Farewell to Neverland

It had to end some time.  But as Peter likes to say, we don't say goodbye, because goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting.  So we'll just say farewell to Neverland, just like the title of that John Williams track from the "Hook" score.  It's a great soundtrack, one we've been using heavily throughout, along with the one from "Finding Neverland," and "Peter Pan," of course.  You can see Daddy and the guy who plays Mr. Smee above, as we cheer on the swiniest swine in the world, Captain Hook.

And here's where Peter and Tiger Lily are trying to figure out how to deal with Captain Hook.  Fortunately, Jane has a great idea, one that involves the residents of Pixie Hollow.  Let's just say all the pirates that showed up on stage got to experience a swarm of laser pointers that Daddy ordered earlier this week.  It was a fantastic ending to an eight-week series, and for all the worries last night about script changes, things turned out just fine.  It was a wonderful ending, one filled with all the sweetness that has rested with this series from the onset.

After church, there was a bit of filming for the Summer Xtreme movie this year, one featuring the return of a villain named Praxis.  He was getting his make-up on in the office, as you can see below:

It's not completely on yet, but Madison posed for a picture with him nevertheless.  The name Praxis was a fun thing, because it could be some evil ruler from another planet.  But teachers know it as a similarly evil test you have to take in order to become a teacher.  Daddy passed that test some time ago, happily.  It was the one for science.  It was a big deal, so big that the name sticks with you and you're naming super villains after it.

Anyway, the filming continues, although we didn't get involved with this round.  We stopped for Sodapalooza, and pretty much went home.  Madison is spending a lot of time working on her piano recital piece, and still has some ground to cover.  But she's doing better than she was two days ago.  As a reward for all her playing, we watched "Iron Man," which she watched for the first time tonight. We were telling her how this movie came out in May of 2008, and how that's the month we saw her face for the first time, and how one month later we would be going to China to meet her.  And now her we are nine years later.  The Marvel Cinematic Universe started the same time our relationship with Madison did, come to think of it! 

She enjoyed the movie, particularly the parts with Dummy in them.  Don't ask me why we all have this strange appreciation for Tony Stark's robotic arm, and it was such a great moment when Dummy saves Tony's life towards the end there.  Madison liked that.

We got to bed on time tonight, with Daddy reading several chapters from the Descendants book, and nearly finishing that science-themed devotional as well.  We'll probably wrap that one up by Tuesday.  A new devotional is coming, one with all kinds of superheroes in it.  That was fun writing.

In the meantime, she's turned in her "Neverland" booklet, complete with a stamp for every appearance this series.  Kids who keep their books for the whole time get a special gift card, so Madison will get one for "Neverland."  And she picked up a $10 gift card today for "Big Top" as well.  So she's starting to really save up these gift cards...!

We said our prayers, and went to sleep easy tonight.  It's been a big weekend!

Chicken. Dance.

Full day today!

We started out early with a visit to downtown Gainesville for filming of Summer Xtreme.  This went well, just like last year.  We go over to the courthouse side of things, and there we find quiet and shaded areas that have lots of courtyards and brickwork.  It makes for a nice backdrop.  The funny thing is that on the square, there was a festival.  Not just any festival, but the annual Spring Chicken Festival.

So yeah, we sort of went to that too.  It was involuntary, to be honest.  We were about to leave the parking deck, but were in fact trapped there due to the fact that a parade was coming by.  I am not making this up:  we were blocked by marching bongo players with middle-aged hula dancers and people in chicken costumes.  Followed by a Jurassic Park vehicle playing the "Chicken Dance."  Followed by a few other floats with people in chicken costumes hurling candy out at the kids.

The square was loaded with lots of vendors selling barbecue chicken, and it looked like a fun time for everyone, unless you are in fact a chicken.  In which case, it is probably the most horrific thing you can experience.

We didn't stick around too long, because at 1:00 pm, we had an appointment with Praise in Motion.  Here's Madison in front of the stage, getting ready for the production.

This is our first time getting to see Praise in Motion's spring performance.  They do a Christmas one that we see just about every year, and there is this spring one that we usually find ourselves too busy to attend.  But not this year.  We drove down to Friendship Road, and just a ways down is a new venue that is called, oddly enough, The Venue.

It was a series of dances, some ballet and others not.  But all of them were very nice.  We sat in the third row, and enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish.  It was rather long, but I think that might be because of the substantial intermission, which might be related to the typical line at the women's rest room.  When the performances were going on though, time was not dragging at all.  They were all very good, in fact somewhat of a 'greatest hits' of their choreographed routines over the past twenty-five years.  It was nice to see and share with them.

We left there afterwards, dropped by RaceTrac for our usual Sodapalooza refill (already we're up to six or seven refills), and headed home for the day.  Madison had some piano to do, in fact a lot of it to do.  She played her recital piece another twenty times tonight, and still has a bit of work to do on it.  She's really pouring herself into this, trying to get it right.  It just takes time, and hopefully we'll get it up to speed by Tuesday or so.  We'll see.  The deadline for her teacher is Tuesday, but there's another week after that.

As a reward - and a break - for her practice, we finished our "Pirates of the Caribbean" marathon with a look at "On Stranger Tides."  Now that mermaid theme song is stuck in our heads.  But it was another fun visit with the pirates, and now we're officially ready for the fifth movie when that comes out next month.

We've got a big day tomorrow, wrapping up Neverland.  In fact, Daddy is making some emergency script changes even now, so it's time to go.

"Complications arose, ensued, were overcome." 
- Jack Sparrow
  

Side Walk

Madison had a hysterical commentary about a sidewalk today.  There was this Bethel Music conference at the church, and Daddy was actually leaving the office with Mommy and Madison in the car.  This was a few hours before the event, but they were setting things up inside, and as Daddy was driving on the road slowly out of the parking lot, there were a few people walking towards the church in the middle of the road.  They weren't crossing it.  They were just meandering down the middle of the road, at which point Madison points out, "It's called a sidewalk people.  Side, as in to the side.  And then walk."  This was hilarious to us!

She's been a bit stressed today, having to do quite a bit of piano practice, lots more than she's accustomed to.  Basically, she's playing "Pachelbel's Canon in D" about twenty times per day, which means she's getting better and better each day, but it also means that by the time we're done with this recital, none of us will want to hear the song ever again!

We did some work on Summer Xtreme today, as well as put the finishing touches on the Neverland series.  It's an interesting configuration with a large cast, a limited amount of microphones (8-9), and a volunteer cast that shifts with vacations, illnesses and so forth.  Fortunately, our Captain Hook and Peter Pan have been very committed all the way through.

As a reward for so much piano practice tonight, we watched "At World's End," which for Madison was her first time seeing the green flash, the Pirate Lords Who Don't Do Anything, and the amazingly unsatisfying and unhappy ending for Will and Elizabeth.  And I suppose Davy Jones didn't have the best ending either, but from what I understand, Will and Elizabeth will be in part five, so we'll see if they use some creative writing to make all those "Pirates" fans like us happy.

It was a good day outside today, although we did a lot of work inside.  Mommy was catching up on the inside of the house, working on cleaning the garage from the yard sale for starters.  We have some gardening work soon, with more mulch and lawn work ahead.  But the best strategy is to do it one step at a time.  Sort of like the piano practice!

Practicing

Oh boy.  The recitals are coming up soon, and suddenly there's the busy season again.  We've got all kinds of practices going on at home, with our main feature being Pachelbel's Canon in D.  That song is now officially stuck in everyone's heads!  Madison has been a bit behind with this one, but she's practicing it quite a bit.  I think tonight, she did it roughly fifteen times in a row.  Tomorrow, it will be about the same, and Saturday there will be even more because we'll have more time.  She's doing her best though, and that's all we can ask.  She's also supposed to be practicing some ballet moves at home, which is something unique as well.

But just because the Milestones testing is over with, that doesn't mean she's done with school work.  No, she's got a big science project coming up for May.  This year, Madison gets to choose her own science project, and at this point, she's decided to do something with the ocean ecology, perhaps something with the food chains or life cycles.  Not sure at this point, but it was something she kind of got excited about.  Perhaps she's going to be a marine biologist after all?

Perhaps she'll know what to do with errant Titleist golf balls that fly into the ocean.  Anyway, today was a big day for her with dancing.  Daddy stayed in the parking lot, reading this book he's been working on casually for months now.  That just shows you how much time he's had to read lately.  Lots of stuff going on, and we're busy, busy, busy!

Of coarsest there is always time to read before bedtime for Madison, as we continued reading about elements and Descendants.  But she got home from ballet and pretty much ate, and played piano, and went to bed.  Not much time for fun time tonight.  We'll get some more time tomorrow, I suspect.

This morning on the way to school, we left a lot earlier.  And on the way back home after dropping Madison off, there was a tree that had fallen down nearby our house.  Not saying it would have hit us, but it did fall within the ten minute gap that Daddy was dropping her off at school, and on the way back from school.  And since we left earlier than usual, it stands to reason that this might have hit us. Regardless, it was a great teaching moment today, in fact one we were talking about in our college class today, the one Daddy teaches.

Heavy cloud, but no rain.  There were some tremendous thunderstorms just north of us, but once again, we were - for all intents and purposes - dry.  But the weather was overcast at least, and the sun was not that overbearing at all.  It was a good day, really, just a busy one for all of us.

Enrichment Bubbles

After reading tonight - we're still doing "Descendants Return to the Isle of the Lost" - Daddy must have left his shoes in the bedroom.

MADISON:  "Dad?"
DADDY:       "Yes?"
MADISON:  "You left your shoes in here!"
DADDY:       "Do they smell bad?"
MADISON:  "Oh yes!"

We have a funny routine before bed every single night.  I mean all the time.  Every time.  Basically, she's up there brushing her teeth, and she's done washing her face and so forth, and she calls out downstairs saying, "READY!"

So Daddy comes upstairs to look for her.  Because she's always hiding somewhere, and it usually is somewhere different.  Sometimes it is in the bathtub behind the shower curtain.  Sometimes in a hamper.  Sometimes in the towel closet.  Sometimes under the bed, or behind the Paul Revere project she made a while back.  Or sometimes, it is something like this:

This one night she was hiding under the bed, but for emphasis, she had all this stuff stacked up in front of the bottom of the bed.  Or maybe she's hiding over here:

She actually was hiding here this time, but sometimes she'll leave a "trick pile" somewhere so Daddy has to look there mistakenly, and then find her elsewhere.

It's usually pretty funny regardless, this game of hide-and-seek we play each night.  And yes, there is reading, prayer, and zerberts too!

We were filming for SX17 once again today, although this time we were filming the host videos, which are sort of introductory videos for each day.  Rather dull in comparison to super heroes and comics, but they're essential to the whole deal.  We film them in the official studio for Free Chapel, using the nicer equipment, so it all comes out pretty good.

We had to get a few props for this one though, and as it is a superhero series, that meant we got to go to the comic book store to get some props!  We've been hitting the comic book store a lot more recently, especially for the "Poe Dameron" comics.

Madison had enrichment after school today, working on a group project involving bubbles.  That was the best she could do in describing it.  It was a big thing that had bubbles.  Well... I guess we'll have to wait and see on this one!

Oh, wait a minute.  There's something else big that happened today:  SODAPALOOZA.  Already, Daddy has refilled his cup twice.  Yep.  This is the start of the big season of free drinks at RaceTrac, and he got Madison a pink cup, and Ye-Ye his very own red cup.  We're armed and ready to go.  Madison's favorite weapon of choice lately has been the Arnold Palmer half-and-half tea, and Daddy's inaugural drink was the vitamin water, although the slushies are looking pretty tempting!  Madison was so excited to get her cup - it's a big deal.  Now until July 31st, the two of us will have mandatory stops at the gas station for free refills.  It has begun!

Magic Carpets

Leading up to our big recital, the kids in Madison's piano class - and the other classes too - are all filling out a magic carpet shape with their name on it.  They then tape it to the wall, creating a path around the room, one that will lead to Jasmine all the way over there on the other side.

Here's Madison practicing her recital piece.  She's got a long way to go on this one, so the underlying story of the week will be the large amount of practice that she'll be doing whenever possible.  This particular piece is a bit tougher than previous ones, but then again, this is her final big recital number.

It was Taco Tuesday today, and Mommy had a big spread for us set up on the kitchen table when we got home.  This was perfect, because Madison and Daddy were really hungry.  Madison downed something like four tacos!

Homework has been consistent, although nothing complicated or more than usual.  I think things are winding down.  Madison had art today, and she'll have art tomorrow after school again with enrichment.  She's loving that, of course.  She does art at home all the time, so it would stand to reason that trying new mediums would excite her.  Speaking of "new mediums," we found some pottery that we did not sell in the yard sale Saturday, something from Grandma's collection.  It was too nice to sell, and we're glad we didn't do so, because it was signed on the bottom and we looked up the value online.  Sure enough, it'll get us more than a few bucks if we were to sell it.  But we're thinking of holding on to these pieces of pottery - they look nice.

The other thing at school today was a meeting with the speech teacher, who we got to talk with a little.  She told us a bit about phonological organization, suprasegmental aspects, and so forth.  As if we had any idea what she was talking about.  It's one of those conversations where you have a choice:  just smile and nod vaguely, or have a bit of deglutition of your pride.  Yeah, who uses words like that?  Elementary school therapists, evidently.  Before going in to school, you'd best bring a speech therapy glossary with you, because those words fly fast, and your auditory processing might not be able to catch up.  I guess what I'm saying is her prosodic fluency seemed good, but her intelligibility needed a bit of work.  We were hoping for helpful details and strategies, but the meeting wasn't long enough for things like that.  In other words, we'll be working on this on our own a bit.  Madison's speech isn't perfect, and it has a bit to go in order to improve.  We'll keep up the good fight, and try to do some stuff on our own, particularly over the summer.

Tonight, Madison watched "Dead Man's Chest" for the first time, and met Davy Jones and the Kraken for the first time as well.  She loved the movie, particularly the surprise about Hector Barbossa at the end.  That was much the talk tonight before going to bed - she just has to wait about a week to find out what happens next, while Mommy and Daddy waited a year for part three.  Of course, part five will come out soon, and that's the one we're really waiting for, because if there's one thing the pirates movies need, it's some sense of closure for certain story lines.  There are so many loose ends with these movies!

Anyway, we read tonight, prayed, and got Madison in bed at a reasonable hour.  We got up early this morning for that speech therapy meeting, and she's due a good night's sleep.  That, and Mommy and Daddy have their appointment tonight with "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."  Hopefully we can stay up late for that.  That 10:00 pm time slot is rough on us!

Fire the Pachelbel Canons!

Madison was really proud of her checkers game this morning.  Apparently, she was up against one of the other whiz kids at school, and found an opportunity to do a decisive double-jump that cost her opponent the win.  She was also sure to let us know that she told him "Good game" afterwards, because good sportsmanship is important too.  But it was funny listening to her regale us with her triumphant story of an epic match between intellectual giants.

This is a season where we're prepping for Summer Xtreme, which traditionally means fewer words on this blog.  We just have so much to do with filming and editing and writing and all the other details it takes to make a camp like that work.

We had ballet and jazz tonight, and Daddy had mulch.  This is also a season of mulch, where the car and garage start smelling like mulch.  The front yard certainly does, because bag after bag goes out there, and we have a lot more area left to cover.  I can cram eight bags in the trunk, but we didn't put any in the backseat because of the rains recently.  We use red mulch, and it sort of wants to color everything else red as well.

Madison is practicing her piano, but it's clear she has a long way to go on this.  So we'll have to intensify the practice a bit as we head down the home stretch.   When she finished, we did a bit of video gaming just to bring it down a notch.  Madison created a race track based on "Guardians of the Galaxy," and she called it "Racetrack of the Galaxy."  Rocket and Star-Lord were racing each other, trying to avoid all the traps that Madison put out.

Tonight before bed, we read a few excerpts from "The Price of Freedom," which explains how Jack Sparrow made a deal with Davy Jones, along with a few other things, like why is the Black Pearl black?  Or why doesn't Jack Sparrow tell anyone what his plan is?  Or how did he even get a ship?  Or why is it that Cutler Beckett hates him so much?  Things like that.  The last two chapters are pretty much all you need to read to find this sort of thing out, which is what Daddy read to Madison tonight, in a sort-of abridged version.  She and Mommy liked hearing that.  Daddy read the book some time ago, and with all the Jack Sparrow history going on lately, this was a good thing to share before bed.  Arrr!

Quarter Given

Another weekend in Neverland, although things are starting to come to a close.  This weekend, we bid farewell to Wendy for the time being.  Remember, there's no such thing as "Goodbye" in Neverland.  Madison and her fellow Lost Boys and Indians are determined to get to the Jolly Roger to rescue Rufio and Tinkerbell, and a lesson is learned along the way about having faith, trust, and something else as well...

And here's Daddy as a pirate once more, hosting our pirate races beforehand.  We were off to go find Captain Hook, after his humiliating defeat a few weeks ago with all those kids in the audience yelling out, "Tick, tick, tick!"  We had ourselves a bit of pirating today, a theme that continued unexpectedly into the afternoon.  Arrr...

It was a great morning at KidPak, and another great service for the kids.  As usual, Madison was with the audience for the message portion, where Joey shared with the kids a Bible story about Abraham, and about walking in faith, and counting the dust.  Not pixie dust, of course.

In the afternoon, we were cleaning up a bit from yesterday.  Madison is improving with her piano practice for the recital, and we were collecting items for Mrs. Pam's "Arabian Nights" theme. 

We've been reading a lot today, with the latest "Poe Dameron" comics that Madison has to see, but also the elements devotional that Daddy wrote, along with the "Descendants:  Return to the Isle of the Lost" book.  It's a bigger book, so we're doing a couple chapters a day.  Despite that, we'll be on this one for a bit.  Madison got this for Christmas, and we're just now getting to it, due to the binge-reading of the Jack Sparrow book.  But don't worry - we'll pick up with the next Jack Sparrow books soon enough.  After the initial series, there is another book about Billy Turner, and then about five with the Brethren Court.  Madison is very much into the pirates now, so much so that we re-watched the original "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie tonight, and plan on going through the following three over the next month some time, leading up to the one we'll see in theaters. 

One short we watched tonight was something called "Tales of the Code:  Wedlocked," which was an entertaining short that explained a few things leading up to the actual first movie.  It's only about ten minutes long, but Madison and Mommy got a kick out of it.

Speaking of getting a kick out of something, Nana dropped by with some coins this afternoon.  No, they weren't cursed coins.  These were state quarters, and quite a few of the park quarters as well.  Madison immediately went to plug these into her maps she has, the ones with spots to press in those quarters.  Even better, all these were in mint condition, nice and shiny.  It took a bit of time to find each place for each quarter, but she's got quite a few of them now.  It's not a complete collection, but she's certainly well on her way!

Neighborhood Yard Sale

A very big portion of today was spent outside at our annual yard sale.  It's a community yard sale, so we took advantage of this timing by getting all of great-grandma's stuff out onto the driveway to see if any of it would sell for charity.  The charity in question was Jonathan's upcoming missions trip to Honduras, and by the end of the day, we amassed something like $450.  That chair you see Nana seated in went to our next door neighbor, but we unfortunately didn't get rid of the Haiti artifacts.  I'm sure you'll see that again as a joke gift for Christmas!

Mommy had chicken teriyaki that Daddy grilled out on the back porch, and there was macaroni salad, mashed potatoes and other food items to have for lunch.  We grilled the chicken on sticks, and it turned out really tasty!  

Madison at one point did something all on her own:  she walked up to Jonathan and gave him five dollars of her own money as a donation.  It was really sweet.

Today is Earth Day, so Daddy had a few tsum-tsums to give to Madison, partially as something to remember the day, and also something to reward her for that giving spirit she had showed.  The tsum-tsums she is adding to her collection are Wall-E and Eve, and they're currently on her bed right now, next to the growing army of other tsum-tsums up there.

The day went well, and the weather was perfect for such an event.  A nice cool breeze would come by, and we just sat there together in the shade, talking and sometimes haggling with folks who would expect a price drop from fifty cents to thirty-five.  Really?  We're not much on the haggling, and there weren't too many of these types of people, but there are plenty that come out with that healthy spirit of haggling, as if we are in China or something.  Our prices were already so amazingly low to begin with, and in one experiment later on, Ye-Ye actually started out with a much higher price, then dropped it to what we expected, and we got what we expected, with a fifty dollar gain for the missions trip.

Tonight, we concluded our voyages of Sinbad, at least Harryhausen's Sinbad journeys.  We watched "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger," which has nothing to do with Rocky or Mr. T.  Actually, the "tiger" bit only shows up at the end, by which point you sort of almost forgot about it.  A good portion of this movie takes place in the arctic, with ice and snow and... giant super-sized walruses.  No doubt PETA is probably not pleased about.  This supernaturally large walrus squashes a few of Sinbad's men, so maybe that's something that would get them cheering.

Ironically, there's an animated walrus in the movie "Elf," and right next to that is a polar bear who is voiced by Harryhausen himself.  

It was a good day today.  We're now reading with Madison a book called, "Return to the Isle of the Lost," which is something we saw an advertising poster for down at the Transportation Center there by the Seven Seas Lagoon.  A few months later, Madison got the book for Christmas, and here we are, visiting with Mal, Carlos, Evie and Jay as they return to the Isle of the Lost.  Or, at least I think that's what's going to happen.  It is the title of the book.

Turtley Enough

Madison is always using her markers and colored pencils.  It's one of those things that she does in her spare time, and it's something we don't discourage.  The handheld device is a nice diversion, but when she's creating, it's a wonderful thing to watch.  She devotes a lot of energy to details in coloring, especially with some of those booklets we got her at Christmas time.  They require a lot of detail and time, and she's quite committed when it comes down to it.  This sea turtle drawing was just a random thing she came up with, just off the top of her head.  Perhaps she was inspired by the fact that she's going to camp at the Marine Science Center this summer.  She's also inspired by the fact that she's going to Summer Xtreme a few weeks early in June.  That's coming up relatively soon, and Daddy's in panic mode (as are the other staff members).  We have so much to do, and there are complications. The I-85 bridge collapse is just a tiny complication, one we have to work around if we're going down to the zoo.  But that's just one of many, many, many issues.  Fortunately, one thing is wrapped up, and that issue is the booklets.  Daddy has been proofing like crazy this week - the May booklets alone have around ninety pages to proof.  The Summer Xtreme booklets are another fifty-six pages on top of that.  Daddy has written all of this for this year's HEROES events, and fortunately, he's started earlier in the year, like back in January.

We mentioned that Madison has her own hero, one who goes to school with Xavier's gifted students.  Madison's alter-ego is a hero named Bloom, and this year, she's right there amongst the other fifty-six heroes Daddy wrote a devotional entry about.  In fact, here she is:

“All of you must obey those who rule over you. There are no authorities except the ones God has chosen. Those who now rule have been chosen by God.” Romans 13:1 NIRV 

BLOOM

     If you want to know which hero has a greenest thumb, that would be Bloom. She’s a superhero that can make plants grow at her command, and if you think that’s no big deal, you’ve never been tangled up in an attack of thorny vines. Or found yourself falling asleep from an avalanche of poppies, or struggling to breathe because of a pollen burst. She can tie bad guys up with vines, or create a wall of cactus to hold just about anyone back. The point is this: don’t mess with Bloom.
     But to begin with, Bloom had quite a bit to learn about being a superhero. That’s how she found herself with Professor Charles Xavier, and his school for gifted heroes. She’s spent quite a long time learning how to be a hero, while also learning about some of those other subjects that students need to study. She is at a school, after all!
     With all those gifts, she could have thought she didn’t need to go into that school. But a real hero isn’t like that. No, a real hero knows there’s always something new to learn. The moment you start thinking you know it all is the moment you stop learning anything new.
     Our Heavenly Father wants to lift us up, training us to be the heroes the world needs. To do this, He has put people in our lives to help us: parents, teachers, pastors, and leaders. These people were put in place by God Himself, and when we respect them, we’re respecting God Himself. When we disrespect them... well, you can see where this is going, can’t you? Let’s just put it this way: don’t.
     Those people God has put over us are there to help us grow. And when we submit to them, obey them, and listen to them, each of us will bloom into the hero God wants to see save the world. 

We had egg salad sandwiches today, the legacy of a week that starts out with Easter.  Whereas leftover turkey is the thing to eat after Thanksgiving, this week is always about egg salad sandwiches.  Or at least hard-boiled eggs for breakfast.  Madison does eat those for breakfast, although she isn't a big fan of the yolks.  She eats the egg white, along with toast, sometimes yogurt, sometimes cereal, and always a cup of tea.  Each morning, Mommy wakes us all up to a cup of delicious tea.  Three of us sit there with tea, a right proper way to start the day if you ask me!

Tonight, we went on the "Golden Voyage of Sinbad," the second movie in our Harryhausen series we're binge-watching.  With the mention of Sinbad on Tuesday in music class, we've launched on these voyages just to show Madison the amazing movies we ourselves grew up on.  They've been talking about Greek mythology in school a little bit, so as you can imagine, "Jason and the Argonauts" isn't that far behind.  Along with "Hercules," of course.  We had a big discussion tonight about Roman names for Greek names of various gods and goddesses.  And with all that, a decision to go see a version of "The Odyssey" next year as it comes to the Gainesville Theater Alliance.  Yes, we're getting season tickets again, and soon enough!

The Evil of Sawbriers (and other news)

Pollen.  It's all over.  Still.  This year has been different for pollen.  Whereas we usually have the explosive sort of few weeks, where clouds of yellow ominously descend down upon the landscape, this year it's been more of a more subtle constant.  It's evidenced on the roads and cars, as always.  And it's evidenced by the fact that we have to take medication too.  Usually, the pollen effect on us is like wasabi, where it's shorter, and more explosive - but it goes away.  This year, it's more like habanero, which lingers with you for much longer.  That may be a terrible analogy, but it isn't as bad as what the pollen is this year.  We're all not liking it.  At all.

Fortunately, rain is on the way, and the promise of a breath of fresh air.  Until then, we retreat inside, which is the curse of this sort of springlike weather.  Here we are, just waiting for the weather to warm up to a point where it isn't too hot like in the summer, and we can't stay out there for too long, for fear of clogging up our lungs with that noxious yellow powder.

There are things to celebrate though.  For one, Madison is done with the Milestones testing.  She's completed her tests, and feels great about how she did.  Last year, you may remember she was sick the whole week, resulting in make-up tests later on.  Not this time.  She's been healthy, and that's something else to celebrate. Sure, she has to take allergy medication each morning, just like Daddy suddenly does.  But she's doing fine with her health.  Also, the skin breakouts can be managed, and that's great news for her appearance.  She's having to do quite a bit to her face each night before bed, but at least it's keeping her complexion much-improved.  We were worried for a short time, fearful that we'd have to go see yet another set of unique doctors prescribing unique medication with unique diets and so on.  But not so much.

An update on speech:  it's better.  It's nothing measurable, but there has been slight improvement over time, and I personally don't really credit the schools or anything.  We've got an appointment for next week to meet with the school's speech therapist, and beforehand we were supposed to fill out this assessment for that sort of addresses what we thought of the school's speech program.  We honestly had nothing to say one way or another, because there is very little communication.  Sometimes it's difficult to get Madison to say anything about what she's done in speech, or sometimes it seems like they just play games and so forth.  I think the other speech therapy we went to down in Alpharetta was more effective, or at least we got an idea of what was being worked on or what progress was being made.  It's not that Madison has difficulty communicating.  Even better, she seems to get along socially without any problems.  But her speech is not at that place yet where we think it needs to be, and as such we'll keep pressing for improvements.  Not on her so much, as we think she's doing all that can be done.  But if there's anything further we can do to partner with the therapists, we're all on board.  In the meantime, she's still fearless and oblivious that there's any improvements that need to be made in the first place.  If we don't understand her, why, that's our problem!  In fact, she's just recently asked Daddy if she can have more lines to say on stage with our current Neverland play.  She's fearless about speaking in front of large groups of people.  That might come in handy someday, a rather useful skill.

We're doing stories on the way to school, and on the way to ballet, and she helps out with the stories.  Her character Bloom is a favorite that has adventures with other Marvel superheroes.  Her favorites are currently Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who seem to be besties with Bloom right now.  Their adventures are roughly as long as it takes to get to our destinations, but they're fun!

We're continuing our yard work outside, adding mulch and removing limbs from these Bradford pear trees in the front yard.  Mommy believes they're creating so much shade that it is difficult for grass to grow below.  With these branches cut, there's more room in our front yard, or at least it appears that way.  Ye-Ye came over and was very helpful in cleaning up.  Nana came over too, as we went to battle against those vile, insidious saw briers.  This plant is pure evil.

You have to dig for a while to get to this root - Daddy was digging for about twenty minutes to get this one, deep within.  It's like this pulsating heart-shape thing, complete with ventricles and aortas and stuff.  Daddy felt like Mola Rom, hoisting it up in the air with a maniacal laugh.  I left it at our front door like a cat would some dead prize, just so Mommy could see it.  And don't think just pulling at the top will work, because it is covered with thorns that penetrate garden gloves, and there is this network down below that must be entirely unearthed.

But unearth some we did, despite their sinister attempts to root themselves right with the other plants in a despicable attempt to protect themselves from getting pulled up.  We won the day though, and will continue our campaign against this detestable enemy!  We will win the day!

Clay Pizza

Madison returned to enrichment today after school, once again signed up for art class.  They were working with clay today, making clay pizza.  The basic idea is a pizza pie, and then the various shapes for the toppings.  Sadly, they could not eat these pizzas.  But they were serving them to various golems that showed up at the school, all part of some fund raiser because as you know, golems are rather wealthy.

Daddy was in class tonight with the kids, while Madison was playing games, playing piano, and playing the part of a studious little girl with her homework.  We did read a bit tonight, although it was rather short.  We saw the end of Captain Torrents, who had the grave misfortune of falling overboard into the open sea.  While this is generally not fatal, the fact that there were a bunch of ravenous mermaid and mermen creatures down there... that was.  And so, we're approaching the end of our twelve book saga, although the piracy theme in this house seems to be at fever pitch.  Already, there are requests to go through the four movies, all in preparation for the next movie that will be coming out shortly in theaters, part five.  Madison will have to go see that one with us, just to say she saw it in theaters.  Pirates of the Caribbean has such a legacy now, mainly because it was the one movie that lifted the curse on pirate movies in general.  For a time, we all loved pirate movies but they could never get one just right.  "Cutthroat Island" tried very hard to, and it wasn't bad for what it was.  But there's no denying the absolute awesomeness that is the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie.  Automatically, a pirate movie gets a +2 on the rolling die when you're giving it a grade, simply because there are pirates in it.  But this movie already was a perfect 10.  So there you go.

Anyway, Madison finished her Milestones testing today, so that milestone is crossed.  She feels like she did rather well with the testing.  She said she finished them all, and went back to check her work, and didn't really have much of a problem with the questions.  We'll see how the results turn out, but we know she'll be fine.  Even if the testing tells us otherwise, we know that she has mastered a lot of the material she's been learning in school this year.  If there's a flaw in the testing, it is because the testing itself is flawed.  Of course, teachers know this already.

Today, Daddy went to Cracker Barrel with the KidPak staff for a meeting of sorts.  Note the delicious Stewart's Orange & Cream at Daddy's place there.  Here are a few of the staff members, before everyone got there.  Pastor Lance there is learning how to do that peg game, the one that calls you an ignoramus if you can't get it right with one peg left.  Daddy has a pattern memorized for this game, and gets it right every time.  Ever the teacher, we had "class" today, learning the peg game at Cracker Barrel.  No more will we be called an ignoramus!

Sinbad

Tonight we stopped for a bit of education on the topic of all things Sinbad.  And Ray Harryhausen.  As we've been gearing up for the "Arabian Nights" with Madison's piano recital, at the end of each class, Mrs. Pam reads a bit from the 1001 Arabian nights, just as Scheherazade would tell them (in a kid-friendly way), including the brutal cliffhanger that makes you want to come back next time to find out what happens next.  In today's tale, the fisherman who let out a demon from a bottle is made wealthy due to his cleverness, and as he goes to meet the king, he also meets a sailor named Sinbad.  That being said, we got home and decided tonight's movie would be the classic from 1958, "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad."  We had the popcorn all set up, and immediately started remembering all the epic monsters, including that hapless Cyclops.  The poor thing just wants to keep his treasure, and all these petty humans keep coming in to steal from him.  It's like ants wanting to ruin his picnic or something.  Sinbad knows better, but of course there wouldn't be a movie if there weren't a bad guy that wants to go around and mess with everything.  

There are two more of these Sinbad movies, and we'll probably watch them soon, just because.  It was fun talking about Ray Harryhausen again too, as the guy was a legend.  Daddy just loved all his movies, and from the looks of things, a lot of famous directors were inspired by his work.  We were talking about that with Madison, the whole stop-motion animation thing again.  Considering this was a 1958 movie, it's pretty amazing what he could do.

Today was the second day of Milestones testing, and Madison felt like she did good with it.  Not much else goes on this week, and there's no homework, so that's good.  Mommy and Daddy were doing quite a bit outside, and even Nana and Ye-Ye were over to help out in the front yard and with the yard sale stuff.  We're having our yard sale on Saturday, along with the rest of the neighborhood, hoping to move some of the furniture and items from Grandma's collection.  The further hope is to raise enough to help Madison's cousin Jonathan, so he can go on a mission trip to Central America this summer.  Hopefully the whole family will be there, and it will be a fun morning selling items for the missions trip.

We read from Daddy's "Weird Science" devotional tonight, one that has a Periodic Table of Elements in the back.  Each day is dedicated to a different element, and Madison is pretty interested in the different ones we were talking about tonight.  And of course, there was Jack Sparrow.  It appears as if we're gearing up for a big battle with Captain Torrents, once and for all.  We'll see how things turn out, but not tomorrow night because it's a church night!  It'll have to wait until Thursday...

Okay, it's late, and it's time to watch "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."  That's Mommy and Daddy time, and we're quite concerned with the turn some characters have taken as of late.  Hopefully we'll have a less tragic sort of episode tonight.  Goodnight!

Milestones

Ballet/Jazz was tonight, as you can see here.  Daddy and Mommy did grocery shopping while Madison and her friends were practicing their final positions, doing run-throughs of the entire performances time and again.  Madison said her legs were pretty sore - as were all the girls' legs - from one particular move.  She demonstrated this move for us later, and yeah, you can see it causing a bit of soreness if repeated over and over again.

We finally got our taxes done today, and yes, there's a bit of a refund.  It's always such a sobering day to see how much you pay in the first place.  All these Statue of Liberty costumes this time of year though, standing on street corners advertising for folks that do your taxes for you.  It's been a growing trend over the past years, more and more Statue of Liberties standing out there on street corners, waving at you or aggressively waving signs at you.

Within a few years, the streets will be absolutely infested.  We may have to get some sort of spray.

Today was the first day of the Milestones testing, but Madison wasn't stressed at all about it.  She's pretty confident, or at least pretty stress-free about it.  She said she did pretty well though, and the rest of the day was pretty quiet at school.  The schools are pretty paranoid about test season, with signs telling everyone to be super quiet in the halls, notes about sleep patterns, and best of all:  no homework!

We had a visit to the dentist today, Mommy and Daddy.  We did great, and it went well getting down there too.  Although we weren't deep in the heart of Atlanta, we were more in the suburbs than we've been recently, and with the bridge collapse of I-85, we were thinking things might be a challenge.  But not so much.  Still, things have been tough for Atlanta, as the roads have seen even more challenges.  Much has been said about "a curse" on the area, and the question posed:  what was done to invoke such a curse?  We have a small idea, of course, and it has nothing to do with the plague of Statue of Liberties swarming about.

Easter Baskets

Easter Sunday is here again, and it came early of course as we all were getting props for the service in the main sanctuary, dressing up, and getting all kinds of gifts and baskets to come along with us for church.  It's a big day today, Resurrection Sunday, and we were off to church for a few services where we sang worship songs and listened together as a family as Pastor Lance read to us all from the Bible. 

It was a long morning, especially when following the big day we had yesterday at church.  Nevertheless, Daddy was out there in the bunny costume again, posing with kids in the Easter Bunny throne area that was built for the event yesterday.  There were a lot of pictures taken of Daddy with kids this morning, although of course it wasn't Daddy:  it was the Easter Bunny.  And the kids love the Easter Bunny, giving him hugs and kisses and delighted smiles.  Fun morning!

At home, here was the Easter basket left in the kitchen for Madison.  It had a "Trolls" theme to it, complete with the movie, of course.  But as you can see, it is filled with all kinds of other "Trolls" items, most of which have something to do with candy.  There was a clearance sale at Joanne's a month or so ago, and we thought it would make a great basket theme!

Afterwards, we went over to Aunt Shain's for dinner with the rest of the family, and it was a nice time.  We hid eggs in the front yard, so Madison and her three cousins could go looking for color-coded eggs.  Madison was after the pink ones:

The weather outside was almost like summer, or at least late spring.  Which isn't terribly far off, I suppose.  Anyway, it was nearly just plain hot.  We were out there looking for the eggs, each kid looking for exactly twenty.  And it took a while to find those last lingering eggs, but every single one was found!

We had some desert after that - Mommy made this excellent carrot cake.  We also exchanged baskets, which in our family is a time-honored tradition.  Seriously, we go through a lot of effort for each of these baskets, and some of them came out really great.  Here's just a few of them.  We'll start with the one that we made for Hannah.

It's a No-Face themed basket.  He's a character from "Spirited Away."  Daddy made that egg on Tuesday, and we ordered the plush No-Face online, also adding plenty of black jelly beans to the basket.  Mommy thinks they look like susuwatari, those little football creatures in the movie.  

Here's another basket that we've been collecting stuff for since October.  It's a "Grumpy Cat" themed basket!

Mommy did a fantastic job with this one.  Obviously there's the egg from Tuesday, but look at all the other stuff in there.  There's even a Little Golden Book in there as well!  Mommy cut out the best Easter-related Grumpy Cat memes, and made a bit of wallpaper around the edges.  

Here's the basket that Aunt Shain made for Mommy and Daddy:

Imagine if some of the servants in Beast's castle got the less glamorous enchantments.  You can see above in "Beast's Other Servants" how one was apparently turned to a garbage can, which she used as a basket.  Inside there was animated toilet paper, diaper rash ointment, corn cushions, and more.  There was candy at the bottom of this basket, but apparently you'll have to fight all these ornery servants to get to it!

We made one basket for the boys, and it had a Wonder Woman theme.  This was because we got them some Amazon gift cards, writing on the back that they were from "the Amazonians."

Madison got some nice baskets as well, collecting about five more new Tsum-tsums today, one of the rabbit Thumper, and four other ones from the movie "Moana."  She already has them up in bed with her.

We got home, and Madison wanted to watch a few episodes of "Mighty Med," after her piano practice, of course.  Mommy took a bath, and Daddy was catching up on the blog here.  We read some more from the last of the young Jack Sparrow books, "Bold New Horizons," and also from the Neverland devotional - just one day left in that one.

And then we said our prayers.  It's an early night tonight, because tomorrow we have Milestones testing.  It's a big deal around here, and we're glad Madison is healthy enough to take the tests this year.  Last year, she was sick the whole week and had to make it up later.  Still, she did great.  And we think she'll do great tomorrow.  We're very proud of her!

Eggstravaganza!

So here we are at the great Eggstravaganza!  We put together an amazing egg hunt today at the church, with something like 12,000 eggs.  Seriously.  We had 12,000 filled eggs today.  This is crazy.  But isn't as crazy as having an egg hunt at a church with construction going on and virtually no lawn area whatsoever.  Still, we pulled it off with the limited real estate available, and it was a great time for Madison and all the other kids that were here.  She was jumping on all the inflatables, sliding down that towering slide, riding ponies, holding bunny rabbits, holding baby chicks too.  She was even eating from a food truck!  After that, Daddy got her a icee as well, because the weather was pretty warm today.  But the main event was the egg hunt itself.  There were a few different waves for kids of different ages.  And Madison got to go twice.  She was really proud of herself, gathering fourteen eggs or so in her bag.  She did great, at one point, sitting in a corner inside and counting her candy loot.  Yes, it's another one of these holidays with lots of candy.

As for Daddy, he sat around most of the day.  You can see him below with Madison:

Here's a picture of Madison and Daddy from today.  Yeah, Daddy was the Easter Bunny today.  This was insanely hot.  But the kids loved it, as evidenced by the relentless line that lasted a few hours.  Afterwards, Daddy went inside and just sat in the air conditioning for a while, drinking down as much water as he could.

It was a huge success though, which on one hand we can all be very proud of it.  On the other hand, that probably means we have to do it again next year!  Still, we have a good blueprint on how to go about doing this, and we didn't really have any serious challenges along the way.  We really overthought this one, planning out the locations of things, plotting where to put what volunteers, what music is to be played, how to distribute eggs, and all of the other issues that popped up.  We were ready for it all.  We even remembered to turn off the lawn sprinklers.  That would have been funny if we didn't though...!

After the Eggstravaganza, Madison and Daddy went over to the North Campus for round two of the filming for Summer Xtreme video.  Daddy was a lab scientist once again, and behind the scenes, Madison was taking some pictures as a photojournalist!

Here's a picture Madison took of the main villain of the movie.  His name is Titan, and he's got quite a presence.  He sends all the lab people scurrying off in terror.  Here he is with the filming crew below, in another picture that Madison took using her iPad mini:

Amy is holding the boom while Josh holes the camera.  Pastor Lance is our main villain, and there's our lab assistant and old friend Briana in for a cameo!  Also appearing as a scientist is our friend Calvin, who also of course is a superhero.  Below, you can see us doing our latest experiment, something we call Science Jenga.

Madison was having fun snapping pictures of all of us, collecting them on her iPad mini for posterity.  Here's one more before we move on...

Briana treats Madison so well, but she treats everyone so well.  We have a lot of wonderful friends at the church.

One of the other things that Madison was doing while we were filming here was this:  playing pool.  Yep, there was another pool table or two there, so she was doing a bit of practice with her shots there.  Also nearby was a video game console that allows you to play the some old 80's games like Pac-Man, Mrs. Pac-Man, Dig Dug and more.  Madison played Mrs. Pac-Man first for a while, and then tried her hand at Dig Dug.  Daddy was with her for that last one, playing as well.  We were doing well, and in fact got the high score on the gaming console!

We got home later, and boy we were tired.  Still, we thought popcorn would hit the spot, so we popped in a movie, "Aladdin and the King of Thieves," which is a short one.  It's also a good one, with a return of Robin Williams as the Genie.  We sat for a bit watching that, and then it was off to bed for prayers, reading of the devotional, and of course the start of a new Jack Sparrow book called "Bold New Horizons."

We had a pretty full day though, obviously!  And we're all pretty zonked.  Time for bed!

Star Stuff

As with many of our series at KidPak, there are typically other things going on externally that sort of accompany what we do.  One example of this is the play we saw tonight, "Peter and the Star Catchers."  It was at a theater we haven't been to yet, the Ed Cabell Theater at the Gainesville College campus.  We had second-row seats, and the action was in our faces the whole night.  What a fast-paced play!

Daddy has read all the books, and that being said, this was a very good telling of the story.  Obviously, there are plenty of differences.  But the core of the story is there, and it is told in a different tone that has you very much invested in the production the whole way through.  It's unique, it's creative, and it's a whole lot of fun!

Madison, Daddy and Madison went tonight, although we were joined by some friends from KidPak, the same ones that have had tickets for "Beauty and the Beast" and other productions this season.  Why look!  It's another selfie with Camille!

Tonight was the last one of this season we're going to, and it was a fantastic way to end things out with the GTA season, and to a lesser extent, our "Neverland" series.  Madison just loved it, but so did Mommy and Daddy and everyone else who came.

So that was the night.  The day was a good day too - in fact, it was "Good Friday" today, with a service at noon at the church, along with a bit of work and preparation at the office for the Eggstravaganza tomorrow.  Also, we have a service on Easter, of course.

With that going on, earlier today after school, we did some decorating around the house, adding to the Easter village.  We got the flag up in the front yard, and Daddy even had time to make up Mommy's Easter basket:

There's a new CeCe Winans release out, and Mommy likes her a lot.  So Daddy made the bunny a doctor, and printed out a prescription that reads, "For that 'down' feeling, take two CeCe's of until better.  - Dr. E. Bunny."  Of course, it's a play on words.  Hopefully Mommy will like it!

Oh!  And I almost forgot!  Today Madison - and the rest of the world - saw the new teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars movie due out in December.  That's enough to get everyone excited.  Hopefully the world will stop gassing each other or testing missiles or dropping the mother of all bombs long enough so that we can all live in peace and be around to watch said Star Wars movie... it's been an eventful few weeks in the world, with those festering sores known as Syria and North Korea.  We have a more aggressive President, or at least one who means what he says.  Hopefully we won't have to call too many more bluffs.  This week, we dropped the "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan, a new military fumigation system for nests of terrorists.  It was apparently terribly effective.  The world-wide nest seems pretty stirred up though, and it seems as if action of some form is inevitable.  The question is what side of the action will Russia land on - that always seems to be the question.  It's an interesting time, certainly.

Constance

We're reading fast and furious now, approaching the big ending to this 12-book series.  It seems like we started this months ago... because we did.  Anyway, we're at "Poseidon's Peak" now, and we've had a special visit from Constance the Cat.

This is strangely one of Madison's favorite characters.  It is such an abused, mangy sort of character, and yet inside we all know it has a heart of gold.  And inside, despite the protests of all the other characters, we know that they love this pathetic little cat.

But she's been gone for several books now, and the return of Constance was something rather wonderful tonight in reading, something Daddy had the benefit of seeing coming, and something he took a moment to lift his eyes from the book to see as he said her name slowly to Mommy and Madison.  Both of them laughed out loud, quite thrilled to see the return of this cat.  Strange, and possibly unintended, but this was the best part of this book thus far.

Tonight we had ballet again, where Daddy has been writing and reading and just enjoying the nice weather outside.  Madison did her math homework on the way to ballet, but it didn't take that long.  Next week, she won't have any homework due to the Milestones tests.  There are all kinds of recommendations for sleep and rest coming home, all of which we will ignore this weekend because it's Easter.  But we usually follow the example of ten hours of sleep for Madison, and that's one of the keys to our success, I suspect.  A good night's rest is vital for all these kids as they grow.  Madison is rarely tired, unless of course we keep her out late to watch a play, or something like that.  I brought that up because tomorrow, we're keeping her out late to watch a play.  More on that... tomorrow.

In the meantime, today was a quiet day.  Daddy had his class in the morning, and Mommy was preparing some Easter baskets.  Madison put out our Easter village this week, as seen here:

As noted earlier, we're not ones to go out and buy these villages.  But this one was at a dollar store, and as each item was just a dollar, we thought it would be hilarious to infest Ye-Ye's house with all these intricate little bunny homes.  Eventually, we got it back, and haven't had the heart to get rid of it.  So now, we own a bunny village, one that Madison proudly puts out on display each Easter.

There is one bunny in this picture that is either ready to go play tennis, or possibly assault a few other bunnies in the foreground.  Anyway, it's a cute little village and it is kind of growing on us.  No doubt, it is probably worth more to us at this point than it actually would be to anyone else.  There's sentimental value to it now, which means we're keeping it around to let us know that Easter's on the way!

Pet Rocks

It's Easter week, and that being said, there's a lot going on.  Tonight, one of Daddy's projects for the kids was something he and Mommy came up with.  It's a recap of what Palm Sunday is all about:

The kids all made their own pet rocks, and used the glue dots to fix these rocks to the picture Daddy made above.  They all turned out great, although some of the boys were insistent that their larger rocks have more than two eyes.

It was a rather busy day today, with preparation for all kinds of things, such as class or the college class tomorrow, and of course this weekend's Eggstravaganza.  In other news, Madison watched tonight "The Return of Jafar," continuing our mini-movie marathon based on movies from the Mid-East.  We've done "The Thief and the Cobbler" thus far, and we're doing the Aladdin movies.  But not far on the horizon are the Ray Harryhausen movies with Sinbad - Daddy can't wait to see these again!  Not sure if she's ready for "Prince of Persia" yet, but those are just a few to keep us in the theme of "Arabian Nights," something Mrs. Pam is still working on for the piano recital.

One wonderful thing that happened today is the registration for Madison to a camp at the Marine Science Center at Ponce Inlet.  It'll be a week-long adventure, one where Madison will be kayaking to see manatees, flopping up the shore like a sea turtle, visiting the marine hospital, seeing all kinds of animals, and the most famous things thus far:  dissecting a squid, and dissecting owl poop.  Yes, these are the sorts of things that captivate a child's imagination!  But seriously, she is looking forward to this quite a bit, and of course we are too, knowing the educational experiences that await.  It's such a unique opportunity, and with Nana and Ba-Ba so close to that location, it's an opportunity we couldn't resist.

Madison made one of those pet rocks tonight, selecting her favorite rock out of the bag and creating a new friend to remind her of Luke 19:40.  Daddy has that very scripture on a brick in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta right now.  It's a great scripture, one we'll be talking about in college tomorrow, along with a few other things...!

Egg People

It was that time again today, time to dye some Easter eggs!  As you can see above, we did some fun ones.  This is our "Happy Easter" display plate, where we put our favorites up for show, although they have to go into the refrigerator to keep.

This is Yoda.  Madison made Yoda, basically drawing a face first and then getting the idea to add ears as well next.  She drew the ears out, cut them out, and taped them to the side.  This was probably the longest time we spent on eggs ever, as some of these individual eggs took longer.  For example, here's another one that Daddy did:

This is No-Face.  Those of you with good memories might remember that Daddy did a pumpkin carving of No-Face back on Halloween.  This is for a basket that we're making for Madison's cousin Hannah, which should have a No-Face theme to it.  She's a big Miyazaki fan.  And here's another theme we have for Aunt Shain:

This is Grumpy Cat.  Daddy drew this one on the egg with some markers, and it came out pretty well.  This one should be great for Easter when we see Aunt Shain, but as you can see, we were taking our time pretty well with the eggs we were doing, and the going was slow. 

To help pass the time, we popped in the old Rank and Bass animation with Fred Astaire in it, "The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town!"  On top of that, we had a new egg spinner that works like a spin art machine that happens to have an egg in the spinner.  The end result is a series of colorful spiraling shapes and painted patterns on the eggs.  But the old-fashioned method of leaving an egg in dye is always good.  Here are a few below.  Do you recognize these eggs?

These are eggs from "Inside Out."  Yes, there's Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Joy!  And speaking of "Joy," here's a pretty happy egg below:

Madison had stickers to put on various eggs to give them faces.  This guy here seems pretty content where he's at, having a good time.  And so did we, all the way up to the traditional dumping of the dyes into the sink to mix the colors.  

We had piano today after class, the students all catching up from Spring Break.  Some time this week, Daddy will have to start recording Madison as she plays her recital tune - that's coming up sooner than everyone realizes.  It'll be sad for us all, as this is Madison's final year in these sort of classes.  At least for the time being.  It could be that Mrs. Pam continues for just this class next year, but we'll see how that turns out towards the end of this year.  She could be too busy, or decide against it for other reasons.  We're not done seeing her, of course.  In fact, today we brought by a bunch of things for her treasure chest, the rewards system she has for kids doing all their assignments.  We've also been bringing by props for the "Arabian Nights" recital set.  

At the end of each class, she's been reading to the kids a portion of the Arabian Nights stories, and each time she leaves them with a cliffhanger, just the way Scheherazade did when telling the stories to begin with.  The kids groan and complain about the cliffhanger too, just the way the king did!

Speaking of cliffhangers, the latest reading of "Poseidon's Peak" has taken a twist that had Mommy and Madison smiling big as Daddy read the next part of the story.  She's going to bed dreaming about pirates ...and mangy cats.

Here we go again...

The weather is wonderful - except for perhaps the excessive pollen.  But we're out weeding and getting things ready while we sniffle and down our allergy medication.  Ugh!  This season is pretty, but it gets you sniffing and snorting, all three of us!

We dropped Madison off for ballet and jazz today, a return to form, so to speak.  All the kids were a little tired coming out of Spring Break, but there are just a few weeks left of the season until the recital, so everyone has lots to do to focus on getting all that right.  Madison has two performances in the recital, and is excited about both jazz and the ballet performance.

Daddy was out getting lots of mulch today.  It was Mulch Day!  We wait for the price to go to one point, but it didn't quite make it there yet this year.  It did get close enough though, so Daddy made a few trips to grab some bags of mulch.  Later this week, we'll be getting our front yard nice and pretty for the new season.

We did some grocery shopping while Madison was dancing, and a bit of work preparing for the Easter baskets we intend to put together this week.  Madison's basket stuff was prepared months ago, so we're ready for that one.

Not as much time today when we got home.  We played some more from "Finding Dory" in Disney Infinity, almost wrapping that game's story line up.  That's the last one for Disney Infinity though.  There are a few other LEGO themed games out there, but no more toys-to-life games for us, thank you.

Anyway, we went to bed reading and praying as always, concluding a day that was pretty much everyone getting back to normal.  It was a good vacation, but now here we are in crunch time with recitals, testing, Summer Xtreme and Easter.  Time to get to work!

"Back off. We're Scientists."

This morning we had a fantastic service about that crocodile, "Tick-Tock."  The clock is winding down for Captain Hook, and judgment is on the way.  Who can save us from the clock, and the jaws of death?  Who else but Jesus.

It was a great morning for the skit, with pirates, Lost boys and Indians, plus Peter Pan and Hook.  The kids had a great time, and Madison had a few lines on stage too.  She had this great moment, scaring off all the pirates on stage, and later starting the chant of "Tick-Tock" that the audience would join in on and eventually frighten off Captain Hook.

After church, Daddy had to go back to filming, and that was the rest of the day and into the late night hours.  We're filming for Summer Xtreme, today being the first big day for filming.  Daddy's role was a cameo, a scientist.  Here he is with just a few of the other associates from V Tech Labs.

We did a lot of filming today, filming our villains and using all kinds of different places to make things look like a lab area.  Here you can see a blue screen being used so we can replace the backdrop.

That's Ensley as a villainous, ready to steal a valuable material called ultracite.  She's ready to kick around some scientists, unfortunately!  It's a good thing Mary Shannon was here to help keep track of the script, and protect those scientists!

Here's Josh below, directing Ensley, who is holding the ultracite.  We did this all last year, but we started a little later, so we're ahead of time for now.  Things went smoothly today with no worries about scheduling, although it did go late for some of us.  But everyone's excited about the project.

Here's a bit of the filming crew.  Chris is holding the boom, something Daddy did from time to time.  And seated towards the back is Amy, Josh's sister, who was helping with props and costuming.

Here's another shot of the bad guys below.  This isn't all of them, but the ones that were featured in today's scene.  Madison will be seeing more of them soon enough!

Madison was at home for all of this, although she wanted to come along for the filming.  Next time, I told her.  She was working on her piano, and helping Mommy pack things up from the trip.  We're back, and it was good to get some rest, and recover.  Speaking of which, today was a day that Daddy needs to recover from - it was about a fourteen hour work day, and it's time to hit the sack, like right now!