From time to time our kids like to get together and put on a play for us. To date these have been relateively simple single act affairs although they have used costumes and some props.
Well Julia was in the Christmas play at our church last year and there was a high level of production in the play, lots of staging and it seems she really took it to heart and it made a huge difference!
Last night the kids again staged a play but they stepped it up a level all around. Firstly Julia took charge as the "director" of the show and not in a bossy way but rather in a very inclusive way. She gave Lea the lead role in the play as an "ugly" facelist which who wanted to be pretty. Julia herself played a fairy who had partial powers needed to help the witch. Nicolas played a lion who had the rest of the powers needed. It was a cute little play which had 3 acts. I had to turn the lights out in between the acts so that they could properly set the stage and get in place. Julia was whispering directions from behind the couch helping Nicolas and Lea remember what to do. In the end the "ugly" witch was able to become good looking.
The crowd (me and Melissa) when crazy with a standing ovation for the cast. Julia had even organized 2 curtain calls.
What a difference a play makes!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Brain Age Update
Well my experiment seems to be working - at least in terms of training to take a test. I've recently retested my brain age - age and have been able to lower it to 29! Now with 20 being the optimum I am obviously pretty happy about that.
Of course the challenge goes on because Julia my 7 yr old has managed to lower her brain age to 48! Not bad for her either and a big jump from 80 where she was.
So the challenge goes on...
Of course the challenge goes on because Julia my 7 yr old has managed to lower her brain age to 48! Not bad for her either and a big jump from 80 where she was.
So the challenge goes on...
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
LA Dreaming
We just got back from a great vacation to Los Angeles over the long presidents day weekend. The primary reason for the visit was a long promised visit to the American Girl store for Julia and Lea as part of their birthday present. The American Girl store is in the north part of LA near Hollywood so we thought we would stay up that way in Hollywood. The girls had an arranged lunch on Sunday nad were going to make a full day out of it.
We stayed in a really great boutique hotel called the Magic Castle hotel which was located just one short block from Hollywood Blvd and some very famous sites. This hotel was great, with nice amenitities including free mini-bar service, movie rental and a great pool.
We saw our friend Llyod in Redondo beach where the kids played in the ocean for about an hour. We also saw the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum which was cool and creepy all at the same time. I also took Nicolas to the LA zoo while the ladies went to the American Girl event and it was a very nice facility and we saw nearly all of the animals. I think his favorite was the elephant, or maybe the spiders, or maybe the sea lions, or maybe... you get the idea.
We finished our trip with a visit to the Travel Town museum where you can climb all over the engines and imagine what it was like to drive down the rails.
The kids had a great time and did very well in the car considering it was about 5.5 hours each way! We only had to stop 2 times in each direction which is incredible. There is so much to see in LA I am sure we will go again!
We stayed in a really great boutique hotel called the Magic Castle hotel which was located just one short block from Hollywood Blvd and some very famous sites. This hotel was great, with nice amenitities including free mini-bar service, movie rental and a great pool.
We saw our friend Llyod in Redondo beach where the kids played in the ocean for about an hour. We also saw the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum which was cool and creepy all at the same time. I also took Nicolas to the LA zoo while the ladies went to the American Girl event and it was a very nice facility and we saw nearly all of the animals. I think his favorite was the elephant, or maybe the spiders, or maybe the sea lions, or maybe... you get the idea.
We finished our trip with a visit to the Travel Town museum where you can climb all over the engines and imagine what it was like to drive down the rails.
The kids had a great time and did very well in the car considering it was about 5.5 hours each way! We only had to stop 2 times in each direction which is incredible. There is so much to see in LA I am sure we will go again!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Brain Age Craze
For Christmas Julia was given a game for her nintendo DS called Brain Age. Really less of a game and more of a workout for the mind it capitalizes on the idea that you can actually keep your brain young and nimble by excercising it through certain kinds of activities like math, pattern matching, reading aloud, concentration skills etc.
Watching Julia play with it it became interesting to me so at some point over the holidays I picked it up and began to play with it occasionally. The first thing it has you do is measure your current "brain age" which I did. This was a somewhat disheartening exercise because it told me that I had a brain age of 65. Now that is not bad if you are 65 or older but being that I am 41 I found that a bit depressing. I tried to rationalize this by saying that having three small children kept me in a relatively sleep deprived state but that didn't really work. So I became determined to see if I consistently used Brain Age if there was a difference in how I felt mentally and to see if I could lower that darn score!
Well I am please to say that after practicing the various exercises for about a month I've now been able to lower my "brain age" to 46 which is respectable but leaves me with a way to go. They say the best possible age is 20, not sure if I will get there but I'll keep trying. I also see that there is a Brain Age II so if anyone is looking for birthday gift ideas!
Watching Julia play with it it became interesting to me so at some point over the holidays I picked it up and began to play with it occasionally. The first thing it has you do is measure your current "brain age" which I did. This was a somewhat disheartening exercise because it told me that I had a brain age of 65. Now that is not bad if you are 65 or older but being that I am 41 I found that a bit depressing. I tried to rationalize this by saying that having three small children kept me in a relatively sleep deprived state but that didn't really work. So I became determined to see if I consistently used Brain Age if there was a difference in how I felt mentally and to see if I could lower that darn score!
Well I am please to say that after practicing the various exercises for about a month I've now been able to lower my "brain age" to 46 which is respectable but leaves me with a way to go. They say the best possible age is 20, not sure if I will get there but I'll keep trying. I also see that there is a Brain Age II so if anyone is looking for birthday gift ideas!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
What is up with that?
So I have blogged about how I am an early riser and so is Julia. This morning (Sunday) I was up pretty early (5:15 AM) catching up on email, both work and personal, and after about 30 minutes kids started trickling down from upstairs so that before 6 AM all three were up and active!
By 7 AM I had already helped with homework, played two games of dominoes, facilitated coloring and was starting breakfast! Yikes!
I will never feel bad about starting family vacations early in the morning (except for maybe Melissa who still enjoys laying in until 8 AM or so).
I would also like to comment on a picture Lea drew for school. She was asked to draw a picture of herself using her manners. She contemplated this for a few minutes and then proudly drew a picture of herself farting and saying "excuse me"! She is truely her fathers daughter (for using her manners of course, the rest comes from her mothers side of the family :))
By 7 AM I had already helped with homework, played two games of dominoes, facilitated coloring and was starting breakfast! Yikes!
I will never feel bad about starting family vacations early in the morning (except for maybe Melissa who still enjoys laying in until 8 AM or so).
I would also like to comment on a picture Lea drew for school. She was asked to draw a picture of herself using her manners. She contemplated this for a few minutes and then proudly drew a picture of herself farting and saying "excuse me"! She is truely her fathers daughter (for using her manners of course, the rest comes from her mothers side of the family :))
Visiting Refugees in the Middle East - Blog Pointer
A very good friend of ours Steve Wilde is part of a delegation who are visiting Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebenon over last week and into next week. The goal of the trip is to better understand the plight of the refugees and understand how they can be helped. He has been blogging about his experience traveling in the middle east and meeting with the families during the journey.
It is a great read if you have a chance.
You can access the blog by clicking on this link. http://revwilde.blogspot.com/
It is a great read if you have a chance.
You can access the blog by clicking on this link. http://revwilde.blogspot.com/
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