Suds of Darkness

We finished "The Shimmer" tonight, and it was a fast-paced sort of ending, but it was overall a decent book in the overall Kingdom Keepers canon.  We have questions about the character of Storey Ming, and I'm sure there are other things to come, but overall it was a good start to a new series that we look forward to getting.  Hopefully the writer will be able to go to some book signings nearby, as it would be pretty cool for us to go own and visit for that.  He was doing that earlier, but not this year, and I'm not sure where the plans went awry, but we didn't get to see him this year.  Hopefully next time, next book.  Until then, this one was good - we got a signed copy, and it made for a fun Easter basket theme.  Maddie enjoyed remembering the characters a bit, and it was fun to put together.  Below are those hints from The Kingdom Keepers Easter egg hunt, which ultimately led to a pretty nice themed Easter basket with Maleficent, Cruella, the Evil Queen, and of course Mickey there too.  Within each egg I had these clues here, which I just found recently - I wanted to keep them somewhere so they didn't get lost, so here they are.

Anyway, we reached the end of our book, and we thought it was fun.  The new characters should be interesting to follow, and it's great to see the old guard come in as well.  The future of the parks seems engaging, and once the story got really moving, it pulled you along.  We had fun reading that together, and hopefully it won't be long before the next edition comes out, as we're sure there are more threats to the kingdom to come.

Anyway, moving on.  We got some Weird Science props together today for Sunday, which should be a lot of fun.  Maddie was at school and this time not so early, so that was great for her.  I'm in the car line to pick her up, and there I'm reading or writing, but once I got Maddie we went home and there Mom had a funny gag gift for me:  squirrel stickers.  They are for putting on the cage, each one to number the amount of squirrels taken down, sort of like a fighter pilot would do, decorating his plane with marks identifying the amount of enemy planes he's shot down.  I'll have to get those on tomorrow!

We watched "Guardians of the Galaxy" tonight, part of our prep for tomorrow when we go to see the third movie in the trilogy, which from what I understand is the final movie of that series.  It's amazing how many of these Marvel movies there are in retrospect.  For so many of these properties, there's a trilogy of movies, or in some cases even four movies.  I think I just read there are thirty-two Marvel cinematic universe movies thus far, and that doesn't include the X-men movies or the Spider-man movies or the other little projects like Venom, Ghost Rider, and the tons of series like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, Loki and so on.  It's a huge world now, and to think twenty-five years ago we were lamenting the fact that these characters weren't really on the television screens or movie screens in a good way.  But now they're all over the place, because CGI and other techniques are finally able to deliver a hero that can do the things our collective imaginations saw them doing.

Anyway, taekwondo was a lot of practice and review for the upcoming testing, which should go well on Monday.  That's when Maddie is finally going to get that second-degree black belt, after a two-year training schedule.  She's arrived, and once that happens, it's time to march towards a third-degree, possibly. We'll see.  She'll be in college by that time, which is zany to think about.

Speaking of college, have I mentioned the amount of college mail she's gotten the last year?  We're getting pamphlets and glossy photos from various colleges all over the place, all addressed to her, all imploring her to check out their school.  It's that season of our lives now, and it's hard to believe!

This week I've opened a new bar of soap, and while that isn't really news in itself, the title of the soap is SUDS OF DARKNESS.  Yes, its' Kylo Ren's very own soap, a dark side scrub from a company that makes Star Wars themed soap.  Some friends at work also have these, and Mom got me these sets for Christmas.  We've been joking about this one here because SUDS OF DARKNESS is such a funny name for a bar of soap.  But there it is, and it's actually a nice scent.  I don't feel any tendency to strike down heroes, but I do feel a bit fresher after getting on that treadmill.

Maddie has bringing back her artwork from the school year, and I can't wait to get a picture of Leonardo's room that she's constructed - it's this 3D model, and it's pretty cool.  We had a nice night together, a quiet one.  The rain is clearing, and the sun is out again, and it's a quiet night out there.  Time to get some rest.