158/366: Fort

The blanket fort du jour in the basement of Chateau Steelypips.

Since our recent trip to Vermont, SteelyKid has been obsessed with building blanket forts. These have mostly been in the living room, leading to a bit of angst at the end of the day when we need the blankets back. So i did a little reorganizing in the basement, and dug some sheets out of… Continue reading 158/366: Fort

157/366: SteelyKid, Badass

SteelyKid doing a round kick while warming up at the taekwondo tournament.

We spent most of Saturday at a taekwondo tournament– the AAU Adirondack Championship, or some permutation of those words. This was held in the gym over at Hudson Valley Community College, and was fairly big: It was, however, 99% waiting around. They did black-belt sparring in the morning, and said that staging for the colored… Continue reading 157/366: SteelyKid, Badass

142-150/366: On-Deadline Catchup

Clouds at sunrise, with the bus picking up the kid across the street.

I’ve been neglecting the photo-a-day thing for the last week-and-a-bit, but for a good reason: I had a deadline of, well, today, to finish a chapter I was asked to contribute to an academic book. And while I fully realize that actually hitting that deadline is not typical academic behavior, I have A Thing about… Continue reading 142-150/366: On-Deadline Catchup

141/366: Holes

View through the hole I cut through some pieces of particle board to use testing SteelyKid's balsa-wood structure for OM.

As mentioned last week, SteelyKid is doing Odyssey of the Mind this year, and her team has elected to build a balsa wood structure. The goal for these is to support the maximum possible weight, and the first step of the testing is to put a “crusher board” on top. This is a couple of… Continue reading 141/366: Holes

140/366: Dog and Volcano

SteelyKid's balloon dog, and The Pip's clay volcano.

When I arrived to pick SteelyKid up the other night, she and her friends were light-saber fighting with long balloons, which is fairly typical of that bunch. While I gathered her stuff up, though, she stopped and twisted her balloon into an animal shape: She got a “How to Make Balloon Animals” kit a few… Continue reading 140/366: Dog and Volcano

137-139/366: Vermont

View of the Green Mountains from near Waterbury.

This past weekend, Kate went to Arisia, and in order to get a change of scenery and a bit of adult backup, I took the kids up to visit friends in northern Vermont. They have two boys, the younger of whom is just a few months older than SteelyKid, and I was pretty sure the… Continue reading 137-139/366: Vermont

134/366: BalsaKid

The first complete test structure from SteelyKid's Odyssey of the Mind team.

Back in the fall, a note came home with SteelyKid about an organizational meeting for an Odyssey of the Mind team for her elementary school. My father coached this for several years back in the 80’s, and one of my sister’s teams went to the World championships (held in Cole Field House at the University… Continue reading 134/366: BalsaKid

133/366: No Writing On Paper Today!

The "Closed" sign that the Pip dictated to Kate.

This one’s a bit of a cheat, but the only pictures I got Tuesday that turned out well had other people’s kids in them, and I won’t post those. So here, instead, is a picture from over the weekend, mostly because I want to tell the cute-kid story that goes with it. On Sundays, I… Continue reading 133/366: No Writing On Paper Today!

130/366: Bubble Battle

SteelyKid blowing a bubble toward The Pip, at MiSci.

I try not to have this be Cute Kid Photo of the Day, but really, when these are the subjects, how can I avoid it? This is from yesterday’s morning excursion to MiSci, where they have added a soap bubble area. This, of course, led to the kids battling with each other by blowing huge… Continue reading 130/366: Bubble Battle

123-124/366: Slack!

SteelyKid's feet bouncing above the slackline.

One of our Christmas presents for the kids was a slackline kit, which they wanted set up pretty much the instant I got home. So I put it up over the weekend, and on consecutive days got these pictures: (I of course also have a bunch of photos where you can see the kids’ entire… Continue reading 123-124/366: Slack!