Captain Kirk in Space

We got the kids off to school the shortened day before Fall Break and Jeremy saw a Facebook live thing about Blue Origin's rocket making its second manned flight into space. He told me William Shatner was going as the oldest person to ever go into space. 90 years old. I was thinking, 90? That's right because he was on Star Trek back in the 60's. 

Jeremy even told me of some memes that were going around about it making references to Star Trek.

So as we were watching the rocket launch and go I was just watching and watching and all of a sudden it dawned on me and I exclaimed, "Ohhhhh, William Shatner going into space!"

Somehow with all that was going on, Jeremy talking about the Captain Kirk memes and how it was William Shatner going, I didn't get the significance, I just didn't get it that it was William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in a show and movies about space, who was going to space.

I put my face in my hands because I couldn't believe myself and how long it took me to get it. Jeremy busted out laughing because of my exclamation and how we'd been watching and having this conversation about it for maybe half an hour before I got it.

They made it safely back to Earth and I still laughed at myself.

That day, October 13, was Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work/School Day. Lucky put Baby Bear in his backpack and kept him there through school. 

Since it was a short school day leading into Fall Break, we went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. I love this annual tradition. Some favorites were...

Then we found Waldo in several places around the garden.

We also played in the leaves.

We stopped at the Water Tower Plaza for a moment for Jeremy to run in the Butterfly Biosphere gift shop to see if they had any chocolate covered insects for the holiday on October 14. They didn't and apparently Thanksgiving Point doesn't carry them anymore. Ah, man. But I got this picture through the windshield.

It was good family time.

Kindness Popcorn

November 13 was World Kindness Day.  We also had Family Home Evening that day.  Nichole gave a very nice lesson about kindness including examples of how people have been kind to her at school.  Way to go school kids.  You make a positive difference.  Keep it up.

For treat, since the activity was watching Dad play a new space video game, Jr. was creative.

asteroid field popcorn with pretzel spaceships and M&M torpedoes

What We Also Did at the Library

Another day we went to the library, they were having a presentation with someone from the Clark Planetarium talking about the upcoming total solar eclipse.  It was very interesting and it was neat to see how many of the kids there were quite knowledgeable already about astronomy.  Awesome kids.

I took this picture before the program started and showed it to Jeremy.  He said that's pretty typical of our kids or it's a good representation or something like that.  Nichole and Jr. reading, Lucky wiggling, and Jr. Jr. staring off into space.  Yep.  Those are our kids.  They did pay attention during the presentation, however.  Great job, kids.

 It was good library time.

Space Sandwiches

So... astronauts on the space station don't use bread because of too many crumbs that don't just fall on the floor like on Earth but float around, so when they want to make a peanut butter and honey sandwich, they use a tortilla.
So for Sandwich Day on November 3, we ate "space sandwiches."  Peanut butter on tortillas folded over.  We didn't have honey on them this time.

That night I went to Girls' Night, but I forgot to take a camera.  Sigh.  We had chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.  And lots of socializing.  And we watched a movie.  And it was great.
O.K.  Since I didn't take a camera, you'll just have to visualize it.  Brownies, cookies, chocolate cream pie, a spicy chocolate bar which our friend taught us how to smell and feel and really taste (she's been to chocolate tastings before), sugar cookies, crackers and cheese (thank goodness for something not sweet and chocolate to temper the sweets), and water to drink.  That's all I can think of.  I'm sorry if I forgot anything.  It was great and again well needed.  I love Girls' Night.  But I stayed up way too late and I'm exhausted today.  Ugh.
On another note about yesterday, Jr. Jr. and I took Nichole to dance class.  I let them each take a reasonable amount of Halloween candy in the van.  Jr. Jr. couldn't figure out what a reasonable amount was, but we were in a hurry to get out the door, so he took too much.  Sigh.  At one point after we got there, I saw him with a sucker in one hand and a package of Whoppers in the other.  Yeah, they were both open and he was eating them both. 

Sigh. 
Oh well, I ate a lot of chocolate last night at Girls' Night so I can't complain.

Space Park

It's funny how our family gives certain parks nicknames and others we don't.  Some of these nicknames really stick.  For example, the kite flying park.  Years ago we went to fly kites there for Kite Day (even though we have other parks that we found work better for kite flying) and the name stuck.
Hill Park, however, is just Hill Park.  It's an appropriate name anyway because of its location.  And Scera Park is just Scera Park because that's its name.
Often nicknames come when the kids don't know the name of the park so we use it to explain what park we're talking about and that's how we continue to describe it even if later everyone learns the actual name of the park.  Or the kids make up the name like "fishy park" because part of the playground has the shape of a fish.
One recently nicknamed park is where we celebrated Pluto Day.  Since then the kids have been calling it Space Park and saying that one of the playgrounds at the park looks like it has space equipment on it.  So it was appropriate on Meteor Day, June 30, to play at Space Park with friends.

And it was fun.