A Very Poke Halloween

Our Pokemon Halloween is ready to go! We have Vulpix, Pikachu, Ash Ketchum, and a poke stop.

Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present The Making of Halloween 2016:

Step 1: The Inspiration

Our house has been fairly Pokemon-heavy for the last few months. A daughter in upper elementary and a son in middle school who has a phone make us the definition of the target demographic for Pokemon Go and the entire Pokemon franchise. The Pokemon theme was an early decision.

Step 2: Which Pokemon?

We looked through pages of images of Gen 1 Pokemon to find critters that met our stringent qualifications of:

1. Vaguely bunny or bear-shaped for ease of sewing (Mom's rule)
2. Completely adorable (girls' rule)

We decided on:

Pikachu

Vulpix. It turns out that this color scheme is for a "shiny Vulpix" but, whatever, it matched the fleece colors available at the fabric store.

And we started sewing! (necklaces by WanYing)

Step 3: Assembly

For weeks our dining room table has looked like this - some combination of fabric, sewing machine, solder, and LEDs. I think it's a happy sort of strange equilibrium state for us.

I attacked the Vulpix first because I was intimidated by the six tales situation. I think it turned out pretty well, except that Sasha can only sit if perched at the end of a chair. A small price to pay for fabulous.

Vulpix - check!

And so we began Pikachu

Final steps- eye and ear placement

Tah dah! The Pokemon are complete!

Step 4: Programming and lots of swearing

But the saga was not over, no, not by a longshot. There were still 217 LEDs to get moving into poke stop-like colors configurations, attached to a Raspberry Pi, strapped to a kid, and attached to a three-wheeled unicycle.

Hours... and hours... and hours of programming later, the poke stop was complete!

The whole ensemble!

Here's a video of the poke stop during the daytime:

But it's all so much more spectacular at night with the rotating poke ball and transition from blue to magenta!

Our work here is done. And now there is only candy.

Snowbird Oktoberfest Staycation

Last weekend we enjoyed a fabulous staycation up at the Snowbird Oktoberfest. It sure is amazing how a hotel room, a few beers, activity wristbands for the kids, and 24 hours away from home can transform a weekend into a vacation!

Schnitzel, wurst, and strudel abounded!

And the kids put their activity passes to very good use!

WanYing did the tower drop over... and over... and over - the girl has no fear!

The rock wall was super popular, too

Sam shows off his bungee-flip skills

All this and a hot tub, too!

And on day 2 we thought we'd put our brand new season passes to work by riding the tram!

Top of the world!

Now, bring on ski season!

Sasha Rides a Century

by Sasha

last weekend i rode the Goldilocks bike ride on Saturday September 24 7:00 am to 5:00 pm. Goldilocks has the option of  riding  20 miles 40 miles 60 miles 80 miles or a 100 miles. Me and my mom did 100 miles on the tandem. it was fun but hard.

before we were able to ride Goldilocks we had to train for it the trail we trained on is called the Murdock we were able to do 60 miles before Goldilocks came.

before we started riding Goldilocks at starting line i felt scared that we wouldn't going to be able to do 100miles.

the weather at Goldilocks was really rainy and cold we had to where two layers of coats. i rode with my grandma and the hardest part of the ride was this canyon that was pretty but it had some big hills. my favorite view was when we were riding by a field of flowers the funniest part of the bike ride was when a herd of cows were in the road and we had to get off are bike then get back on. when we finineshed the ride there were people cheering for us for example my dad [who is crazy] my sister and some strangers.

This picture is before we started the ride we wanted to take a before picture and a after picture.

This picture is when we started and a photographer when we were almost to the second stop

This picture was when we just climbed a big hill and riding along the lake with a pretty view

this picture was when the photographer took a picture of us while we were riding along the lake and looking for seagulls

this picture was when we fineshed the ride and we were so happy we were able to do 100 miles