Our own game show

The kids created a game I like to call, "the point game" It started off with me trying to get them to stop fighting in the car and with them bickering about some arbitrary points they were assigning to things.
So our game involves questions and points. It's kind of like that game show with Drew Carey, Whose line is it anyway?" b/c just as in that show, "The points don't matter. Just don't tell my kids that.
The kids tell me the points they want and I give them a question worthy of that value based on their age. Sounds official doesn't it?
Johanna prefers just regular questions whereas Michael likes me to ask him to spell things.
The nice thing about this game is that there can be no cheating b/c you are allowed to ask for answers or help b/c that is considered research.
So a game might go like this:
Johanna: "I want 3 points"
Me: Ok what is your full address
Whereas a 7 pointer might ask which president freed the slaves.
My favorite answer to: What do the 13 stripes on the American flag represent? came from a very confidant Johanna when she said, "The 13 original continents."
Also since the last gubernatorial election we have had some conversations about the role of government and we talk about freedom. So some of questions are based on that.
Today after a great day at birthday party where the kids bounced in a bounce house played on the playground, did lots of running and enjoyed cake and hot dogs my kids piled into the van buckled up and Johanna said, "Now what were we talking about? oh yeah the governor"
she got 10 points!

The intrepid Air and space museum

What an amazing day! As I drove my van down the west side highway I saw it in all it's hugeness. I yelled, "Look!! look out Michael's window! there it is the ship. We're going to go on that ship!! Holy cow it's soo big!!!"

Johanna asked what the baby planes were doing up there. Later she would see they were not baby planes at all. A lesson in perspective I suppose.
We went to the museum for reciprocal day b/c we are members of the Newark museum. I probably never would have thought to go otherwise or would not have wanted to spend the money.
However for "free day" it was worth a shot. The kids got feel for how incredible it was to be on ship that big. The flight deck was jaw dropping and yet inside the ship was so little b/c of all the narrow hallways. Bunk beds that went to up to 5 were a huge hit with each declaring no one had to be on top or bottom!
I'm not one who keeps the guns play under wraps so the kids got to play "good guy bad guy" and pretend they were firing off the big guns. I didn't tell them that the bad guys at the time were the Japanese b/c I don;t think we needed that much history. It was more for the enjoyment of the ship and honestly I would have felt very uncomfortable b/c there were Japanese tourists on the ship. I wasn't ready to field those sorts of questions. Luckily my kids were happy to have an unnamed "bad guy" that they could shoot unencumbered by guilt.

It was an amazing experience.