Glad I have not LOST time.

So I watch LOST.
<aside>OMG. I just typed LOSER instead of LOST by mistake. Is that symbolic of anything? </aside>

I was kind of frustrated at the last episode. I watched it (in an airport actually) and was left kind of ... wha??? I was going to blog about it, but then found this blog entry by interlost. Basically says everything I would have, but better. Or maybe even more than I would have, because I don't think I'm this smart.

So, thanks, I just saved some LOST time.

Heh, my son said "cheapass"

Thanks go out to my wonderful SIL and BIL, who bought the boy a slew of awesome games for his 12th bday. I am still having trouble dealing with the number 12... The teens are only a year away.

The games are mostly from Cheapass Games, which produces quality games with no fancy marketing or packaging. When the boy told me that his aunt and uncle got him like 10 games, I said "wow!" but then the boy said, "oh, they are cheapass." Nice. No offense should be taken because we love the games!

We played the non-cheapass game first: Girl Genius The Works. We've played this game before with the SIL and BIL. It is an imaginative card game where you have to get the "cogs" on the board to work together to your benefit. The boy loves it. And kicks my butt every time.

We also played Steam Tunnel several times. This is an abstract strategy scored card game that has some elements of Carcassone, some of Tsuro, and I'm sure other games too. I beat the boy by six points the first time, which just pissed him off. Made him figure out his strategies though, because the second time we played, he more than quadrupled my score. I think I'll be hard-pressed to beat him again. We tried to get the girl involved this time, but she wasn't interested. Next time.

My son owns a duct tape wallet.

The family had a great time on vacation this week. We swam in the humungous indoor waterpark at the Great Wolf Lodge, the kids became Master Magi in the awesome Magiquest game (keeps the kids entertained for HOURS), the girl got a stuffed wolf named Wolfie and we played lots of games together. We've also played:

• Apples to Apples again (who knew how much they would love this game)
• Pathfinder (a maze-searching game from my childhood that still holds water, especially with the boy)
• Set Cubed, a game from the makers of Set that we still aren't entirely thrilled with yet. Set is great, mind you - but the in-laws stole it and the ambiguity of the Set Cubed rules makes us miss the original more.
• Masterpiece, another antique game from the closet in the fun house. It is based upon art auctions, and the girl kicked butt, even though she completely boycotted playing this game and basically was letting me and the boy win every auction.

One thing I found out about my son this weekend that I didn't know: he owns a duct tape wallet. Yep, a wallet made of duct tape.

I've known people who have had duct tape wallets before. They've made themselves, or ordered them from sites like thinkgeek.com. No matter where it came from, the wallet is always geeky. In a good kind of way. I'm proud to say that the boy is just the right kind of geek: smart yet cool and confident at the same time.

What other geek toys does he own that I don't know about yet? He needs to share!

Apples of my eye

We are away at the Great Wolf Lodge and having a great time. The boy found some friends from school here and they spent hours at on the water rides. The girl liked them but wanted to do some exploring as well. She made a stuffed wolf and played some Magi-quest, the crazy game throughout the hotel. After dinner, the boy and the girl spent hours and hours on their own chasing quests and adventures with their funky magic wand.

They came back to the hotel room late (10pm!) and wanted to play a game. We had just bought "Apples to Apples" (Expanded party version) from the "game store" (actually the comic book store, but I know what's important). We had this game at one time in the past, but never opened it. In a moment of desperatation, we regifted it to one of the boy's friends for their birthday party which was about to start. Yeah, never said I did anything on time.

The game is very fun and I hope that the boy's friend liked it! We had a blast comparing and deciding what nouns and verbs best matched the adjectives. We were cracking up for an hour. It was a little challenging playing the adult version with a 9-year-old, but we wanted to make sure the game grew with us rather than buying the kid version. At one point, the adjective to match was "FUNKY", and I had "Austin Powers" in my hand. I have to say that I don't know if there is a better card in the 1,000 cards in this box that would match "funky". But, the girl didn't know who Austin Powers is, so she chose another answer. Feh. Another good one was "FAKE" or something like that. I had two good cards for this: "First Man on the Moon" (I don't really think it was fake but was funny) and "Pro Wrestling" (which is what I played and jabbed at the husband about it - he still watches pro wrestling, which I can't stand). Of course, the funniest moments were the silly ones. There is nothing better than family game night, especially on vacation when you can stay up late.

A little financial support

I was a room parent today for the girl's class party. It wasn't a Valentine's party, it was a "Caring and Sharing" party. I guess that's a PC version of Valentines? Although I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with Valentines in the first place. It's not like they didn't trade valentines, anyway.

The "regular" room parent (i.e. the one who actually does everything normally) brought in a chocolate fountain (how cool is that). They had rice crispy squares (yum), pound cake (yum), strawberries (yum), and pretzels (yum). And soft pretzel hearts (yum!) I said I'd handle the crafts and activities this time because she usually does everything, and I usually am just late.

I didn't want to have a normal room parent party, because you know me, I go overboard in everything. Bingo? Yeah, not for me. Cutting hearts out? Nope. Picture frames? Sorry. I'm a bit abnormal but wanted to something I thought was more fun.

First we made invisible ink and made secret notes. I tried the whole lemon juice thing beforehand but it didn't work out. You need a really really hot heat source - hair dryers, flashlights, and the like didn't work. I didn't want to bring in an iron and definitely not a candle. So, we made the invisible ink out of baking soda and water (equal parts). We wrote notes and rolled them up like scrolls, tied them with little rubber bands, and put them in a container to save for later (when they dried). The ink appears when you paint grape juice on it - the acid in the grape juice reacts with the baking soda base to turn colors. Unfortunately we never got back to the notes because we ran out of time. The class will do it next week.

We then made awesome little pipe cleaner animals to share. We made chameleons, mice, and penguins. We didn't get a chance to make the monkey (with banana) or teddy bears.
Also had a book with some of the other shapes. The group was a little too large, but they all were able to follow with help.
Pipe cleaners rock!

Then we played an awesome team-building activity that I found on PBS's web site. I always did love ZOOM! (0-2-1-3-4)
I gave each kid a plate, a cup, four straws, and a little clay. The object? Build a structure with all of the items. The plate is the only thing that can touch the table. The clay is the only thing that can touch the cup. The person (or team) that built the highest structure that held the most pennies would win. I didn't want to tell them they HAD to share, but I strongly implied that they should help each other and put their tools together. The tricky part was getting them to understand that they should try to make it high off the table AND hold a lot of pennies (rather than one or the other). But each table came up with different very cool solutions, and we all had fun! The "winning" structure was an engineering marvel, it held all the pennies I had (250 of them), and stood eight inches off the table.

The teacher said, "cool, physics!" More architecture and engineering, but glad she liked it!

Ready to GO!!!!

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Sorry for being a woo girl but WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I found my passport - it's been missing for FOUR YEARS. Treasure hunting has PAID OFF ALREADY!! I've been slacking on my New Year's resolution to blog about my treasure hunting, but WOOOOOOOOO, how excited am I that I found it. I have been treasure hunting even though I haven't been blogging. Also today: Found a scrapbook that the girl made in 2006 about all her friends. Very cute - she wants to bring it in to share. But it doesn't trump the PASSPORT. The husband now has to go on a trip. No choice. We have to get his passport - he has no excuses anymore. Where should we go?