Club Penguin

I got the girls some accounts on a fun, kid friendly site last night. A virtual place called Club Penguin. Chat's are always moderated with severe disciplinary actions for even the slightest bullying, or profanity used. Parents also have the option of getting the "super" safe membership where kids can only use pre-set chat messages such as, "hello" "how are you?" "okay".

The game play is fun with a little community where you play simple games and earn coins to buy stuff for your penguin like hats, instruments or pets. (I think I found another incentive game to entice the girls to keep up on their chores.) It'd also be fun to get some of the girls friends to log in and play penguin style connect four with each other. So, if you think this could be fun for your kids, make an account and check it out. I thought it was cute. I even played awhile on the Wii to test it out for them. The ability to use our real keyboard on the Wii makes logging in to stuff much easier. http://www.clubpenguin.com/ click on PLAY NOW to start a free account.

They do have a pay membership for those that want to let their kids use the coins they collect to buy "good" penguin merchandise and participate in more areas of the game in more ways. I may do that in the future. It's a good way to help grow basic math skills and even the basics of how money/saving works.

Club Penguin rules

Respect Other Penguins, club penguin does not tolerate any swearing, bullying or mean behavior toward other penguins. Disciplinary action will be taken should any one of these occur while playing.

Never reveal your personal information. The best way to stay safe online is to NEVER share your real name, phone number, address, email or passwords.

The kids had to agree to these rules when they got their account. So it gave me an opportunity to talk about internet safety and how we can't know for sure who the other penguins are and they might be bad guys. So, it was a 1st grade level introduction to this topic and I thought that it was a lot easier for the girls to understand than just talking about generic IM's. (Though I've got them on the "super safe" membership and they only have a list of chat messages to pick from.)

Heck they even have their own virtual way to be involved in real charity http://www.clubpenguin.com/coins-for-change.htm

I just have to keep editing this! :) There is also gift cards you can purchase so you can tuck a paid membership penguin in a stocking this Christmas.

Smoovies, My New Retreat

Had a local Doulas meeting at Smoovies the other day. I had no idea what it was, the title of the place says to me "they must have smoothies there" and that's about it. But it is a pretty fun place to go and relax and chat with friends. There's toys and games and TV's and a small (home size) movie theater in the back. It's a great place for the kids and the adult's who want to still play with toys and games and watch movies. It's comfortable and pretty quiet for a building that has a Wii and Playstation going at the same time. There's board games and foos ball and even a chess area. Nic actually passed the video games by and went to the toy room to play with the little play kitchen (of course) he had a great time just cooking away!

Oh ya and they serve yummy smoothies. Mocha's or Hot Chocolate for those nippy days and they have added some bagelwiches and some pretty delicious hamburgers to their menu recently too (In case you need something more than smoothies and some fun time). I've been there twice in the past week and I hope to frequent it a lot more and give them a lot of business, I really like it. In the summer time they set up an outdoor screen to show free family movies on while people slurp on their delicious smoothies.

Anyway it's a unique little place to go in the tri-cities. It's in the Victorian shopping mall on Keene Rd in West Richland. If anyone wants to go and hang out there with me give me a call and we'll go enjoy lunch away from home.

BTW they have settlers of catan there, we could have some all afternoon setters fun.

Ainsley Nip

I've come to the conclusion that Sister-In-Law Melody excretes some type of pheromone with an effect to Ainsley similar to that of cat nip to cats. When ever Melody visits Ainsley looses all control and just becomes the most playful ball of giggles ever, she can't pry herself away from the magnetic pull of Melody. Melody was here yesterday, I don't think she was able to shake Ainsley loose at any one point in time. Ainsley and her are "best friends" in Ainsley's mind. It's really cute, though I'm sure Melody must get annoyed.

There's only one other person that has a similar pheromone, that would be Matt. Though his magical wiles affects all my kids. When he visits they ALL turn retarded.