Golden Weekend

Graphic courtesy Glenn Wright

IT'S A WRAP: For months, weeks and days we've been working on plans for my parents' 50th anniversary party, which was held on Saturday. One of the related projects was a 'flash mob' dance. In preparation, CJ and Annabelle picked some of their favorite moves from their "Just Dance" Wii games and we weaved them together to make a dance to go with David Bowie's song "Golden Years" for the occasion.

Getting the dance choreographed was only the beginning of the project, though. The next question was how in the world do we get people from Alaska to Albuquerque to California and the Carolinas to learn the dance before the party? Enter the magic of the Internet. We posted two videos to Vimeo, and sent people links to them.

The first video was a tutorial. It was a break down of each of the moves in the dance, with CJ and Annabelle taking turns demonstrating them.
golden years tutorial from Kristine Kisky on Vimeo.
The second video was a run through of the dance. One of the challenges for CeeJ and Bee was to literally learn the dance forward and backward - because in the videos they had to perform them in opposite, so that they functioned like mirrors for the folks dancing at home.

In the end, all the work was worth it. There was amazing, widespread participation and people really knew the dance! My parents were completely surprised and overwhelmed by it, and when the dance was done, the crowd erupted into a spontaneous cheer for what we'd all pulled off. I never dreamed we would have such widespread participation by people of ALL ages. Yay everyone!
Golden Years Run Through from Kristine Kisky on Vimeo.
It was pretty funny, at the party, so many people Annabelle and CJ had never met before already knew their names/who they were from practicing "with" them ahead of time.   

Naturally, the party also involved a few cookies and a little cake. Thursday was Operation Cookie Day for us. The cookies we made told a story - each representing somewhere my parents lived during their 50 years of marriage.  We started with Space Needles, since they met and married in Seattle. Next, they moved to Las Vegas, so I made the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. (Those were my favorite.) After that, they moved to Portland, the City of Roses, so we made some rose cookies. Then they moved to Vancouver, WA, so we made little state of Washington cookies, putting a little heart down in the southwest corner, where Vancouver is. We also had to make some cookies to represent Pennsylvania, where they lived for a couple of years in the early 1990s. I made a Pittsburgh Pirates' "P," as the Pirates won their division both years my parents were there.

Friday was Cake Day. I made four batches (for four big layers) of chocolate cake, and raspberry filling for that. The next cake required two big batches of banana cake (oh SO good!) with a cheesecake and cinnamon filling bro in law Jim helped me come up with. The top layer was good ol' white cake with a blackberry filling - fantastic! Renee and I spent hours and hours and hours covering the cake in fondant and then decorating it with retro/atomic shapes in two shades of purple, two shades of teal and gold. It was topped with Elvis in a classic car atop a gold record. And I don't have a SINGLE PHOTO OF THE ENTIRE CAKE AT ALL if you can believe that. I feel like such a loser for that fact. Hopefully someone at the party got a shot of it.

I do have this shot of my parents cutting into it from the side, though ... At that point, cake topper Elvis had already left the building, so to speak. ;)

SUNDAY SOCCER: We pulled out of my parents' house early Sunday morning, destination Seattle. It would have been nice to maybe sleep in a bit, but we had a date to keep! Christian's niece was playing soccer in Seattle at 1 p.m. and we didn't want to miss that. 

We arrived home at 12:30 and by 12:45 we were pulling back out of our driveway, destination Capitol Hill where Portland State University would be taking on the Redhawks of Seattle University.

We got to see Torie play the whole second half, and the kids were especially excited when she had a corner kick right by us!

CALLING ALL FIFTH (& UP) GRADERS: CJ and Annabelle are just a bit too young to enter, but plenty of 10 and 11 year olds out there might be interested to know about the 2012 Cassini Scientist for a Day contest. It's an essay contest (just 500 words), and entrants have to write about one of three potential targets to be studied, and write a persuasive essay describing the scientific merits of their choice.

Gone Missing

ALL APOLOGIES: It's been DAYS since I've posted and I have a whole litany of excuses. They are as follows. ...

First, we left town midday on Wednesday to head south to Vancouver, where we're hosting my parents' 50th anniversary party Saturday afternoon.

Upon arriving in Vancouver, it has been a whirlwind of workworkworkworkwork. Thursday and Friday I was baking by 6:30 a.m. and wrapped up about 15 hours later. I'm wiped.

Whilst I've been preoccupied with marshmallows and powdered sugar (So. Much. Fondant), the kids have managed to keep themselves entertained and amused and they've had a few short field trips (three parks and the newish Vancouver Public Library).

Tomorrow is party day and after that I will collapse. And then revive and upon the return to 'normal' we'll be back to the blog in full force, with photos and everything!!!

Happy weekend to y'all!

Reach for the Stars

PARK IT: Yesterday, while I was out running errands, Christian took the kids to the park. Because of the long, drawn out construction project here, we haven't spent nearly as much time at parks as we need to/should be. Sigh. 

LIVE, FROM MARS: This afternoon, the kids and I tuned into NASA TV, which isn't exactly unusual, but what we were watching was a first in our solar system's history. We listened to a song being broadcast for the first time from the surface of Mars. Pretty cool.

The tune, by will.i.am, was called "Reach for the Stars."  will.i.am. is a HUGE advocate of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and math) education, and he puts lots of time and money into promoting it and inspiring students. "Today is about inspiring young people to lead a life without limits placed on their potential and to pursue collaboration between humanity and technology through STEAM education.  I know my purpose is to inspire young people, because they will keep inspiring me back," will.i.am said this afternoon.

IMAGE: NASA/JPL

In addition to debuting the song, the hour-long program was full of good news and inspiration. Astronaut Leland Melvin talked about how he overcame barriers and naysayers to become an astronaut, and Adam Steltzner, head of  Curiosity's sky crane team, talked about his circuitous route to his current job. And it was announced that will.i.am's i.am.angel Foundation and Discovery Education are teaming up to bring a groundbreaking youth engagement initiative to bring STEAM education to millions of students nationwide. The new program is called  i.am.STEAM and it's designed to inspire and cultivate the next generation of problem-solvers and innovators. 
Today will.i.am urged students in attendance not to just find a job, but to make their own jobs - to be developers. 

Follow this link and you can see some of will.i.am's remarks, and the song's debut: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1131


IN BRIEF: This one's going to be short. I've been awake since four a.m. making lists and lists and lists in my head. And we had an early trip to Kent this morning, tagging along with Rick to yet another job interview - and the happy news is he was offered the job, hooray! The rest of the day was hunting and gathering and stacking and sorting stuff for my parents' 50th anniversary party on Saturday. Won't be long now. Tomorrow we'll be hitting the road to head south to continue party prep down there. 

One Giant Loss for Mankind

SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED: Saturday afternoon we were (passively) watching the U.S. championships of the Little League World Series. Christian was in the addition hanging dry wall and when Tennessee seemed to have California creamed, I decided to run over to Fred Meyer for who knows what. Anyway, as I'm crossing the Ballard Bridge, I got a text message from Christian. It read, "Neil Armstrong has died."

Gulp.

Apparently CJ has been watching the LLWS broadcast when they broke in to announce Armstrong's passing. And because he knows all about the Apollo program and the moon landing, he knew that the flash notice was a bad thing. Apparently he went to find Christian and reported, "Something terrible has happened," and said that Neil Armstrong had died.

Because of how I found out about Armstrong's passing, I do believe I will forever think of Neil Armstrong each and every time I cross that bridge. He was - and is - a true American hero.

I think the world 'hero' is over used. I'm a bigger sports fan than most, for sure, and there are phenomenal sports stars, but unless they're carrying someone from a burning building, I don't think I'd call any of them a hero.

But if you want to know what a hero looks like, check THIS out.  It's a video of Armstrong test driving the lunar landing module. Before it crashes into a fiery inferno, watch, for him to eject at about 10 o'clock.


You might have to watch it a couple of times before you pick up his ejection. It's amazing that he's alive, let alone that he was humankind's first moon walker.

TUNE IN: Tomorrow, history will be made. In the history of music here on Earth, countless singles have been released. But never in the history of mankind has a song has its debut broadcast from Mars to our Big Blue Marble.

That's what's going to happen when will.i.am's single "Reach for the Stars" comes out Tuesday at 1 p.m. Pac Coast time. The event will be broadcast here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

I was fortunate enough  to get to meet will.i.am at the Curiosity TweetUp last November when Curiosity launched, and he talked about the single then. Can't wait to finally hear it!

Orion and Pluto

SCENTSATIONAL: Every time we drive through Sodo (the stadium district, south of downtown), we roll down our windows on Fourth Ave S. at Lander in hopes of catching a whiff from the Franz factory. 

This morning, on our way back from Kent (yes, there again!), we drove by Franz and the kids knew the drill. 

"Can you smell it?! Can you smell it?"! Annabelle urgently asked CJ as they powered their windows down.

Fortunately, the ovens were on, and we got a great big whiff. Mmmm ...

As we sat at a red light next to it today, we noticed a sign in the building's window that said he production of bread at the Sodo factory in one week would span 17 miles if the loaves were placed end-to-end. That's a lot of bread.

I've heard that Franz gives bakery tours. I'd definitely like to check that out some time. 

PLOP PLOP!: Today, water impact testing continued on the Orion capsule. An 18,000-pound (8,165 kilogram) test version of the spacecraft was dropped in a pool at NASA's Langley Research Center this morning.

                                                                           Image Credit: NASA 

Last summer, we watched Orion's swing drop testing at the Hydro Impact Basin. During those tests, the capsule slid down into the water in a lateral  motion.  In these latest tests, Orion is being dropped vertically into the pool for the first time.

The capsule needs to pass the tests as Orion and the (heavy launch) Space Launch System are NASA ticket back to manned spaceflight. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit and enable exploration across the solar system.

Here's a short video of today's test. 


In other space-y news, for the last couple of nights we've enjoyed watching nice long bright fly-overs of the ISS. 

BALANCING ACT: We took another field trip to Kent this a.m., tagging along with Rick on yet another job interview. While he got grilled, we shopped at a WinCo!!! We used to shop at a WinCo all the time in Vancouver, and I miss WinCo desperately. (Well, really, mostly I miss WinCo's prices.) So my heart sang when we spied the Winco sign near our destination. We shopped for 45 minutes and $125 worth. Then, to kill the time while waiting for Rick, we amused ourselves in the parking lot, having balancing competitions, finding pennies and so on. Good times.

SAD ANNIVERSARY: Today is the fifth anniversary of Pluto's "Dwarf Planet" reclassification.  As Neil deGrasse Tyson Tweeted today, "May the little fella RIP (Revolve in Peace)." 

My reaction surrounding this reclassification tragedy was captured nicely on this TeeFury design: 

STUFFED: Once again this year I headed up the ticket orders and distribution for the Puyallup Fair's educational ticket program for the Seattle Homeschool Group. Mercifully, the (free!) Puyallup Fair tickets arrived today, so this evening we stuffed order envelopes as we bounced back and forth between watching the Mariners (lose) and the Seahawks (win).

It's very generous of the fair to donate these tickets, and we send them a thank you note every year. 

I sure am glad to have this commitment/project over with. Now I can concentrate on my parents' 50th anniversary party.

Morning Report

MONOPOLY: Apologies for not getting around to publishing last night. I hope you were able to sleep without an update as to our daily grind, ha ha.

Truth of the matter is, all our our MPA computers were monopolized. We're down a computer now, and CJ and Annabelle were in the middle of something Very Important on two of the PCs, while Rick was using a third to prep for a couple more interviews tomorrow. And frankly, after they all finally abandoned post, I was too wiped out to post.

Until next time ...

Garden Harvest

BOUNTIFUL: We continue to pluck things off plants 'round her. Today's harvest = a couple of squash (I forget what kind, but Christian says they're cucurbita pepo, or 'grey zucchini.' Now I have to figure out what to do with them. They don't look grey to me. And I think this is going to be the extent of our broccoli, so we better savor it. 

Meanwhile, the corn and tomatoes continue to grow. Here's hoping there's enough summer left for them to be seen through to fruition. 

ON THE MOVE: Big news from the Red Planet. The Mars Science Laboratory is on the move! For the first time since touching down Aug. 5, Curiosity has put its wheels in motion and did some motoring around. 

It was announced today that NASA approved the Curiosity science team's choice to name MSL's touch down site Bradbury Landing, in honor of the  the late author Ray Bradbury. He would have been 92 years old today.

Making its first movement on the Martian surface, Curiosity's drive combined forward, turn and reverse segments. After the test drive, it was roughly 20 feet (6 meters) from the spot where it landed 16 days ago. Here is a post-run photo, taken by a front Hazard-Avoidance camera, which has a fisheye lens. 

Image:  NASA/JPL-Caltech 

THE GREAT OUTDOORS: Yesterday, we accompanied Rick on his rounds to a couple schools to the south where he had job interviews. While he got grilled, we played in neighboring parks. 

Look at how much fun we had! Here, Annabelle lies in the grass moaning, after falling off a(na actually really neat-o) spinning piece of equipment and bruising her tailbone.

And here, CJ looks like he's miserable and in the pokey. He's actually on a play structure, promise.

Though the pictures don't prove it, we did have lots of fun and got some good exercise.