Friday Fragments Pics & Video Edition

Friday Fragment Time again. I am waiting for a Skype Call from Russia at a little after Midnight on Friday. It is 4:15 p.m on Friday in Khabarovsk where I am expecting the call from. That is a fragment for a different time but explains why I am up so late on a school day.

Just videos and pics in today's fragments.

Fragment 1. Fun at the dinner table





Fragment 2. Baseball at the Zoo

When we go to the zoo we expect to see bears like this . . .


And This . . .

But at the Brookfield Zoo this weekend there were a number of human cubs. Chicago Cub fans like my son, players and former players like Milt Pappas who my sister had on a poster in her room when she was growing up.

I had a cool video linked up of Spider Droid doing a pitching game but I called him by his real name and I can't get the edited version to upload. SPider Droid had fun playing baseball games and we all had fun at the zoo.

Fragment 3: Blue Ribbon Robotics

Earlier last week Spider Droid competed in the Kane County Fair. No pig in competition or anything like that. He participated in a virtual robotics challenge where among other things he completed a cd-ROM curriculum on robotics, entered his findings in a journal, made a PowerPoint presentation including a video (which is really cool but uses his real name are you sensing an overprotective dad theme here?) and made this poster for display at the fair.

He also overcame his shyness and had an interview with the judge where he showed his video and explained what he learned.

The result of all his work: A blue ribbon. For those of you who don't speak County Fair, A blue ribbon is as high as you get w/o being the winner or runner up of the event. We don't speak County Fair so when we saw the ribbon we both thought (me silently, I have some tact) that it was just a participation ribbon. (We both have won those before). It actually means that he met or exceeded all of his objectives. Win, Place or Show we are very proud of his accomplishments.

Fragment 4: Leave them Laughing. (I hope.)



A few hours later back at the dinner table . . .

‪Dave roller finally catches a chip‬‏ - YouTube

For more Friday Fragments drop what you are doing and head over to Half Past Kissin' Time. I have a Skype call to get, so I'll catch you later.

Missouri Relief Project

Joplin Tornado 5, a photo by DMangus on Flickr.

Spider Droid and I have an opportunity next week to do a work project near Joplin, Missouri where a massive tornado decimated the city on May 22nd of this year.

I will be posting again before I leave with a little more info what he and I will be doing.

I am not the handiest guy with a hammer and that is putting it mildly. While we don't know exactly what we will be doing this is a work and constructrion trip, something that is definitely out of my comfort zone.

Yet when we heard of the trip we felt compelled that we should help any way we can.

This leads me to my 2 questions for the day.

1) How do you react to tragedy like a flood, tsunami, earthquake, act of terrorism etc.?

2) Have you ever felt compelled, called, motivated to do something out of your comfort zone? Did you do it? How did it go?

For more questions head back to Self Sagacity.

Multicolored Shadows

For more Wordless Wednesday click here.

Project Week (With updates)

After a medium-sized summer (don't want to declare it long or short--I do have two full weeks left before I (Amy) go back to work) of swimming, laying about reading, frequenting the zoo, hanging about libraries, etc., it's time to get some long-neglected projects done around the house, before fall hits in full swing with soccer, ballet, school, work, Awana, etc. So here's our list (accompanied by some "before" and "after" photos, to keep us honest): *Clean & organize playroom (also doubles as an entryway/bunny house) Before: After: (That's not a feather, it's sunlight!) *Clean out craft cabinet Before: After: *Organize school shelves *Clean out bathroom cabinet *Make front yard look better *Make back yard look better *Put up a clothesline? (thinking of trying this click the word this) *Clean out kitchen cabinets *Clean out under sink Before: After: With everyone's help from young to old, we should be able to accomplish all of these tasks, along with some afternoon swimming, and some packing/prepping for a weekend family camp-out, and a Dad and Spider Droid trip to Joplin, MO, to help out tornado victims. Let the projects begin! (or, continue...working hard!)

Tuesday night update: Dave, ever the meme participant, wanted me to remind you that having a project week, involving the whole family, and taking before and after pictures of the projects work for us. To see what works for others go to WFMW at We Are That Family.

Wednesday Night Update: Dave and Spider Droid worked on projects outside of Grandpa's house with cousins, uncles, nephews, brothers, fathers and grandpas (depending who you ask) today. Nothing new on our project list got removed. We girls relaxed and Bunny returned the favor and kicked me from Baltic to Boardwalk in Monopoly.

A commenter told me about Tackle it Tuesday @ Five Minutes for Mom and Dave linked me up there. If you are visiting from there, welcome. you can head back by clicking here.

Six Word Saturday-Monopoly is fun, when you win!

Slowly buying up property, might win!



Acquiring a couple of hotels, yay!


A few more hotels won't hurt.


Getting closer to world domination, yes!

Mortgaged to the hilt, she's out!

For more Six Word Saturdays click here

questions of fun, frugality and fears.

I went to Great America with the bigs yesterday. Great America is a Six Flags theme park in the Chicago area. I have been going to the park for more than 30 years. That means that the park or myself are very old or possibly both. Going to an amusement park can be kind of expensive in this day and age. Six Flags has a winter reading program and if your kids participate, each kid (K-6th grade) gets a ticket. This seems like a good idea at the time but when you factor in the cost of your ticket and other family members outside of the age range, along with parking and other amenities, the cost of these free tickets adds up pretty quickly.

I have noticed that in the past year Six Flags has been making changes, some small, some big, to help families in this tough economy. Don't get me wrong, I know they are helping families in order to encourage them to attend their parks so they can spend money there. But some of the changes are very positive to families on a budget.

In the past year the reading program has allowed teachers including home school teachers to win 1 ticket per class. So, my ticket was free yesterday as well.

Now remember I have been going to this park for a long time so let me give you a little history lesson. As you probably know, amusement park food is expensive having a captive audience and all. So in addition to going to your cars to eat food you brought from home, people would sometimes leave the park, have a meal and come back. Over the course of time, the park cracked down on these activities by a) not allowing cars to leave the park w/o paying the parking fee again and b) not readmitting people to the park after 6:00 p.m., this way allowing people to have lunch in their cars but not dinner.

Also a few years ago the park sold two types of parking spots. Closer to the park for more money and farther from the park for less. Which meant if you wanted to spend less money and eat in your car you would spend more time walking all the way to the back of the lot (sometimes past rows and rows of empty parking spaces to get to your car) spending the one commodity more precious to a frugal park goer than money, time.

This year the park made some great changes that really encouraged me. They may have been motivated more by the rows and rows of empty parking spaces I alluded to parenthetically in the last paragraph, who knows. First of all, I had decided to pay the higher amount for parking so the kids and I didn't have to walk all the way to the nether regions of the lot to park. As I drove in, I noticed that parking was again only 1 price, meaning I could park close to the entrance. That was pleasant surprise #1. Pleasant surprise #2 occurred when the parking attendant handed me my receipt and told me I could use it to reenter the park throughout the day. The third pleasant surprise came at about 1:00, as we exited the park for lunch. I read a sign saying that you could re-enter the park up until 9 pm. If you take all of the pleasant surprises and put them together, it gives the patron the opportunity to eat lunch or dinner outside of the park, or in the parking lot without additional cost.

All this leads up to my first question: How have you seen entertainment companies (movies, restraunts, museums, zoos, theme parks, etc...) compete for your business in this economy? And how have you benefited from it?

Question #2 comes from a fear I have of pit bulls. I am not scared of them myself, as much as I am of my children being eaten by one. My neighbor has 2 pit bulls: an adult that was abused as a puppy, and a really cute puppy. My brother-in-law has one also. Both my neighbor and brother-in-law are staunch defenders of pit bulls. It's not the pit bulls that are the problem, they say, it is the owners.

If that's the case, how come every pit bull attack story sounds exactly the same. It was a very friendly dog that never did anything wrong and then one day it snapped. I am sorry but I don't want my children or anyone else around the dogs when they do snap.

Question 2 then is what is a pet you would never want to have or even have live near you?


So those are my questions. For more Two Question Thursday head over to Self Sagacity.