Hi, everyone!
After we had our three days of very warm weather, we’ve had a series of cold fronts with rain. So our blossoms aren’t opening as fast as they did when it was hot and sunny! Two Fridays ago, Grandma took me back to Highland Park. I wanted to see the cream color magnolias! On our way to the magnolia grove, we saw a groundhog eating weeping cherry branches! When we got to the magnolia grove, my other magnolia friends were still in bloom and my cream color magnolia friends were just opening!
Up on Reservoir Avenue, the cherries were still in bloom and the tulips were starting to open. I made some grape hyacinth friends on my way back to the magnolia grove. It’s pretty from either side!
Grandma and I checked out all the groundhog burrows among the lilacs, but the cherry blossom eater was the only groundhog I saw! Some more lilacs were starting to open! The cherry meadow was still very pretty! I made friends with a flowering quince and a cherry tree with two different shades of blossoms! Guess what? Grandma and I found a path through the pine trees so we didn’t have to walk in the road to get back to the car!
Later that day, Grandma and Grandpa took me out to the bay. Uncle Steven and Thomas came to spend the night with us! A while ago, Thomas broke the screen on his iPhone. He had almost saved up enough money to get it repaired when a nice neighbor gave him a replacement screen and loaned him the tools to do the repair with Uncle Steven’s help. That was the Friday night project! Uncle Steven and Thomas watched a video on-line that told them how to remove the broken screen and attach the new one in its place. They did it! Then Thomas taught Grandma how to play a video game about a lost cat.
On Saturday morning, Grandma and I took a walk looking for spring flowers. The primrose in the herb garden was blooming. I was happy to see my first dandelion, even if Grandpa wasn’t! I made friends with some red trilliums and a patch of May apples.
On Wednesday and Thursday last week, we had a lot of noise and actiivity near us in Fairport! A lady on the next street over hired a tree crew to take down a whole row of very tall pine trees! The best way to get to them was through our next door neighbor’s yard! We had trucks and a chipper parked out front, and there was a bucket truck in our neighbor’s back yard. As the trees were cut down, all the branches and logs got stacked in our neighbor’s front yard until the loader truck could pick them up. There were a LOT of logs! Because our driveway was blocked, Grandma and Grandpa had to drive over our yard to get in and out.
Last Saturday, Grandma and I went with Uncle Steven’s family to Imagine RIT! That’s the annual festival where students at Rochester Institute of Technology show off their creative projects! Aunt Kara works at RIT, so she was a good guide! James and Thomas looked at the program in advance and picked out what they most wanted to see. There’s way too much for anybody to see all of it! We started at MAGIC Spell Studios, where students learn how to make video games! On the first floor, we watched a demonstration of a new video game for multiple players. James and Thomas got a chance to play! The game is supposed to be about a goat, but winning involves grabbing a crown when it appears.
When we went upstairs, I made friends with an octopus from an imaginary world. James and Thomas both got to try a virtual reality experience — driving the lunar rover and picking up moon rocks. Uncle Steven showed James a story board for an animation team and Thomas played a game with the student developer coaching him.
Thomas left a drawing on the white board and James did an on-line questionnaire about his reaction to one of the video games. Before we left MAGIC, Thomas and James did another virtual reality game where they had to locate the source of a sound.
In the next building, James wanted to draw at the family friendly figure drawing studio. Thomas and I made a button at the button press. Then we all went to the glass blowing demonstration. The faculty and students were making glass pumpkins to sell at Halloween. It was fun to watch the molten glass get shaped!
Our next stop was the marketing melee, where students were demonstrating how to promote product sales. James and Thomas and I all got crowns to promote the multi-player video game at our first stop! Aunt Kara knew a place to get lunch that wasn’t too crowded after that! Then we went to the FIRST exhibit with Lego and Robotics challenges. James wanted to control the robot, but it was overheated from being run so much! I made friends with the robotics tiger mascot.
Our last stop was Gordon Field House. There were lots of exhibits there and lots of people looking at them! James and Thomas played a game of chess on an electronic chess board. It was supposed to light up all the possible places to move a chess piece, but it got confused when James castled his king and rook. I liked the belt sander racers! They were faster than I expected! James and Thomas had to wait in line to try the human hamster wheel, but they were both able to generate hamster energy! After that, they were happy to sit down to play another student-written video game before we left. It was a busy day! When I got home I needed to sit down, too!
The weather people on TV say it’s going to be almost another week before we stop having cold, rainy weather. Grandma and I have been doing inside things. Yesterday, Grandma found the kind of cookies she needs to make the crust of an AWACS cheesecake back in stock when she shopped. We celebrated by making a cheesecake! In the afternoon, we had a storm with little pieces of hail!
Our AWACS cheesecake developed a crack in the crust when it baked, so I filled that with ganache this morning before we frosted and decorated the rest of the cheesecake. Somebody’s going to get a lot of ganache in their piece! We had a little bit of sun, so I got out to check on my apple blossom and lilac friends in our yard. They need some nicer weather to bloom! I made friends with a redbud tree in our back yard that Grandma and Grandpa didn’t know was there! This afternoon, we had hail again!
Love,
Lion-san