and 'cutest' cake overall.

 Here's CJ going up to accept one of their awards.

All in all, a fun day, and a worthwhile endeavor. CJ and Annabelle learned a number of new techniques while completing this cake project. 

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FOR NOW: Busy, BUSY weekend and Monday. We're still alive and kicking, but this placeholder is going to have to do for now. It's a happy photo of CJ and Annabelle's unicorn cake for Birthday Dreams' 10th anniversary party.  

They worked so hard on this cake, and were rewarded by being awarded first place in the youth category, as well as 'cutest cake' across the pro, amateur and youth categories. 

There's so much more to this story, and our weekend, but I'm absolutely wiped out and tomorrow is a BIG day, so this will have to do for now. Apologies, and we'll be back soon! 

Work in Progress

SHORT SUMMARY: This post is going to be a short one. The kids are on a hard deadline for a big cake project for Birthday Dreams' 10th anniversary.

Birthday Dreams is a local nonprofit dedicated to bringing joy, hope and dignity to homeless children with the gift of a birthday party. They are celebrating a decade of awesome service this weekend, complete with a cake competition. The kids and I have donated a number of custom cakes to the organization over the past year-plus. CJ and Annabelle didn't want to pass up the opportunity to be involved in this big party. 

Basically, at this point, the entire house is lightly dusted in powdered sugar and our kitchen is coated in butter and batter.

 Body parts.

Can you guess what the cake is going to be?

Bees, Please

HIVE MINDED: Tuesday afternoon we headed to Queen Anne to complete our monthly "art installation." (It's a bulletin board with students' birthdays on them.)

Inspired by our thriving hive at home, we went with a bee theme. Annabelle used her Cricut machine to cut out dozens of hexagons, some of which had the names and dates written on them. We used a variety of decorative paper, either honey-toned or hexagon themed, or both. Annabelle also made a dozen cute little bees.

It took awhile to put up, because each hexagon had to be contemplated. Heaven forbid we put a bunch of the same colored hexagons right next to each other!

It's always fun installing the board, though. Kids (and many adults) coming by are excited to see what the new theme is each month. (By the way, I purposely blurred out names in the photo above.)

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE: Annabelle shared this video with me today, so I'm going to share it with you.

The 8-or-so minute lesson is about how perspective distortion works. It's interesting, and a lot to think about. I might have to watch it again to try to more fully 'get' it.

Dance and Dirt

RAISE THE BARRE: On Friday, midday, we headed into downtown Seattle to the historic Paramount Theatre to see a special learning lab and demonstration by the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

We've been there dozens of times before, but I still always marvel at its magnificence.

We sat very near the stage. The performance was amazing. I wish I had pictures to share, but we were instructed to turn our phones off before the show, and I respected that request. (A good number of others in the audience did not, however, and photoed and videoed large portions of the show. I thought that was really rude.)

The program we received for the show was very educational. It had the history of the dance troupe, info about ballet positions, and more. There was a crossword puzzle on the back. Unfortunately, it featured a number of typos. 

Here's what CJ had to say about the event. ... 

In late April of 2019, Seattle's Paramount Theatre hosted multiple shows for the Dance Theatre of Harlem's 50th Anniversary Celebration. My family went to one of the shows, which was presented from approximately 11 A.M. to 12 P.M. The Dance Theatre of Harlem is a ballet company that regularly tours, displaying ballet skills held by the company's members. According to the Dance Theatre of Harlem's website, "[t]he 17-member, multi-ethnic company performs a forward-thinking repertoire that includes treasured classics, neoclassical works by George Balanchine and resident choreographer Robert Garland, as well as innovative contemporary works that use the language of ballet to celebrate African American culture." The Dance Theatre of Harlem was founded in 1968 by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook.

The performance at the Paramount Theatre that we witnessed featured multiple different kinds of ballet, including "classical" or "old-school" ballet, as well as "modern" ballet. A prominent feature of the show were the "bars", metal bars which the ballet dancers used to perform various dance moves (no, not that kind of dancing with a metal bar). Notably, the Dance Theatre of Harlem is different from many other ballet companies in that they use ballet shoes that have different colors than the traditional pink color.

It took us awhile to find parking before the show, and we ended up having to hoof a few blocks to the theater. We paused a moment in Plymouth Pillars Park for a photo. I didn't realize until I was shooting it that there was someone sleeping next to one of the columns. That's Seattle (and a whole lot of other cities) these days. 

Curious about the pillars, I Googled the park and learned that the pillars were original to the  entrance for the historic Plymouth Congregational Church. Founded in 1869, the church is associated with the United Church of Christ.  The first Plymouth Congregational Church was built in 1873. 

After the Puget Sound earthquake in 1965, the church was damaged and, eventually, demolished. A new edifice was erected, but the original four pillars of the historic structure are now the centerpiece of the park at Boren and Pike. 

YARD WORK: We spent hours and hours doing yard work Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We were working to remove a large swath of grass and weeds on order to plant clover (for our bees) instead. Bees love clover for its pollen, plus it's very environmentally friendly, drought resistant, and you don't have to mow it hardly ever.

We've been tilling and raking and raking an tilling, and removed hundreds of rocks and weeds. It was a ton of work.  

Monday morning, after a little more raking and grading, we spread about three pounds of clover seeds. We sure hope the seed takes! 

Below is a random garden shot of a petite pink something or other.