Noir

Maddie drove us over to taekwondo tonight, and she's getting much better and smoother behind the wheel.  It helps that she's had a lot of practice time with Nana, who came by again this morning for some more driving lessons.  This is a weekly thing, and today's emphasis was on parking and three-point turns.  She was helping students with taekwondo, and all the while I was watching BravesVision there, while Mom was watching at home.  The Braves won big today by the same margins they lost yesterday, just crushing the Boston Red Sox.  The big blow came from Acuna Jr., and his very timely grand slam.  Go Braves!

Mom and I were working today - I finished up the Summer Xtreme booklet, then got things lined up for Sunday finally, helped a lot of other people with various tasks today... and splashed down from the moon!

This was a fun virtual march.  I had so much to watch during this, from NASA footage to documentaries and historical dramas and of course crazy fun astronaut movies.  It was 100 miles, so it was a little longer.  But post cards, character cards, open areas and other things opened up as you marched along to make it interesting.  Now I'm going to have to figure out what to do next... hmmm... 

More rain today.  And that's okay because it's going to take a while to get things away from where we were with the lack of water.  It didn't rain on Maddie as she was driving to and from taekwondo, so that's good.  We got home and Mom had made this delicious banana pudding for us after dinner.  We've been doing the Factor meals lately, and those have been good. Not all the time, but they're easy to pack for lunch and they're good for a quick meal at dinner.  

Tonight's featured viewing:  Spider-Noir.  We got through episode four, and I'm enjoying this whole vibe quite a bit.  The cinematography is a lot of fun, and the costumes and sets are refreshing.  We might have to go back and watch some old-school film noir movies now, like "The Maltese Falcon."  And I don't think these other two have ever seen "Casablanca," which is a must-see, right?  But first we'll have to see what happens next in this ongoing series.  Only four episodes to go, but it's been a fun alternate universe version of Spider-Man, and it seems to be pretty popular right now.  Kind of want to watch another Marvel series from this era:  Agent Carter.  That was a really good one.

Afterwards, we had time for some reading from "Snuff," where Commander Vimes is now on the trail of the culprits, about to head up river to make an arrest, or worse.  We'll see what happens next as that adventure also continues. 

We said our prayers after that, and got to sleep fairly quickly tonight - we were all a bit sleepy!

Patriotic Swedish Fish

I present to you... PATRIOTIC SWEDISH FISH!  We had a meeting today at KidPak, and we had a bunch of leftover Swedish Fish from a game this past Sunday, so why not create a patriotic masterpiece?  'Merica!  And Sweden!

Maddie and Nate went to do some bowling today, and it sounded like a lot of fun!  They weren't going to break any records today, but that's not really something any of us go in for when it comes to bowling - it's all about having fun, and maybe laughing at each other.  But celebrating with each other too, of course.  It's a fickle sort of game for some of us.

Speaking of fickle games, the Braves were crushed today by the Red Sox, and that was pretty hard to watch except an amazing foul ball catch by a broadcaster during the game.  It was basically the highlight of the game for Braves fans, and all the talk of BravesVision.  We'll get 'em tomorrow, surely, with another series win, right?

Tonight we started "Spider-Noir," which is a pretty fun show thus far.  We'll continue that tomorrow I'm sure, running through the entire series with a bit of Spider-binge watching.  And yes, we chose to watch it in black and white.  We're not Philistines. 

We had a lot of Summer Xtreme meetings today, and there was a good bit of planning for Sunday too.  It was a busy but productive day.  I have some great ideas for our upcoming small group Sunday, some of them involving the Mandalorian and a helmet I have at the house.  I'll have to bring that in for a makeshift "Helmet of Salvation."

Mom was fending off the raccoons again tonight - we didn't bring in the bird seed fast enough, but they tend to scurry off when you step outside.  And then again, sometimes they just sit there and stare at you as you step on their territory, and they're like, "What?  What do you want?"

We are getting so much rain lately, and that's been so great for our area, as the ground has been so thirsty.  One big thing I did was this:

The brass altar, the sheep, and the entrance to the tabernacle there.

Inside where there's the altar of incense and the bread

The overview of the entire Wilderness Tabernacle.  The top comes off to show you the inside.

The LEGO Ark of the Covenant!  It actually has Ten Commandments, Aaron's rod, and a jar of manna inside.

LEGO Menorah, table of bread, incense altar...

An above-view with the top on the temple.

I finished the LEGO Wilderness Tabernacle!  I was pacing myself, putting pieces together here and there as the week went by, reviewing those scriptures from Exodus as I moved along with that.  But it turned out really well, and the instructions were near perfect - I think I only had one or two places where there were hiccups, but overall it was a great build.  I just read all this so it's been a great addition to the reading.  

So how's our Chia pets?  Here's an update:

They're looking bigger and bigger, growing pretty well, aren't they?  Super quick!  We'll be doing the hydroponics plants soon, slightly larger growths than the Chia pets, but a similar idea.  We'll share those updates soon enough when we plant those seeds.  Ever since I've been to EPCOT the year it opened, I've wanted to try hydroponics, so this will be a lot of fun upcoming.

Tonight we read more from our book "Snuff," attempting to figure out what's going on with these goblins.  Someone has to speak up for them, and adventure is afoot.  We read a little further along here in this final Sam Vimes book, and then afterwards:  prayers, and a good night's rest.

Grogu and the Mandalorian

We went to see the latest Star Wars movie tonight, and it's a big deal because I think there hasn't been one in six years or so, and the last three weren't exactly everyone's favorites.  We had a good feeling about tonight's flick though, because we love the characters.  Tuesday is half-price night, so we arrived with Ye-Ye, Nana, Maddie, Nate, Mom and myself for a visit to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

It was a great movie!  I think it felt like an extra long episode of the show, and that's not a bad thing.  The puppetry in the show was really amazing, and the special effects were incredible.  It just felt like an 80's sort of movie at times, that same old-school Star Wars joy woven throughout.  We all enjoyed it from our seats in the back, and the theater had a good bit of people there to see it.  

Oh, look who is sprouting here!  Our Grogu Chia is doing rather well today, as is our Chia Shrek:
 

The rain has been steady and almost extreme at points this week, just these huge downpours constantly barraging us from above.  The lake is starting to fill again, and I believe although we're still technically in a drought, this has brought the severity of the drought significantly down.  

Ah, lunch today!  I was supporting my friend Daniel here with his missions project, something Chick-Fil-A was doing in partnership with that ministry.  Meals purchased there helped with donations, so I went across town to have lunch there.  

And here's something else I did - I got a post card from the moon!  This may be one of the last ones, as I'm nearing splash down, the end of this virtual walk.  It's been good - I've been closing things out by watching the raw footage of the first moon landing, which is actually really interesting.

Tonight the Braves hung on to beat the Red Sox, but it was good to see their bats starting to come alive somewhat.  After catching the end of the game, we closed out our big day with some more reading from the Discworld, and of course prayers.  It was a fun day today!

Memorial Day 2026

'Merica!  Here's some patriotic jello, a rather simple idea from Mom - we've got a red layer of jello at the bottom and then she's sliced and placed some strawberries for stripes onto a layer of cool whip, and of course the field of stars up there is a field of blueberries.  Looks fun, simple to make, and it's delicious!

Today is Memorial Day, and we started out with a really great skillet breakfast that Mom made for us, and yeah, we had all those patriotic tunes playing today.  Got to have the appropriate theme music playing, and the patriotic tree plugged in.  The house looks great for our semiquincentennial.

We got our walking in, and got everyone fed, birds and sea monkeys.  The chia pets look great, and I worked a good bit on the LEGO Wilderness Temple as well, with just one more bag to go until it's complete. 

Afterwards, we went over to Aunt Shain's for a big Memorial Day feast!

Natural wildlife abounds!  Ah, the wild flock of flamingos in the back, grazing in the woods there.  Speaking of "birdies," Maddie, Nate, David and Jonathan were playing badminton for a good bit, and occasionally getting the birdies stuck in low hanging tree branches.  Also getting rackets stuck in them.  

But eventually, it was time for the Memorial Day Croquet Challenge!

This year's contestants were ready to go, a battle for the ages.  The weather was iffy, but the rain pretty much held out for us as the competition began.  The spectators were seated, cheering on the big game!

It's a lot of unpredictable fun!  This year's winner?  Maddie!  She and Marilyn pretty much ruled the course while the guys spent a lot of time floundering on the starting side there.  It was a tough course, but Maddie broke away from the competition, and it wasn't even close from there - she got to the end a good ten minutes before the others.  Still, everyone had a good time, including those of us watching.  We were all laughing at the misfortunes or marveling at the sudden bursts of talent.

The rain did come eventually, but not really until we were all done.  We got everything cleaned up and got inside for our big meal.  Here's the crew just before dessert, having patriotic cupcakes, cookies, and yes, that Jello Flag!

It was a nice time.  Nate was with us, and he enjoyed it too, although he was almost last in the croquet game. But still, we all enjoyed our time together, a really nice tradition on Memorial Day.

Today is also Towel Day, and so we watched "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" tonight.  We read all these books with Maddie once upon a time, but it's been a while.  I think next year I'm going to try and find the original BBC movie 

We closed out the day with some reading and then prayers.  Time for some sleep!

Today's Going to be a Great Day

This morning we had a different take on the Wisenheimer invention at KidPak, and it was more geared for summer.  Mom came up with this great idea to do a Phineas and Ferb theme, which was basically to use the invention above to see what kids could do over the course of the summer, and of course there were the usual answers...

Yes, there was a "watch Barney" answer in there and another "eat taquitos" answer too.  I had my "Perry the Platypus" ball cap on, and Macy, our volunteer, was wearing the Perry the Platypus onesie as she carried around that invention.  It all ended with a nice promo for Summer Xtreme, which is coming up soon!

The morning was a fun one, but also a great one with a long worship set in that second service.  Pentecost service was going on upstairs, and the first morning service was actually going on late.

Maddie was at another service this morning, and spent her day with Nate and the family there, just a nice indoors sort of Sunday.  That's because it was a rainy day today.  We got out of church, and check out this piece of moss I found on a small twig:

Looks almost like a Truffula tree!

Anyway, Mom and I went to get something to eat after this, because we had both been craving a pizza from this particular place...

We also got ourselves a gluten-free brownie with ice cream on it, which was super delicious.  Mellow Mushroom wasn't too crowded at that time - I mean, there was a good crowd there, but not the usual completely slammed sort of vibe going on.  

From there we went home - here's an update on our chia pets, just for fun!

Just in time for his new movie!  Grogu is looking lush with the foliage all around him there.  And Shrek is always on top of things with his new hairdo.  

We spent some time watching the Braves, including the long rain delay.  The game was close, and wouldn't be so bad if the Braves could remember this weekend how to score runs.  Seriously, one run in the last two games, and that was in the ninth inning.  Frustrating to watch, but that's okay:  "if they don't win it's a shame."  Besides, they are still in first place in their division by a pretty substantial margin.  Hopefully those bats will start waking up.

In the meantime, I've been working on the Wilderness Tabernacle, and getting further along, as you can see above.  The actual inner structures are coming along well, and I believe next it will be time to build some of the furniture that goes inside, like the Lamp Stand and even the Ark of the Covenant.  Lots of little bits!

The rain was huge today, just what we needed.  I know that spoiled a lot of Memorial Day plans, but the land was so thirsty for water, and this dousing is just what we needed.  Maddie got home a little later this evening, and we were finishing up season three of "The Mandalorian," just in time to go see that new movie.  I think we'll do that on Tuesday.  

It was a quiet day.  We got a few things done this afternoon, including some prep for tomorrow.  It's going to be a great day.  We closed out tonight reading more from our mystery, and then saying prayers.  Time for some sleep!

Parallel Universe

 

Well, this morning was all about parallel parking, and that said, we were down at the church parking lot where I hijacked a few cones and set up a little parallel parking course.  It was raining lightly outside, but not enough to be too much of a problem.  Maddie eased in and did about five attempts, and actually did really well each time.  She drove to the parking lot and drove home too, so she's getting fairly comfortable behind the wheel.

It was a quiet day today, certainly with the rain out there.  Yes, it's a spoiler for the Memorial Day weekend for some, and I'm somewhat conflicted about that, as we desperately need this rain.  Still, we managed to get some things done today - I was walking on the treadmill and getting a little further on that virtual walk.  We were getting the usual chores in around the house, which now includes super minor tasks of keeping the water levels up on those chia pets, keeping the birds with plenty of seeds out there, and keeping oxygen going for the sea monkeys.  Funny little tasks.  Of course, the bigger ones involving housecleaning are there, dishes and laundry and so forth.  And bills.  Mom is stuck at the table doing that, but we've got lots of tea, and some Factor meals to get us through the day.  

The Braves lost today, but that tends to happen when you get only one hit.  Too bad for our other pitching staff, that actually did really well today despite this.  Hopefully tomorrow the guys will get some hits again.  In the meantime, I was working on another few areas of the Wilderness Temple today, putting that LEGO project together, and after the game, the three of us were catching up on "The Mandalorian."  

Tonight's reading continued from "Snuff," which we're diving into this mystery more.  After that, prayers and time for a good night's rest.

11th Inning

The Wilderness Tabernacle is moving along, or at least some of the furniture for it and the outer walls, and those poor sheep.  From time to time I've come back to put a little more and more on this, getting it all together as I read the various scriptures from Exodus as it all slowly comes together

The Chia pets are doing good - there are some sprouts growing out, some quicker than others, but there's definitely some growth there.  I think we'll see something big moving along by Memorial Day weekend.

Maddie did some driving lessons today with Mom, and there's a theme of parking this weekend - Maddie is starting to enter a parallel universe, which is to say she's going to be attempting some never-done-before parallel parking!  She was trying it today with another car nearby, but tomorrow we'll do the ol' "cones in the place of cars" training exercises at the church parking lot.  Couldn't do that today because of the three graduation ceremonies taking place and the huge congestion there.

Speaking of congestion, that's me.  Ever since I returned from the cruise.  The lungs.  The nose.  The sore throat.  Ugh.  NyQuil night for sure.

But first, taekwondo.  I dropped Maddie off there, and some of her friends were either graduating or watching other friends graduate - it's been a big year for that.  She enjoyed classes as always, and there's no class tomorrow because it's Memorial Day weekend.  We'll be celebrating like always at Nana and Ye-Ye's house that day, and there's some food prep we'll be doing here, including the creation of the patriotic jello!  Mom's done this before, made an American flag from jello and cool whip and blueberries and strawberries.  But Ye-Ye requested it specifically this year, and it's the semiquincentennial, so it's on!

That meant a lot of grocery shopping for me.  I was loading up the cart while Maddie was kicking people, and while we were both indoors, the deluge just slammed into us from above, a downpour so heavy and huge.  The rain has been enormous today, as if the entire state of Georgia just decided to do a bucket challenge, with torrential gushers just dumping down on all of us at the same time.  It was so loud on the roofs!  

Fortunately, we drove home after it passed, and as we were unpacking, the Braves game was in fact on - there was some thought that it might be either a rain delay or a washout, but the game went on, and it was a thriller of an ending.  We watched until the bottom of the eleventh inning, when good ol' Chadwick Tromp helped us get to bed by ending the game with a single right over the middle infielders that brought speedy Eli White home.  And there was much rejoicing.  Again.  This team just keeps on winning!

We did some reading tonight, closing out an ordinary sort of day.  Mom had hot dogs for us for dinner, some grass-fed meat that she orders for us, and that was a classic baseball meal there.  I was also walking earlier, finishing up "Rocketman" as I moved closer to the end of this current virtual walk.  In about a week I should be splashing down to earth again, and it's been fun watching all these themed movies and television shows as I march along.

In regards to the reading tonight, we're trying to figure out why someone would kill a goblin.  And of course who.  Vimes is engaged in another mystery, and the City Watch seems to be involved in something unusual as well.  We read for a bit tonight, but we were getting tired - eleven innings and NyQuil will do that to you.  It was time for prayers, and time for sleep!