Learning Everywhere

TABLETOP FUN: Everywhere we go, we have a big art supplies bag along for the ride. It comes in handy, as Annabelle is always ready to get crafty. In just a few minutes, she churned out a half dozen adorable bookmarks yesterday afternoon. 

We also often have games or science-y magazines in the car. Yesterday, while enjoying ice cream, beverages and the Olympics at a local business, we checked out a recent garage sale find: "The Crazy Scientist 20 Amazing Science Tricks."  It's a set of cards with instructions for science experiments. The metal box the deck comes in says the 'tricks' are for ages 6 to 99 by the box's label. (Sorry, centenarians, you're out of luck, I guess. )

The kids tried out a "Blooming flowers' activity. It's pretty simply, you draw a flower on paper, cut the flower out, fold the petals, and place the paper in water. The petals slowly open up to reveal whatever it was you wrote or drew on your flower. 

 Our blooming flower touts a scientific message!  

The card explained that the reason the flower 'blooms' is because paper is made of wood, and "one of the tree's abilities is to absorb water from the ground and push it up to the top of the tree," and that paper inherits this wicking ability. 

GIMME A BRAKE: This weekend, we made time for some automotive repair and maintenance. That included new shoes (brake shoes, that is), for the Fit.

 I made sure the kids watched at least part of the process. I think it's important to know how something you use every day works. The process prompted a number of good conversations about physics. Teachable moments abound!

Show Time

LIVING LEGEND: Most of our daylight hours on Saturday were dedicated to celebrating the career of Ken Griffey Junior. The top vote-getter ever for Major League Baseball's storied Hall of Fame, Junior is certainly the player of his generation, and arguably the best ever. 

Saturday evening the Mariners were retiring Griffey's jersey. Gametime was 6:10, the ceremony was at 5:30 p.m. 

Hoping to get the super special gameday giveaway (for the first 20,000 fans), a replica of Griffey's Hall of Fame plaque. We were going to head to the stadium at around 1:30 p.m.  By 11 a.m. I was getting antsy and rallied the troops to head there earlier. We were on a bus a few minutes after noon.

And then the wait began on the concrete sidewalk outside the Center Field entrance. ... 

The gates opened at 3:40 p.m. We happily got our plaques and then relaxed until ceremony time. While waiting, we watched the field be prepared.

 Come 5:30, the first out onto the infield were the front office folks.

After Griffey's family was seated, "The Kid" made his way to his seat. He had to come from centerfield, of course. Junior owns centerfield in Seattle. :)

 He was greeted by the evening's emcee, Mariners' announcer Rick Rizzs. 

After Junior took his seat, a number of special guests were announced. None were more special to him than his best friend, former Mariners teammate Jay Buhner. 

 Below, the BFFs hug it out. 

Who would fill the other seats? The Mariners organization had some surprises in store. For instance, how about Seattle sports legends like National Football League Hall of Famers Steve Largent and Cortez Kennedy?

Not to be forgotten were Seattle Super Sonics (RIP) superstars Spencer Haywood and Gary Payton. 

And other Hall of Famers who wore #24 were there for the festivities, including Ken Griffey Sr.'s former teammate Tony Perez, and good ol' Rickey Henderson. He was so much fun to watch playing the game!

 Junior and Rickey share a moment, below.

Everyone took a look at the big screen to see special messages from a few VIPs. One was from the amazing Willie Mays, another #24 for the ages. Mays said he'd tried to call Junior on the day of Griffey's HoF induction and encouraged Jr. to "pick up the phone, cal me.

 Junior didn't waste any time and did just that!

Eventually, it was time for Griffey's speech. 

 It was touching and heartfelt, and the crowd hung on to his every word.

Afterward, the current Mariners players joined Griffey on the field. 

 Their caps were backward, an homage to Junior's famous look.

Once the game finally started, the Angels' Mike Trout took his place in centerfield. Perhaps someday he'll be a first ballot Hall of Famer. 

Before the game, we made sure to take the time to stop by the Dave Niehaus statue in right center. Dave loved Junior so much, and would have been so proud of him and his Hall of Fame induction and jersey retirement. 

 We also had time to hang out at our favorite 'secret' table tucked away in an odd spot in the outfield.

Here are the front and back of the coveted boxes we got on Saturday. 

 Look at that beautiful plastic! :) 

Here are CJ's thoughts on the day ... 

For more than 20 years, Ken Griffey Junior has been an iconic player for the Seattle Mariners. This year, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. According to Wikipedia, on January 6, 2016, Ken Griffey Junior was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 99.32 percent of the vote, breaking the record previously held by Tom Seaver's 98.84 percent in 1992. A flag bearing Griffey's number 24 was flown from the Space Needle following the announcement. On July 24, Ken was officially inducted into the Hall of fame, and we watched in in our house.

The Mariners game of August 6, which we visited, was preceded by the formal ceremony for the retirement of Ken's jersey number, 24. In one particular section of the stadium, there was a large sign labeled "ROBINSON 42", because the Mariners retired Jackie Robinson's number, 42, along with every other team in MLB. Next to that sign, there was a large veil, which, while I noticed, I didn't think much of right then. During the ceremony, Other people in the world of sports with the number 24 appeared on the giant MarinersVision screen, congratulating Griffey on his success. Near the end of the ceremony, the large veil was pulled back, revealing the new sign, "GRIFFEY 24", next to the "ROBINSON 42" sign. The GRIFFEY 24 sign is here to stay, and it looks nice next to the ROBINSON 42 sign.

Ken Griffey Jr.’s number retirement ceremony at Safeco Field was a huge moment in Mariners' history. From this day forth, no Mariner other than Ken Griffey Jr. will wear the number 42. The ceremony started with his family coming onto the field and taking seats. Then they introduced other Mariners Hall of Famers and other sports legends who wore the number 24. Other friends of Griffey who couldn’t make it to the stadium greeted him via the big screen. It was very sweet and they even revealed a sign with Griffey’s number over the ‘Pen, to sit beside Jackie Robinson’s number plate. They also gave him a Bronze Glove because he was as great of a defensive player as he was an offensive player. I thought it was wonderful and worth waiting in line. And to top it off, the Mariners won!

     Gary Payton, a.k.a. "The Glove" presents Griffey with a bronze glove. 

FESTIVAL FUN:  Sunday afternoon, we headed to 'town,' also known as "the Village." It's Magnolia proper, the (rather tiny, few blocks/almost all single story business district.

This weekend, the area was part of Seattle's city-wide party, Seafair. Magnolia's version had lots of artisan booths, a number of food trucks, some carnival-type attractions and lots of live music. A couple weeks back, I signed CJ and Annabelle up for the youth talent show. Fortunately, they were OK with that. 

Following, CJ tells us a bit more about Summerfest. ...

For over 60 years, the Magnolia Chamber of Commerce has presented the Magnolia Summerfest. The Magnolia Summerfest is an annual event in the neighborhood of Magnolia where you can go and eat, drink, listen to any band that might be playing there, buy affordable merchandise from the stands, and everything except for that last part.

We arrived at about 1:30 P.M, (Sunday) and we listened to the band that was playing there. At one point, my family decided to look around the numerous stands present at the the event. Some of them were nice, like a station with stenciled vinyl records themed around pop culture, and another with a delicious caramel sauce. 

One special (for us) event at the Summerfest was the youth talent show, where kids would showcase their talent on stage, such as playing the keyboard, guitar, carefully swinging poi-balls around, and even a three-man unicycle act!

My sister and I participated in the talent show, and for our performance, using our acoustic guitars, we played "If I Had $1,000,000" by the Barenaked Ladies. Although the audience seemed to like the song after our performance, I was disappointed with the guitar microphones.

CJ's disappointment was soothed greatly by the fact he and Annabelle won $40 for their performance, placing as the top music act at the show. Nice!

Annabelle had this to say. 

The Magnolia Summer Fest youth talent show was a part of the Magnolia Summer Fest in the Magnolia village. It was comprised of 17 acts and we were the second to last to perform. The talent show included many musical acts and a lot of dancing. By far, my favorite act was the unicycle troupe that was the last act, out on the street. Some of the acts were really great and I thoroughly enjoyed watching and participating in the talent show!  

Here's video of their performance. You'll see what CJ meant by the technical difficulties with the guitar mics. Oh well, they powered through!  

Angel Waiting

BLUE WATCH:  We finished chores early today in order to head up to the roofdeck and watch for the the Blue Angels, the United States Navy's premier flying team to scream into the skies over Seattle. They come nearly every year about this time, to help the city celebrate Seafair.

A little after 1:30, they appeared in the skies to the east, beyond Queen Anne Hill, pictured below.

 Though we didn't exactly have front row 'seats,' we still enjoyed the show.

 It's not every day you see planes shooting straight up in the air ... and then plummeting seemingly straight downward.

 We especially enjoyed their patterns producing contrails we could follow.

 A couple of times they flew close enough for us to see the planes' distinctive blue and yellow paint job. 

 This formation where they fanned out as they shot down from the sky was super cool!

SPECIAL GUEST: A couple of days this week, we had a four legged visitor on campus. 

The sweet young guy is about 10 weeks old, a Doberman puppy.

He has enjoyed playing 'pecking order' with our two dogs. For the first could of days, Kirby was definitely ruling the roost, while poor little Laika's lot in life is the bottom dweller. Today, the young Dobie seemed to realize he'd already grown a couple of inches since the first time he met them and he took full advantage. Pretzel is now vying for the Top Dog spot. 

Little do Kirby and Laika realize, this 'little' guy is going to be about eight times bigger than them!

Party Time

BLOCK HEADS: Last night was the annual "Night Out" event in the city of Seattle. Neighborhoods are encouraged to register their event and get a permit to close their street and have a good ol' fashioned block party.

Because we have a flat front yard in the middle of the block, our place has been Ground Zero for our neighborhood party for many years running now. That being the case, there's a fair amount of ground work to lay in preparation. (Think tables and chairs and coolers and cutlery and a fire pit and a ping pong table and ... you name it to haul to the top of our lot.)

We also make some food to share, of course. Last night, we made an enormous crockpot full of Sloppy Joe filling. I don't think I'd had a Sloppy Joe since the Lake Shore Elementary School cafeteria in the 1970s. We saw a recipe featured on "Dine Ins, Drive-Ins and Dives" recently, and gave it a go. I must say, it was tasty, and well-received by the crowd.

We also made a few dozen bite-sized spanakopita. Mmm, always so good.

Watermelon is always in order for a summer party. We turned to Pinterest for inspiration. That's where we found the watermelon shark idea, pictured above. But, when you picture it, will you please also picture the gummy fish I forgot to add to the water and the shark's mouth before taking the photo?!

We followed instructions from a website called Sun Scholars. It was a quick and easy project. The blue Jell-O Jigglers around the bottom were lots of fun. I was surprised how many people at the party had never seen Jigglers before. 

We also made a watermelon 'keg.' 

We hollowed out a watermelon, took the innards and juiced them in a food processor, strained that and then added it to pink lemonade. We put a sun tea container's spigot in the watermelon and poured the punch in and I'll be darned if it didn't work! So cute!

Of course, we also had to make some cookies. 

I was trying to think of a theme that was current and one we hadn't done before. The viral game Pokemon GO seemed the obvious choice.

 Let me tell you, it was not the *easy* choice, that's for sure!

Don't think I'll be making any of those again any time soon!

Happy Trails

PRESS SPACEBAR TO CONTINUE:  It was a busy weekend 'round MPA. Lots of campus beautification (a/k/a yard work), we watched multiple ISS flyovers, worked on modding an old NES console to turn it into a high definition output device (until we found out the kit we ordered was missing parts, sigh), and our family put out what was almost certainly an arson fire on Capitol Hill on Sunday afternoon. No biggie ... 

We also managed to fit in some time to play a brand new old game - "The Oregon Trail." You almost certainly have to have heard of the computer game of the same name. A computer game originally developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger It's been around since 1971. The game was designed to teach students about the harsh realities of pioneer life back in the early 19th century. I'm here to tell you, those lessons live on.

Yesterday morning I read that Target was exclusively offering a board game version of the classic and I immediately hopped on Target.com to try to hunt down a copy. 

We had to drive all the way down to Renton to get our copy, but at least we were able to get some good Pokemon GO play in along the way.

Sunday afternoon, we cracked the box open and took on The Oregon Trail.

It started out so well. ... We were excited to strike out from Independence, Mo., for the fertile Willamette Valley We did well for a few hundred miles, then things started to go sideways. 

Broken axles, broken arms, measles, oxen dropping like flies. I was the first to go. 

Dysentery, of course. It got CJ ("Ezekial Zanderfruit"), too, and poor Bee ("Dolly") died of a snake bite somewhere east of the Cascades. Christian ("Clem") was the last pioneer in our party standing until he succumbed to cholera and typhoid. 

The brand new card game is every bit as brutal as the old computer game. And every bit as fun. 

We gave the game another go today. I think we all perished even more quickly than yesterday, despite it being our second time on the Trail. 

CJ ("Rufus") was out first. He failed to ford a river. 

I was second to exit. Snakebit. At least the end came quickly.

Annabelle ("Dorothy" or "Dot") was a victim of that darn dysentery.

Once again, Christian ("Festus")was the sole survivor, and once again, he was overwhelmed by going it alone.  Typhoid got him quicker than it did yesterday.

Bummer, Festus.

But once again, dying has never been more fun. 

We were playing the game out in public and people flock to its sight like moths to a light. So many have such fond Oregon Trail memories, it seems. It's definitely our new favorite old game. :)