Today, Kaleya wanted to go to Centennial Park to feed the geese, so of course I had to oblige! It’s my motherly duty. 
Just a couple of pictures from our outing. We had a nice visit.
Kaleya next to the water
I like the glow on her face on this one.
And, a short video clip of her feeding them.
Then, we were off to the playground.
Next to the slide.
on the playground apparatus
pretty among the flowers
Yesterday we went to a friend’s house to help him celebrate his 11th birthday. Oh, we had so much fun! I was particularly taken by the Michael Jackson Experience game on the wii. I did one song – Dirty Diana and now I want this video game.
Here are two of the boys doing Smooth Criminal.
Congratulations to our family friend on her recent graduation from Pearl-Cohn High School. We attended the ceremony on May 21st and it was clear the students were happy.
Kalonji w/ the graduate
Then, later that day we were off to the Nashville RollerGirls game. It was high excitement! NRG won both bouts. Attendees were even treated to the first bout from the Nashville Junior Roller Derby team – the team for ages 10-17. Those girls rocked it too!
Our seats were close to the team and I even garnered an NRG mini-towel.
We had a great day.
This weekend has been a fairly quiet one for us. It did not start off very well for me – I either caught a stomach virus or had a case of food poisoning on Friday and as a result spent ALL DAY in bed. I felt really horrible and was very glad to see Saturday morning come and my vigor return. I even felt well enough to keep to our plans for the day – a birthday party and a Nashville RollerGirls game.
The birthday party was held at Centennial Park and was for one of Kaleya’s good friends who turned 7 this week. Unfortunately, I did not take many pictures at all of the party itself, just one of most of the group.
birthday party gathering in the park
Since we were in the park, I did wish to take the kids to go see the Athena statue in the Parthenon. My last visit was years ago, well before she was gilded in gold, so I too wanted to see it. Jihad was able to tell me all the details about Athena for he’d been studying Greek Mythology in school – I was duly impressed.
kids in front of the statue of Athena in the Parthenon
After the party we came home and I spent about an hour or so tidying the house – then we had to get ready for the Nashville RollerGirls (NRG) season operner game. We are fans and I did a great post last year related to a game we went to for Jihad’s birthday. This weekend, they played Kansas City and KC was no joke! Unfortunately, NRG lost but it was still a great game.
Here’s a video clip of a jam by Rambo Sambo
and one of part of the halftime show by the JeerLeaders; this is great b/c you see one of the fans really getting into the performance (about 14 seconds in). I am hoping maybe someone else got an even better video of this!
Had a great day overall. Today we rested, doing much of nothing. I was honestly a little wiped out from having been out most of the day yesterday. This upcoming week is going to be extremely busy so a girl needs her rest.
Had a little fun this morning with the kids. They made avatars.
A favorite in our household these days
Cute
One of my absolute favorite children’s books is From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. If you’re not familiar with the book, an essential part of the story involves two children who spend the night in a museum. The characters in the story are a sister and her younger brother, who were about the same age difference apart as my brother and myself, so the story greatly resonated with me. As I read this book I would fantasize about what it would be like to live in a museum – I was sure I could have a LOT of fun.
Well, the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago is seeking to make this a dream come true for people like-minded as myself. If only I was free to do this – I’d certainly be willing to try. They are seeking someone to move-in to a special residence they’ve constructed and live at the Museum for a month – all the while capturing their experiences via blogging, videocasting, and social media means.
A blog post on ApartmentTherapy.com shows this picture, as well as more pictures of the living space. More details about the experience, called Month at the Museum, are available on the MOSI site.
Here’s a video preview
Oh my. I’m exhausted! In my last post I wrote that it was Jihad’s birthday. Well, Friday, July 9th was mine. Between Friday night and Saturday night we packed in enough fun for both of us.
FRIDAY
Friday evening, we went to dinner at Kyoto Japanese Restaurant. We went there last year for Jihad’s birthday so it was a great place to go again. Who can not love the fact that you get fire in your face during dinner? I didn’t get any great pictures, but we had fun.
SATURDAY
On Saturday we were busy just about all day. We had a birthday party for Jihad at Chuck E. Cheese followed by a Nashville Rollergirls roller derby game. It was the Music City All-Stars vs. the Tallahassee Rollergirls.
The Party
We’ve never hosted a party at Chuck E. Cheese before. While I expected the chaos, it was certainly a lot to bear – almost overwhelming! We had about 20 kids total and about 15 adults. It was crazy! But we had so much fun.
The cake we had for him was a Star Wars cake from Publix – a marble cake with buttercream frosting – good stuff. It had Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker on top battling it out.
We think the kids enjoyed themselves. We were there for more than 3 hours, and I’d not expected that. The schedule at Chuck E. Cheese is well-planned – we had a party hostess assigned to assist us all. Time passed very quickly. Here is a video of Jihad in the TicketBlaster. He won the largest prize there is to get in there too – a red ticket that gave him 200 free tickets.
After all was said and done, we packed it up and headed over to Municipal Auditorium for the roller derby game.
Roller Derby
This was our 2nd time attending a roller derby game. We went last year and enjoyed it a lot! So, we’ve been looking for an opportunity to go back. The Nashville Rollergirl teams are just cool. There is even a Nashville Junior Roller Derby. You have to be at least 10 years old to join, so if they’re still around when Kaleya comes of age – we’ll have to see if she has any interest.
Prior to sitting down, we ran into one of the players, Jersey Jackhammer.
Then, we sat down, and watched a great game. NRG won the game 159 to 70. I’m still learning how the game is played, but I have the basics down. Well enough to know when we were doing good and when we were not doing good enough. Here is a clip of a round or “jam” as it’s called. We see Rambo Sambo taking the “lead jammer” position. Then, she circles back around to catch up and ultimately break through the pack to score points for her team.
The kids seemed to enjoy themselves. They asked questions about how the game was played and even Kaleya joined in with applause when she heard everyone else doing it because of a good score. It was a great game – during one bout, Rambo Sambo scored 28 pts. Another player that was fierce was Lady Fury. All the players were great though.
After the game we went down to the speedway to see if we could meet the players; and meet we did! Many of them were still on the floor and we liked how well they interacted with the crowd. We got a whole series of pictures of Kaleya w/ the players and one of the Jeerleaders:
Kaleya with Union-Jack-U-Up
Kaleya and Union-Jack-U-Up
Kaleya and Dramatic Pyrony
Kaleya and Showstopper
Kaleya and Rambo Sambo
Kaleya and Lady Fury
Kaleya and Anita PBR
Kaleya and Maulin Monroe
As we were leaving the auditorium, the entertaining band, Halfbrass, was outside performing impromptu. Kids were dancing, some of the Jeerleaders were dancing, and the crowd was singing. See the video below.
A great birthday weekend so far! We plan to go back to their next game on August 7th. All in all, a great day and now I must go to bed! However, before I go, here are some things to know
