Cool math trick

Found this on yahoo news when the page loaded. Thought it pretty cool.

I've found that the technique works with numbers that are different lengths and even if zero is incorporated.

Multiplying by drawing lines and counting

Hooray... beat Kingdom Hearts II

Finally beat Kingdom Hearts II. Here's the proof:


If I remember right I bought this after Thanksgiving. I had been playing Kingdom Hearts and the kids were watching. Disney / Final Fantasy... how can you go wrong? Except for (spoilers to come for non-Kingdom Hearts players)
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In the end of Kingdom Hearts I everyone is separated. So Mickey is closed behind a big door with Sora's best friend Riku. Kairi (Sora's love interest) get's separated from Sora, but before they are separated they promise to find each other.

This ending... did not fair well with the kids. Jamie and Cian were both in tears over the unknown status of Riku, Kairi, and especially Mickey Mouse. When Mom got home and the kids were still in tears it was obvious what needed to be done. I was going to wait to buy the sequel being the heartless cheapskate that I am, but when I got the go ahead from the big boss how could I refuse?! :D

Anywho.... now to beat it with the kids watching AND to finish it more than 93% complete. See if anything else happens (Kingdom Hearts I had a teaser trailer for Kingdom Hearts II when you beat it after getting 100% completion).

Cian is reading!!!

I gave the kids candy hearts after we got with sledding the other day. I mentioned to Jamie that they have messages written on them. Cian gathered all his together and started reading.

Picked up heart #1
It said, "Dear Cian, It is a great day for Grandma"

heart #2
"It is a great day for Aunt Sarah"

This continued until he ran out of hearts to read. Each heart had a different person... Jamie...Cian..Daddy..Mama


I never knew candy hearts had so much information!

Brrr Cold has come to Oklahoma

We had a big ice storm this Martin Luther King weekend. The kids and I took a tour after the ice started falling (about a day). It was COLD! We decided to go out to the neighboring golfcourse (as the likelihood of being hit by a ball today was slim). Cian had an idea to climb 'the tall mountain' (hill), and Jamie said, "let's get our sled". I was dumbstruck... why hadn't I thought of that!!

Rushing back inside we dug out our sled the grandparents had given us years ago. Went out and had a blast! 'Course there is this thing called wind and in our haste I had let Jamie dress herself. She was wearing a long sleeve shirt some thin cotton pants and a jacket with her new gloves. It didn't take long (~8 sled trips) before she suggested going back. So back we went.

--Add cold let freeze--
So that was yesterday. Today the top layer of fluff (the 5mm that it was) froze. We took the sled out and could still see our tracks from yesterday carved out and unmoving. We didn't leave any tracks this time!!! Some of the hills were so slick I had to use my previous-day-tracks to keep from sliding back down! No top layer meant no guide tracks for our sled... all 4 feet of it would spin down the hill.

All in all a good day. We'll see when we go back out. coats..check hats..check extra pants..check sweaters..check gloves...check scarves..... that would have been handy! oops Next time Old man winter....next time!

An update... Yosemite and Cian

Alright... some Yosemite pictures like I promised.

First... the drive over there. The scenery was very different than the valley. This wispy grass was hard to photograph while driving, but I tried. Missed all the black rocks jutting out around the grass (slate??). This photograph also captures the first mountain I came across ,albeit hidden in clouds...



Next is the sign that kinda puzzled me at first. I was supposed to wait at this red light possibly for 15 minutes. 'Alright', I thought, " they must be doing maintenance.



Maintenance was right!! As I traveled along I found that a gigantic rock slide was covering most of the road! (and yes the reflection is the GPS receiver I had plugged into my computer that kept losing the lock through all the winding mountain roads)


Made it to Yosemite! Went through the Arch Rock entrance. I was only there for the afternoon so I figured I'd see as many spots and get as many pictures as I could before the sunset. Everywhere I went there were photographers. I saw one guy and figured I'd go to some other spot that was empty. WAHH! This guy just happened to be there... blended right in with his dark clothes, so I added him into my shot. My lens wasn't as good as his zoom, so the mountain shot would have been weak anyway.



When I made it to Yosemite Valley the sun was setting. There was a family having a snowball fight and this guy taking a picture with his large format camera. the fog over all the snow was much cooler in person (sorry).




Now for the Cian part of the post.
1) His 'everything' sandwich. He came up with this 'recipe'. He gathers all the ingredients and waits for me to assemble it. The ingredients consist of: bread, jam, nutella, peanut butter (creamy and crunchy), and honey. He has requested slices of mozzerella and mustard at different times, but the before mentioned ingredients make up the usual.

2) His hot chocolate request. "Dad I cold...I need some hot chocolate to cool me down"

Slow Weekend

Another slow weekend cold enough outside that I was happy to chill in pj's and hang out indoors. It's allowed me to make some progress on my new puzzle.


Really itching to drive down to the Witchita Mountains. As soon as I get a free weekend that's where we're going.... or maybe even a free afternoon!

Kids have an odd sense of humor. Ever since I told Cian the knock-knock joke with the punch line of "ORANGE you glad I didn't say apple" he's been butchering it ever since. He starts cracking up before reaching the punchline.

Jamie even came up with her own version...
Knock-knock
-who's there?
Apple
-Apple Who?
I go swimming MWHAHAHahhahaha

Another thing I thought odd is something Cian brought up to me the other day. He said "when I was a baby I drank milk from a bottle". My response was, "no you didn't you drank milk from mommies breasts". "What don't be silly milk comes from a cow".

He wouldn't be convinced that other mammals produce milk for their babies. He doesn't even believe me that they sell goat's milk at the store! To have been a breastfed baby and think that cow's milk is the only type of milk. Geez

Puzzles

So I've been taking a liking to big puzzles these days. I find they give me something to do when Rose is recording podcasts late at night or is off to knitting and the kids are out.

this post is concerning one "recently" completed (near xmas time). Bought it at Walmart because I had been to the place. Manarola Italy.

Here's the completed puzzle... same shot that eveyone takes when walking on the trail.



And here's my complaint. Whoever made the puzzle didn't have enough resolution in their photo to blow it up that big. The picture is pixelated. And the colors were off from the box.. wah!

There I'm done.

So now I am working on another puzzle...this one from Milton Bradley. Better quality. I never thought I'd be a puzzle snob; but picture quality, piece thickness, texture, color... start to add up.