Mars Perseverance Stories

 From Logan:

When the robot landed on Mars it started to collect rocks. Then an alien kid came up and snatched the rock from the robot and said,” That's my Mom's favorite rock! He walked off and the robot turned around and there was a huge city of aliens flying cars everywhere and the alien was giving the rock back to its mom. 

The people who sent him were still at home sleeping so they had no idea that there was life on Mars. Since he couldn't be told to do anything  he was not taking pictures. 

The robot went after the rock. He climbed into the house and looked around. There were five other robots just like him, but they were acting like puppies. Then the robot fell in through the window. 

Then the boy said, “Feeding time puppies!” and the other robots went over to their bowls. The robot went to a bowl where there were rocks in it. He started to collect them, he looked over and the other robots were eating the rocks he had collected all the rocks in his bowl so he started taking them from the other robots but he did not know they were like robot dogs. The other robot that he was taking rocks from growled but the robot kept going. The robot dog knocked him over and growled the robot got up and ran away until he ran until the city was out of sight. 

The people that sent him there woke up and said it looks like He hasn't found anything yet besides rocks. That is SO boring. 

                                                   THE END

From Sheridan: 

  As the new rover was driving around Mars picking up rocks and recording the scene live to NASA and the world she heard a voice.

  “HEY!!! That’s my mommy’s special rock, give it back!” 

The rover turned to see an alien and a whole city right by him. The alien looked pretty close to a human. 

  “Well…” the little alien said with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. The rover set the rock down and the little alien grabbed it and ran off.  Everyone on earth just stared and stared.

  Then the little alien came back but this time there was a group of other aliens with her. They oohed and aahed and eeked and screamed and went to change their pants… 

  The little girl that had discovered the robot first picked it up and said, “Mommy can I keep it please please please!!!” 

“uh I guess?” said her mom. 

“YAY We are gonna have so much fun!” she said as she ran off carrying the rover in her hands. 

While she was at her house playing with the rover, everyone on earth was still staring, wondering what the heck just happened. The little girl on Mars was dressing up the rover. “You are such a cute little puppy! I am gonna name you Flarfy! BTW my name is Felicia. This city you are in is called Carclosafludose. My mom says it’s a mouthful to say but it would be a lot more than a mouthful if someone tried to eat the sign that says what our city is called, so I don’t know why Mommy said that ''.

Viking Adventure by Logan

         This might sound crazy, but I stole an elevator and just ripped it off the wires. I brought it home.

        It all started when I read the book Lift. I decided to look in the trash can for some buttons but I just found trash. So I decided to take one of the elevator buttons but I could not get it off So that's why I took the whole elevator. 

There were twenty buttons so last night I pressed one of them. That's when the elevator went crazy, it spun in circles and when the door opened I was in the middle of a Viking village. 

Two Vikings looked at me and said “Catch him!” 

I ran and the two Vikings followed a turn around a corner and dived in a boat. The boat started to sail off so I went over to some barrels and hid. 

I fell asleep and I woke up to shouting. 

I looked around and Vikings were running around a small island chasing people with gold and jewels. I got up and hopped onto land. Then a Viking spotted me and started chasing me. I ran up some stairs and saw a rack of weapons. I quickly grabbed two daggers and a small ax and ran into a room. 

The Viking walked in. Before he saw me I ran out of the room, closed the door and locked it. Then I made sure I had the weapons and ran. There were Vikings stealing and killing people. Then I saw the elevator. The two Vikings from before were looking at it. They were going to steal it.

I ran towards it and pressed a button. They came racing at me. I stabbed one with the dagger and the other one was not close enough to get to me. The door closed and I dropped the weapons as the door opened. I was back in my room. I left my weapons there for the next time I went somewhere and went to sleep. 

Logan's Day

Next up, Logan Wayne!

We got an earlier start this morning, despite the stupid dog keeping us up all night by alerting to every animal that came through our yard (that is a considerable number on any given night).

We also remembered his rocks to hide, and almost immediately found another one (on the far right)!

The first two were hidden at the library, where we went to check on a cockroach issue (pets, not pests).

Amigo's Bakery for breakfast.

Lgaon by himself is a royal chatterbox! Here he was telling me something about Captain America.

We hid a rock there, too.

And one at the Dollar Store,

where he only spent a dollar! He is Mr. Frugal with his money. He had $9 saved up, and we visited every thrift shop in town, spending 50 cents here and a dollar there. He still has 88 cents left. He LOVES tiny things, so while I was searching for a large party-sized tea pot, he found a little three-inch porcelain one with paw prints all around it, and at another thrift shop, a bitty china cup and saucer. 

Found another rock at Walmart!

That was rehidden elsewhere.

We went to Clay Time and painted crayon holders - pictures will come after they are fired! On to the mall, to check out the entries for the trash bin painting contest. Our friend Samatha won first place!! Yay Sam!

Our favorite Chinese food for lunch,

then Alamo Jump. It is pretty much impossible to get a clear picture there. He ran and jumped like a crazy person, all by himself - he's my loner! A big group showed up, and he kept switching to whichever jumper they weren't on. Not really shy, just content to be in his own world.

 There, now he's still:

Still silly, that is.

We grabbed ice cream and then swung by the zoo, just in time to see an injured hawk brought in.

People suck. Initial guess from AC is that he was shot with a pellet gun. Poor guy was so scared! They will take good care of him.

Logan likes to feed the birds.

Or just watch them.

He is full of stories about what they might be doing!

He also spotted this very cool tree that you can hide under. I can even stand up inside it!

I need one!

Sonic for slushies, then we stopped at the Apple Barn. Didn't buy anything, just looked around. Somehow I have never been in there before. Someone asked us where we were from and I had to answer, "Um...across the street."

Back home. Logan picked Beefy Bacon Chili as his meal. That takes a bit to prepare, so we did the prep work tonight and we will eat it tomorrow. Tomorrow is Grace's day, so we switched and let her sort-of-help with dinner tonight. 

After dinner, he and Sheridan had a tea party in his room with his new purchases...and a tree that Sheridan cut down with her new tool kit.

I suggested that, in the future, we might ask Daddy which trees actually need to be cut down first. And then I gave them the jelly jar to 'plant' it in.

He blessedly opted to set up a fort and sleep in Sheridan's room tonight, raher than the camper, so Mom may get a bit of sleep tonight! An awesome day with my sweet, jibber-jabber Medium Guy!

This Week

Saturday was the quarterly Community Pot Luck up in High Rolls.

I try to do a little kitchen clean-up each time I am there, but somehow these muffins escaped my notice last week.

That's not streusel.

Fortunately, with mountain folk, you never have to rely on mass-produced foods of questionable age. Mountain folk can COOK!

As usual, I was too busy socializing to get pictures until half the food was gone. I may or may not have been partially responsible for the quick disappearance of these:

Cheese pierogies with chorizo bacon bits. Even yummier than they looked. I could have happily just eaten those all night!

Of course, some visitors were unimpressed,

but I think that's because her Momma is such a good cook, she takes great food for granted.

I counted 53 people, not a huge crowd, but just the right size. I actually got to talk to everyone this time!

Socializing is definitely the best part of the pot lucks.

***

The very next day was Logan's birthday party at our house. What was I thinking?! He wanted a Magic Tree House birthday party, which was great - there are so many themes in the books, I could use the leftover decorations and party favors from every other party we have ever had! For food we did "High Tide in Hawaii" and had fresh fruit and veggies, Hawaiian cole slaw, mango salsa, and of course meatballs.

Daddy always decorates the cakes, and I thought to make it easy on him I would order a toy treehouse as a cake topper. This turned out to be WAY too big, but also so darn perfect!

Look at the little Jack and Annie!! I just used it as a table decoration, and Logan absolutely loved it. He loves tiny things like that, and he couldn't wait to play with it as soon as the party was over.

As I said, Daddy always decorates the kids' cakes, but he got stuck on a car wreck. In fact, he missed the entire party! I waited as long as I could, but when it became evident this would be a long haul, I fashioned a tree and treehouse with sprinkles, frosting and graham crackers.

Logan was happy with it!

Mostly the kids just like to run around, but we had two MTH activities. For Dinosaurs Before Dark, they dug for dino bones in side back yard.

No shovels, paleontologists wouldn't want to damage the bones!

When they found all the bones, they had to bring them in and figure out how they fit together.

Easier said than done!

I finally took pity and gave them a picture.

And here we have the Loganosaurus Rex (signed by most of the attendees):

While they were digging for bones, Christopher and Jayden were stealthily setting up the treasure hunt for Pirates Past Noon:

That carried them all over the house and yard, until they found the goody bags in the pirate ship playset I picked up at a yard sale years ago.

Hawaiian cowboy pirate dude! With a glow stick!

Sharing the same brain, as usual.

***

Last week of summer reading!! The story time activity was supposed to be chalk drawing outside, but it is hovering around 900 degrees this week. I varied crafts inside for a bit, then settled on cool new shoes for school, to go with Pete the Cat, Rockin' in My School Shoes. I've noticed some increasingly ridiculous shoes available in the stores...so we tried to top those:

Rocket boosters, wheels, spikes, AND they play music!

Modeled after Honey Lemon's purse, this one blows bubbles and stores extra school supplies, among other things - just push the right button.

The Gardener's model. Seeds are stored in the brown part of the toe. As you walk it plants them, then when you walk back it squirts water out of the sides and waters them!

***

900 degree weather is a bad time to be orphaned and trapped in an abandoned car. Thank goodness for Good Samaritans who are willing to spend an hour rescuing kittens, and Grandma, who is willing to foster and nurse back to health!

And for a teen volunteer who was quite happy to spend her entire 2-hour shift in that exact spot.

***

Christopher spent the week at Camp Innoventure, where he learned how to set up a business. The kids had the chance to make things to sell at the Farmer's Market, and he chose bat houses.

He had to do everything himself, from measuring

to cutting (this made him really nervous but he did great!)

to drilling, 

then screwing together and sanding.

He sold 4 at the Farmer's Market Saturday, and has requests for more! Time for him to start buying ME lunch!

***

At home we started on the Netherlands. They seem to like sour things.

So do my kids!

***

For the last Teens and Tweens, we had water gun fights and pizza.

This young lady just needed a moment. School is starting soon, it's stressful.

***

Finally, we had our closing Dance Party, complete with ice cream bar (and yes, of course we have been reading Groovy Joe in all our story times!) About 80 kids and parents got to watch me do the Tooty Ta and Baby Shark, which should be enough to make anyone happy to go back to school. Huge thanks to the volunteers who pulled one last day of work and served the ice cream! And of course to all the sponsors, parents, and library staff who also helped make it a great summer!

Medium Guy is SEVEN

I swear I was just posting that he was six!

He's still just as goofy.

In fact, pretty much all of the pictures I have of him

Look something

Like this:

He has a goofy (and smart!) sense of humor. One of his summer reading tasks was to "write a letter to a character".

He chose the letter "t".

He is his father's son.

Definitely smart,

and fun-loving,

and creative.

The days just don't hold enough time for everything going on in that fascinating, sweet, lively little mind.

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy! I can't wait to see what you dream up next!