Lego Club Adventures

I'm skipping over a lot of pictures, just trying to get started blogging again. I'll come back to them when I can... fun Valentines and school pictures for both Cole and Audrey.

Today Cole and I drove down to Seattle for another Lego Club meeting. We made a grand day of it.

Lego Club meeting.
Exploring Bellevue Square, so many beautiful things for the beautiful people.
Whole Foods for lunch and some Bluegrass.
Pacific Science Center
Facing Mars Exhibit
Roving Mars IMAX film
Dick's Drive-In for dinner

phew!

We started the day at 6 AM after Cole stayed up past 10 PM the night before (not good). He was in good spirits for the drive though - no sisters to argue with. We arrived with time to spare so Cole could change out of his pj's thank goodness.

Cole was the smallest builder at the event.


They got their t-shirts and listened to their building assignment.




They were to build Max's clubhouse. This was a nice change. They were to work cooperatively in groups of 3 and were specifically told they should avoid conflict based themes. They were asked to imagine what sort of "clubhouse" they would like - children imagined a treehouse, a clubhouse that flew like a plane, an underwater clubhouse, etc. Everyone received a rectangular building plate and split up into groups to work.

Cole and his lego pals decided to build a three story clubhouse. They worked independently on their level of the clubhouse and then, with a little input from the LEGO facilitator, put the levels together.





Max's clubhouse from the front.


From another angle.


Cole with one of his building pals.


I'd say this was the most successful building event he's participated in. He's not a master LEGO builder, he likes the stories and the people. My hope is that he'll be more spatially capable than I am. I still remember the humiliation of failing miserably on the spatial part of the SAT. I think that is part of my push for puzzles and building toys.

As a fun surprise all the kids got a Max mini-figure along with the bag-o-miscellaneous-lego.


Whoa-nelly. Such excitement. Then on to find something sister might like since she didn't get to come along on our adventure. Hello Kitty. Does she love it, do you have to ask?



We lucked out at Whole Foods. While eating our convenient pseudo take out lunch we were serenaded by Dysfunction Junction, a Seattle bluegrass band. Say what you will about Whole Foods, I'm likely to agree, but I love that store.

Next off to the Science Center for the Mars exhibit. We didn't see everything I'd like since it was so crowded. There was a totally cool stop motion film making kiosk that we got to play with for a bit.



We also viewed Roving Mars and this was a spectacular film.

Finally, a match of tic-tac-toe with the resident robot.




I never knew but it seems this robot cheats. We saw it happen while waiting for Cole's turn. The robot didn't set the piece down where it had been instructed, resulting in a loss for the player!

After a long day we headed north, stopping at an old haunt for a deluxe and fry. It's a tradition!

vote

I've been toying around with switching to a new blog platform.

Check out a post from last month here.

Alex says he likes blogger, I think I might like wordpress better. What do you think? Assuming there is anyone still out there since I only post every month or so.

Look at me, I'm Dad.

Alex is back on night shift and we're back to our weekly routine. When on nights, Alex gets home between 8:30 and 10:30 AM, sleeps with ear plugs in until 5 PM, and leaves the house about 45 minutes later. The up-side for us is that the kids see him during his work week. They rarely see him when he works days since he leaves so early and doesn't get home until after they're in bed.

Cole swiped Alex's clothes while he was in the shower yesterday and announced that he was Dad.



I finally got the tree down tonight. Phew. I wish I could have hired someone to come over on the 26th to pack it up, put it away, and clean the house while they were at it. I learned that what you get when you stuff a 12 ft. tree out the door is enough pine needles for a small woodland creature to make a nest and some major scuffs on the walls. The living room looks so sad ...



What would be the coolest DK Visual Dictionary ever? LEGO Star Wars, of course. We picked up our copy today from the only bookstore either online or off that said they could get their hands on a copy: Barnes and Noble. The major flaw of the book from a five year old perspective is that so many of the sets have been retired.



On the LEGO front we've had an exciting start to the year. First, the much anticipated Titanium Command Rig is almost built though our resident wrecker has caused some backsliding. Grandpa and Tutu sent Christmas money for the kids - Christina is getting a gift certificate to Boundary Bay, Cole and Audrey are sharing a Toy Story LEGO set. The theme appeals to both. Audrey loves the characters and Cole does too in addition to having fun building the set. AND ... Cole gets to go to another LEGO club meeting at the Bellevue store. I'm just crazy enough to drive down there to sign him up and Aunt Gabe and Taj will host us on Friday night. It's Legopalooza. And now I'm so done until birthdays.

No girls allowed!

Cole made this sign a couple weeks back and hung it on his door. I think it's really cute and very little boy-ish. The translation is "No girls allowed, but yes women". He wanted to keep Audrey out of his room that evening, although they really enjoy playing with each other. When Heather explained that she and Grammy wouldn't be able to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight, he added the "but yes wimin" part.

Besides being classic "no girls allowed", I really like his phonetic spelling, since it shows that he's figuring out the spelling of a word by sounding it out. I don't recall if I was doing this at his age, but I kind of doubt it.

No grls alad, but yes wimin!

Professional Aspirations

After a full day of adventure at our old Seattle haunts; Mountlake Terrace Pool, Dick's Drive-In, Great Harvest, U-Village, Cole mused about what he wanted to "be" when he grew up. He wants to live in Tokyo and will be a Doctor and a Ninja. Or maybe a Ninja Doctor. Audrey would like to be, in her words, a kitty cat - meow.

Dad's commute to work

Since we're on the subject (see Heather's post below), I have to brag up the drive I take to work. In the darkest depths of Winter it's mostly done at night (except when coming home from night shift), but now that the solstice has passed, things will be getting better for the next six months! Probably my all time favorite commute was when I worked on Cocos Island in Guam.

We'd take a launch from Merizo at the South end of the island of Guam.

The boat would cross Cocos Lagoon...

...the view from sea level...

...and end up at Cocos Island....

Doing it in style was the route a couple of colleagues of mine managed. They rented a waterfront house in Merizo (a working stiff could afford to do that back in the day) and rode their windsurfers to work!

The boat that the employees took at the time was a small, open aluminum skiff, but I think that brought you a little closer to the elements and made the ride more gratifying. It was especially moving at night; the stars hung in the sky over you like an inverted bowl of cosmic proportions as if the surface you were perched on was the top of a ball and the sky above draped down to below the horizontal. Off on the horizon thunderheads would illuminate periodically from lightning flashes within them.

Absolutely surreal.

Perhaps it's the temperate winter or just plain nostalgia, but I really miss the place now.

Coming back to the subject at hand, the commute from Bellingham to the Keystone ferry terminal is one of the more scenic drives you can take.

I'm not the only one who thinks so, apparently.

Here's a few pix I've grabbed on the rare days when I had the foresight to bring a camera.

I like old barns. This is one of my favorites. It has "Summer in the Northwest" written all over it.





The Lucky Dumpster, my all time favorite name for a thrift shop, in the town of Edison Station (known locally as simply "Edison").





This picture conveys to me the sense of crossing the threshold, from land to sea. I look at this one and see the Olympics fading off into the distance on the left and in the center of the image, the water connects to the sky without any interruption. I get the same feeling from looking at this that I used to get when the ship I was on was leaving the last coastal port and starting off on the crossing.

Visiting Dad at Work

Sadly, Alex worked on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year. The kids and I visited him though and were treated to one of those incredible NW winter days when it's sunny, clear, and breathtaking on the water.

We visited the "Animal Zoo" on the drive up Whidbey Island. An odd shop off the road at Greenbank with an outdoor display of large fiberglass wildlife. The kids were delighted to visit and pose with the animals.












Alex works the Steilacoom 2 these days on the Pt. Townsend-Keystone run.


It's hard to convince Cole not to make a "silly face" for the camera.


We got to see the view from the pilothouse.


Admiralty Inlet.


We also toured the engine room (hearing protection required!).
It's hot and loud down there.


A little engine room holiday cheer.


Some beach time.




And one serious picture each - no eyes rolling or tongues wagging.




My favorite part of the day was watching an owl hunt on Crockett Lake. I think it was a short eared owl. My lens wasn't powerful enough to capture it but through the power of the internet ...