Cub Scout Coasties

Saturday we went with the Cub Scouts to visit the Coast Guard.  One of the Dads is a civilian Coast Guard employee otherwise I'm not sure how you get on base.  Our first stop was the air station near SFO where the search and rescue helicopters are stationed.  This air station has been here since 1941 and SFO, the huge airport grew up around it.  We had a great tour led by a lieutenant who co-pilots helicopters and the crew chief.

 

 

Buddy Boy was able to answer questions about how the helicopter worked.  I'm not sure where he learned that.  Mythbusters? Ruff Ruffman?  I don't remember ever talking about drag or vertical and horizontal stabilizers.

They certainly have a great view.

The kids had a lot of fun climbing in and around the helicopter and rescue basket.

 

Our next stop was the Coast Guard station on Yerba Buena Island.  You get there by taking an exit off the middle of the Bay Bridge between SF and Oakland.  The station has a great view of the Bay Bridge construction.  I'm glad we were there on a weekend.  It would be pretty noisy during construction.  I saw ear plug dispensers by the doors of one of the buildings.

 

We got to go aboard the Coast Guard cutter Pike.  It is an 87 foot cutter used to patrol the Bay.  The Captain and officer of the day were there to show us around.

Here's My Girl sitting watch. The kids were especially interested in seeing the "bedrooms" and the kitchen galley.  They loved the fact that there was a TV with video games in the mess area.

Luckily we were there in November instead of the summer so that we could get a warm sunny day.  The weather is just crazy that way. 

This island really has some great views of the city and the bridges of the bay.

SF and the Golden Gate bridge

 

SF and the Bay bridge

 

Overall, a really great day.

Indy and the Dolphin

 

The costumes...  Buddy Boy was pretty definite and unwavering when it came to what he wanted to be for Halloween, Indiana Jones.  We looked for leather jackets on e-bay, but didn't find anything for a reasonable price.  So I made one.  It isn't leather, but it is a pretty good polyester that I found in the upholstery section.  I found a pattern that worked, but it wasn't quite the right size so I had to completely rework the pattern.  I wasn't sure that it would work.  I was afraid that it would be too small, but it ended up a little big.  Oh well.  It's great for a costume.

 

Here is my indecisive little dolphin.  She wanted to be a dolphin or a mermaid so I started by making a reversible dolphin/mermaid tail.  I wanted to reduce the chance of last minute meltdowns.  The tail is basically a skirt with a big fin hanging off the front.  The flukes have some super stiff Pelon to hold their shape.  My original idea was that the fin would go in back, but she had other ideas.

 



The back fin is pinned to a shirt we already had.

 

Here's the fabric for the mermaid look.  I love the shiny green scales.

 

 

And the whole thing.  Wouldn't you know, she never wore it out of the house.  I would have taken a picture of my little mermaid, but I couldn't get her in to the costume again.

 

On Halloween there were multiple costume parades.  Indy looked great.  He loved having a whip and holster as well as the all important over the shoulder bag.  I made the whip by braiding some very long strips of the jacket fabric.  Thank you YouTube for the demo on braiding a four strand round braid.  He loved being Indy.  It was fun for me to see him get a lot of positive feedback on his costume.

 

At Buddy Boy's school the teachers all dressed as Waldo.  It was funny to see them all together.

 

 

 

At preschool the kids trick-or-treated through the office then met all of the parents and all of their cameras to sing a few songs.  They really outdo themselves with the Halloween carols.

 

My Girl's best friend ever that she has known for her whole life was dressed as Izzy the pirate.  That caused a few problems that night when My Girl wanted to be Jake the pirate to trick-or-treat.  After a few unsuccessful attempts to convince her that the pirate stuff we had would work, I told her that Jake was friends with mermaids and dolphins so she could choose one of those things.  That worked.  Once we turned her coat inside out so that the grey lining showed and pinned the fin to the coat, she happily roamed the neighborhood as a dolphin with her trick or treating buddy.  They were the tooth fairy princess and the tooth dolphin.

Dancing skeletons

Here's the latest addition to the recylable Halloween decorations, dancing skeletons.  Silver marker on white paper doesn't photograph well, but you get the idea.

 

I traced the kids on to a roll of paper while they demonstrated their best dance moves.  My Girl is showing her disco groove.  We had just gotten back from gymnastics.  More on that another time.

I used left over wrapping paper from last Christmas.  I use it throughout the year for all sorts of things.  After the holidays are over you can get it really cheap.  I look for those that are the least Christmasy so that I can use it for wrapping year 'round, but we use the back for art projects and I also use it for pattern making when I sew.

After tracing the kids I sketched in the bones.  It isn't anatomically correct, but it's definitely skeleton-y.

Haunted house

The kids were extremely excited about decorating the house for Halloween.  Unfortunately, we just don't have that many holiday decorations.  All of our non-Christmas holiday decor fits quite easily into one plastic bin in the garage, and I plan to pretty much keep it that way.  So enter the one time use holiday decorations.

We added spooky monster eyes to a couple of the bushes in front.

Then sneaky cats...

and bats to My Girl's window.

 

The big piece was the haunted house on the front window.  It is best seen at night.  I did something similar a couple of years ago.  I liked it then and I like my new version as well.  I like the larger house, but without the bats it isn't very creepy.  I'll have to fix that somehow in future versions.

 



I cut the house and fence by hand, but used my handy dandy cutting machine for the cats and bats.

Zombie Attack

 

Here is Buddy Boy's completed game.  He's only saved a few of the games and animations he's made so most of them are gone forever.  This may not be something to be saved for millenia, but it's fun to see what he's doing now.  He has a good time with it.

My Girl: 20+ questions

My Girl

Height: 41.5 inches  (43rd %ile) Weight: 40.25 pounds (62nd %ile)
I'm convinced the high percentile for her weight comes from her much larger than average head.  She is quite lean otherwise.

1. What are your favorite colors?
Blue, purple, turquoise, magenta, green
She is definitely off of pink, and anything pretty or fancy for that matter.  The princess phase is over.  She hates pink, but magenta is just fine.  I was surprised to see green make the list.  For awhile she was so apposed to the color she wouldn't even use a green cup or dish.

2. What is your favorite thing to eat?
spaghetti, pizza toast

3. What is your favorite candy?
minty M&Ms
We get these at the gas station on the corner.  They are pretty yummy, kind of like junior mints had a baby with green M&Ms.

4. What is your favorite drink?
water
Can't forget "pink fizzy".  That's really grapefruit Juice Squeeze.  Both kids really love it.

5. Where is your favorite place to go?
Happy Hollow

6. What is your favorite thing to do with your family?
Play family games
Her favorite game is Richard Scarry's board game.  She also really likes Set.

7. What is your favorite toy?
Stuffed dinosaurs, Windy the unicorn, and my Rodey
The unicorn is actually a My Little Pony unicorn one of my brothers gave to me for Christmas many years ago. 

8. What is your favorite thing to wear?
My bracelet and backpack
Her favorite outfit is a white t-shirt and denim shorts.  She'll accessorize from there.  It makes getting dressed pretty easy until Sunday comes around.  For awhile she refused to wear dresses.  I was tired of the fight so I told her she had to look nice and couldn't wear her old t-shirts and shorts, but she could wear Jack's old church clothes.  So for a few weeks she did just that.  Later I dug out a hand me down denim skirt I'd forgotten about.  She thinks it is the best thing ever.

9. What is your favorite animal?
dinosaurs

10. What is your favorite song?
When she comes round the mountains
We make quite the scene as we ride our bike and trailer bike to preschool singing, "When she comes 'round the mountain when she comes...When she comes 'round the mountain when she comes... When she comes 'round the mountain, when she comes 'round the mountain..."  You get the idea.  It takes about 8 minutes to get to school and I don't know how may repeats of the song.  I've tried to teach her other verses or at least to sing the right words, but sometimes you just got to go with it.  It's a pure expression of joy on her part.
I was a little surprised she didn't say Rawhide.  She can do a pretty good rendition of that song thanks to the Cowboy band at the Pioneer Day celebration at the church a couple years ago.  You just never know what is going to stick.

11. What is your favorite book? 
Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems
It's a whole series of books.  My favorite is Today I Will Fly.

12. What is your favorite game?
Richard Scarry's Busy Town board game

13. Who are your best friends?
Audrey, Ben, Quinn, Claire, Jack
She is especially good friends with a few of the girls from preschool.  Three of them have been taking classes together since they were 2 years old, if not a little before then.  They love each other and are best best friends.

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?
Play with Jack

15. What is your favorite tv show?
Shaun the Sheep
I can't argue with this.  Shaun is pretty funny and pretty watchable for adults too.

16. What is your favorite holiday?
Christmas

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?
My blue blankie and my unicorn

18. What is your favorite thing to do inside?
vacuum with Mom
Really?  I usually hear a lot of complaining about the noise.

19. What do you want for your birthday?
a new Pocoyo hula hoop

20. What do you want to do in the next year?
go to Happy Hollow and ride the Frog Hopper

21. What do you like about school?
Playing with my friends

22. What do you want to be when you grow up?
a paleontologist

23.  Where do you want to go on vacation?
Reno and Salt Lake City
It's all about the friends and cousins.

Buddy Boy: 20+ questions

I'm starting something that I hope I'll remember to do in years to come at the beginning of each school year or at least at some semi-regular intervals.  I take a lot of pictures, but I don't always take time to write down what the kids are like and what they are thinking.  So I thought that this version of 20 questions would help me remember the people that they are now.  I've put their answers in, but I'll also add a little commentary.  I've also included the all-about-me collage we did for school.  I think that sums things up pretty nicely.

Height: 51.25 inches (83rd %ile) Weight: 61 pounds (61st %ile)

It seems like he's grown at least 6 inches over the summer, maybe not that much, but he's grown a lot.  I haven't measured him very often, but based on the length of his pants, he's growing fast.  He's also really growing up, getting more adventurous and more confident.

 

1. What are your favorite colors? 
All the colors that are natural.  Green, blue, and white.

2. What is your favorite thing to eat?
Corn dogs
He also really likes popcorn, Hint of Lime tortilla chips, and beef.  He often asks if we can have beef more frequently.

3. What is your favorite candy? 
Nerds

4. What is your favorite drink?
Sprite

5. Where is your favorite place to go?
Nevada, Reno, because it snows.

6. What is your favorite thing to do with your family?
Play board games
He has marked every other night on the calendar as Stratego nights.  We followed through on the first few, but haven't kept it up.  I need to remember, because we all have fun.

7. What is your favorite toy?
Teddy Panda, isn't it obvious?
The world will end if anything ever happens to Teddy Panda.  He also really likes his Legos and has gotten in to board games lately, especially Stratego, Battleship, Clue, and Labyrinth.

8. What is your favorite thing to wear?
Glow in the dark t-shirts
He has two and especially likes to wear them to bed.

9. What is your favorite animal?
Panda

10. What is your favorite song?
TNT by Captain Sparklez
This is a Minecraft parody of a real song.  It is probably better than the original.

11. What is your favorite book? 
Calvin and Hobbes
While anything Calvin and Hobbes is undeniably at the top of the list he also likes Encyclopedia Brown, Dragonbreath, and a couple of California history books for kids called How to get rich in the California Gold Rush and Gold Fever!

12. What is your favorite game?
Clue
Did you know that they have changed Clue?  It is no longer Colonel Mustard and Professor Plum.  They have changed the conservatory to an observatory and added a whole bunch of cards that make the game more complicated, but also potentially shorter, which may be a blessing.  It's an attempt to update the game and make it more relatable to young people today, but it's terrible if you remember playing your Grandmother's version.  I'll never again be able to say it was Professor Plum in the conservatory with the revolver.

13. Who are your best friends?
Everett, Mickey

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?
Hang out, work on my tan, swim
Where did that tan comment come from?  Haven't my years of relentless sun screen application been of any use?

15. What is your favorite TV show?
Mythbusters
He also likes Dirty Jobs and is pretty willing to watch little kid TV with his sister.  Thankfully he just gets bored and moves on to other things.

16. What is your favorite holiday?
Christmas

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?
Teddy Panda

18. What is your favorite thing to do inside?
Watch TV, play Minecraft, and read

19. What do you want for your birthday?
A revolver

20. What do you want to do in the next year?
Go shooting with Dad

21. What do you like about school?
The teachers, the field
I've learned that he spends his recess time over on the far side of the field hunting for treasure.  I'm not sure what he finds, but it seems like he enjoys the time to unwind a bit and indulge his imagination.

22. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A teacher or an FBI agent
He has recently added Mythbuster to the mix.  That would be my pick.

Sweatshirt and a scarf

So, I've done a bit of sewing.  It isn't a very exciting looking sweatshirt, but did you see the sleeves?  Did you notice how long they are?  Just to give some perspective, that's a 26 inch zipper.  The sleeves come half way down the palms of my hands.  It's wonderful.  They are too long, really, but after years of a sweat shirt that looked like it had 3/4 length sleeves I'm enjoying it.  I may bring them up a bit later, or maybe not.

 

It took awhile to get to this point.  First, finding the fabric was tough.  I wanted cotton sweatshirt fleece in something other than light heathered grey.  I couldn't find it in our local stores in any color so I bought it online in grey and dyed it this mushroom brown.  It isn't quite what I was going for.  I would have like something a little richer, but it works.  Then I was almost finished and realized that the fit was really pretty bad, so I took it mostly all apart and made it fit better.  It isn't perfect, but it looks a lot less like I'm borrowing my husband's clothing.

By the way, if your husband likes colored cotton socks like mine does, white sport socks dye up nicely.  The scout socks that carried him through the first many years of our marriage have gone the way after many years of faithful service.  They have now been replace by brown socks that exactly match my sweatshirt.

Here is my latest scarf.  The calendar says fall and although it is still warm it is definitely feeling fallish.  So it's time to think of scarves and leaves and rich warm colors.  The main colors are called brick and brass, very autumnal.

The large areas aren't very even, but I like it better that way.  If this were a watercolor painting class I'd fail basic washes, but I think it makes it more interesting.

After washing out the resist I twisted it up like you used to do with broomstick skirts in the '80s.  It is easier to wear with the crinkled texture rather than smooth.  I have more ideas but I'm out of white scarves.  Time to place another order.

 

SOLD

In July our landlord decided to sell the house we've been living in for the past two years.  It was not a happy day.  We liked our house.  This triggered a semi-frantic house hunt.  It wasn't good.  Rents have increased a lot in the past two years.  Home prices have come down some, but not as much around here as they have in some parts of the country.  We looked at places to rent and seeing what we got for our money, we started looking at places to buy.  The short story is that we bought our house. 

We like the location and our neighbors and we really like the house and yard.  The layout is really good for a house this size (small).  There isn't any wasted space and there is a lot of natural light.  The landlord had fixed it up to sell it before we moved in so there are some nice updates.  You can tell it's a bit of a DIY job, but it's better than not having it done.  The only downside is the neighborhood schools.  But we have the kids in a district wide parent participation school so it isn't so much of an issue for now.  It just means we get to drive a bit more every day and we'll have to get creative when it's time for middle and high school.  In district transfers are an option, but not guaranteed.

Perhaps the best thing is that we don't have to move.  Aside from expense, I'm glad we don't have to pack up all the boxes.  It can just stay put.  It has, however, put me in the mood to clean out a few closets.

We've already started a project list.  A few need to happen soon, but most will be put off for a little while.  We've lived with it as is for two years.  We can live with most of it for a while longer.  The short list includes fixing a few minor spots on the roof, treating for termites, and taking out the fig tree in the backyard before it grows any more.  I don't like figs.  Most of them go to the squirrels.  I'd much rather have another orange tree.  We have a little one in the front.  Another one in the back would be great.

So, hooray!  We bought a house and we don't even have to move.

First day of school: part II

 

Finally, she's been more than a little excited waiting for her school to start.  Last year preschool was twice a week for a couple of hours.  This year it's five days a week for three whole hours.  This is more than some half day kindergarten programs.  It's OK.  She loves it and she'll be more than ready for the full day kinder class at Buddy Boy's school next year.  The best parts is that she is there with a few of her best friends from class last year.  More friends for more time, more better.