Isaac made this stop motion shortly after we got back from our vacation.
In other news, it was a rather boring day. Especially for Joshua. While he disagrees with me, I think he purposefully chose to be bored instead of cleaning the kitchen. I finally gave him a small bribe to get him to finish up the dishwasher. It was a pretty cool day, which was surprising after such a hot days recently. The air quality was also fine, so we had the sliders open all day.
Ben and I went out for dinner, which was lovely and the highlight of my day.
We picked blueberries yesterday. One child was not excited at all, but then the picking was pretty good so they kept wanting five more minutes.
(He looks taller than me, but isn't yet. I think he's a little bit forward to change the perspective.)
(How tall Isaac is getting is very obvious, but Joshua has grown a bunch taller too.)
Today was pretty normal, really. Isaac and I went rock climbing. Isaac finished some painting on his clay projects. We did some work. We played a game in the evening.
Every room in the house is a mess right now and it's driving me a bit nuts. That being said, there are a bunch of active projects and the mess makes sense.
Ben, Isaac, and I played a quick game of Can't Stop this evening. It really was fast, because I won 3-0-0. The rule in our house is that the winner has to put the game away. When I lose I often feel better because of this rule and when I win I'm still happy because I won.
Anyway.
Because I won so well, Isaac was trying to figure out a new rule that basically said if you skunk everyone else you should also have to clean up the game by yourself. The conversation went something like this.
Isaac: "If you win, you win." *Thinking*
Ben and I look at each other and burst out laughing. "Oh phew. If you win then you win."
This set Isaac off into spurts of laughter, but he made a valiant attempt to continue.
Isaac: "If the players have zero points, then they don't have any points."
Ben and I again: "Thanks for the clarification. This is enlightening."
Isaac, barely able to talk at this point: "No, if all the players who didn't win have zero points then the player who won..."
Ben: "The winner has one point. I don't think you understand the game."
Today's big activity was to return to LEGO house. After seeing and doing several things yesterday I wasn't sure if we would stay all six hours that it was open but it was a foolish worry and we easily stayed the whole time.
After another delicious breakfast we moved hotels...to one a five minute walk away. I know that one of our Japan lessons was to not move hotels as often and we really didn't. However, this was the LEGO castle hotel and 1) it's fun and 2) the deal we got included tickets to Legoland for the next day. We were also able to sleep five in a room and while it wasn't a ton cheaper because of that, it was a little cheaper. On our way over to the hotel I once again grabbed Ben's suitcase instead of own. I haven't mentioned it yet but throughout the airport I kept grabbing Ben's suitcase instead of mine. His is a dark blue while mine is a light blue, but for some reason I kept seeing only "blue" and grabbing the wrong one. Joshua got in on it a bit and switched them on purpose a few times, but I genuinely did it on accident. I'm sure Ben noticed right away because 1) it was the wrong color and 2) his travels in a straighter line than mine.
We dropped off our luggage and went to LEGO house. This statue was on our walk, although we didn't go up close to it. The playline on the way to the LEGO house from this direction was SO much better! When we walked the other way around the loop most of it was just a straight line on the edge of the sidewalk. On this part of the loop it actually had interesting features.
We got there a little early so that Ben could deal with shipping the sets we had purchased the day before. The kids and I went up the yellow stairs. Well, when it isn't too late there is a door at the top of the yellow stairs that you can go through. (We saw it on the blue stairs the day before, but it was closed.) So we went up another set up steps.
Then another.
And another. And we made it to the top! It looks like a LEGO brick, obviously.
Then we went down the blue side. It started raining. It had been heavily misting earlier, but it was actual rain at this point. There's not much one can do at the top of a building, so we just went all the way down. We weren't soaked and dried off pretty quickly.
Isaac...did something while Joshua made a castle with the large bricks while we waited for Ben and Cheryl and for the main area to open. Then Joshua noticed kids nearby making the word LEGO and looking for blue bricks, so he helped them find some. To me, this is one of the core teachings of Lego...learning through play. In this instance, it was specifically collaboration.
There were a few main places we wanted to get to before the main crowd showed up, so we flitted around a bit. It isn't a super large place, so this wasn't an issue. We started with the bee robots. (This used to be ice robots.) Each person had a robot that could plant seeds, water the seeds, or get water from a puddle. When the flowers had bloomed, the bees would collect pollen to make honey. It was rather Robot Turtles like. "Go forward three units. Plant seeds. Turn." "Go forward one unit, get water. Turn 180, go forward one unit, water plants." You could make your instructions as long or short as you wanted to. Our results were all pretty similar, although Ben got the most total items. Some of us got more honey, some planted more flowers.
We made stop motion movies next. I really like mine, although I made it super short and the rest of the family didn't understand it at first. Isaac and Cheryl mostly finished theirs, while Ben and Joshua (who were working together) needed another minute so theirs cut off a bit early. All the videos start around ten seconds - there's a lot of pre-video credits. Information about the stories is below the videos.
Amanda:
Ben and Joshua:
Isaac:
Amanda: A woman with scissors approaches another woman, who is very scared. The first woman acts scary but ends up just cutting the second woman's hair. The woman loves the haircut.
Ben and Joshua: The woman dives off a dock and finds treasure. The pirate sees the treasure and chases the first woman. The first woman opens a secret door to escape, drinks a potion from a silver goblet and can fly. Not shown is how she also has fire power now to defend herself.
Isaac: A policeman chases a pirate, catches him and puts him in handcuffs. The policeman uses his wand to poof a boat into existence. (It looks like an explosion, but that was the only special effect that was close to poofing-in.)
It was a lovely Saturday. LEGO in the morning. Then Isaac and I went rock climbing while the air quality was ok and it wasn't too hot. (Turns out it might not be "too" hot, but it was still really hot.) Isaac pushes me to climb routes I wouldn't otherwise even try, so it's fun to climb with him.
I also got the kitchen almost clean. I was able to find the counters for the first time in a week. Joshua has kitchen week next week, so I need to give him a clean kitchen Sunday night.
A friend came over in the evening to play Root. It's one of Isaac's favorite games, but is rather complicated and really works better with four people. We've played it with three, but four is better. Joshua is willing to play it once in a while, but only one of the four roles. Anyway, our guest won this game and Isaac had a really rough game, but I think we all enjoyed it.
While the air quality wasn't as bad today, it still hung around 350 for most of the day. Therefore, we once again didn't get blueberries. I'm optimistic for Monday.
So instead I did chores. The kids entertained themselves pretty well, so I tried to catch up on stuff I ignored while painting. I did clean up the painting stuff too.
For reference, where is what it used to look like (from a different angle, obviously).
Here is what it looks like now. Both yellow walls were painted.
Today we were planning on picking more blueberries. Unfortunately, the wildfires put a dampener on that. When we woke up the AQI was 250 and around 2pm I saw it spike at 513. (Others saw it spike over 600 in Holland and Marquette was over 1000). So we didn't go outside much.
I mostly finished touch-ups on the painting and hope to clean it up this morning. I had a slight panic attach at noon when I realized that I never got a notification that my groceries, scheduled for pickup at 9am. Their system was acting up, so I went to get them after lunch.
Horizon was at his happiest, being a game cat. He messed it all up. (We take pictures, so we can fix it up.)
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