Medieval Times TV Shoot, Day 1

We are at Medieval Times today.  We recently saw their new tournament show but today we aren't here for the show.  Because of some PR work I have done for Medieval Times here on the blog, they included us in a special invitation to be a part of their 2014 TV commercial shoot. 

The kids are super excited and it is a great opportunity for them to be a part of the "behind the scenes" of TV magic.

We were greeted with lots of wonderful food for lunch...salad, lasagna, tortellini alfredo, hot dogs, popcorn, fruit, chips, candy, and more.  The kids thought the smorgasbord was a pretty cool deal.

We has some time before the shooting would begin so we looked at the horses.

Rachel met the Princess.

And Nicholas hung out with the Falconer.

Finally it was time to enter the arena.  How exciting!

It was funny to see the first aid station for the filming crew.  The Pepto Bismol and Advil had already been cracked open.  This is such a big production that I'm sure they have been working overtime to get ready for this day.

We were seated in the section for the red and yellow knight and given the traditional crowns. 

The arena is quite large but I believe there are only about 50 families here so we just filled up the red and yellow section.

There was a lot of down time as the crew finished setting up and making sure everyone looked their best.

We were sitting on the back row and got to talk to this guy a lot.  He is in charge of the artistic side of things.  He passed out princess crowns and swords and shields to random kids throughout the audience, took the sheen off of someone's crown, cleaned wine glasses of fingerprints, etc.  It seemed like a fun job.

Stuart and Nicholas were being silly as we waited. 

Time to roll the cameras!  Here is a video of one of the many things we did today....random cheering and banner waving!

There were some designated people in the crowd that the cameras focused on for several shots.  There was a couple, a girl to be crowned, and also a dad with his son.  It was fun watching all of the retakes as they would tell the people to do things a little differently or change the camera angle or wipe more fingerprints off the wine glass.  

Then they passed out the food.  Oh I love the food at Medieval Times.  They have an amazing roasted chicken.  It was around 6:00 pm by now and we were getting hungry again.  But we all understood that the food was just there so they could be sure it showed up in their video shots so no one ate it.  How hard it was to not just take a bite but we resisted....well, most of us did.  Stuart eventually just had to take a bite of his potato.

Taking random pictures to try to keep my mind off of the food.

We did eventually get to eat and oh man it was yummy!

They took some footage of the red and yellow knight riding up on his horse and throwing flowers into the audience.  Rachel wanted to catch one so badly and the knight tried to throw it to her but it was heading right for me so I reached up and caught it to be sure Rachel could have it.

We all had a great time today.

The kids felt like a true knight and princess and even had their own battle scene with each other's red banners.

Rachel, of course, is in love with her special princess hat.  I love it too.  I remember my mom made a princess hat similar to this for me when I was little as part of a princess costume.  It was even light blue like this one!

After shooting was done, we hit the ice cream machine in the Hall of Arms.

There was a little more shooting to do in the Hall of Arms.  We walked in front of the horse stables to be the "movement of a crowd" behind their video shots.

There was also a scene next to the gift shop where the dad and son that were filmed in the arena seats had swords and shields and acted out a battle.  They did it over and over for the cameras.  Stuart and Nicholas were even asked to walk up to the gift shop counter in the background to be "customers #2" but I was too busy watching them and forgot to get a picture of them in action.

Afterwards, Rachel wanted to fight Daddy like she had watched the other dad do with his son.  She was so happy when he took the challenge.

What an amazingly fun day!  We'll be back tomorrow for a few more hours of shooting.

Measuring Length with Paper Clips

In Math, Rachel is learning about measurement.  Today we measured things around the house with a chain of paper clips.  As you can see her pencil is 6 paper clips long.

We talked about how this wasn't a very specific way to measure something because it was hard to identify how long something was if its length fell in the middle of a paper clip.

Then I showed her that I had three different sizes of paper clips.  We measured things with all three sizes of paper clips to show that they all measured the items at different lengths.  She thought that was funny!

It was easy then to talk about why it is important to have standard units of measurements so everyone knows exactly what the other person really means when they say something is a specific length.  We talked about why it was important to have specific measurements especially when cutting boards to build a house, getting your weight at a doctor's office, measuring ingredients for a recipe, etc.

Writing on the Walls

It usually isn't ok to write on the walls in our home....unless you are using shaving cream in the bath tub!  I sometimes surprise the kids by giving them cheap bottles of shave cream to play with in the bath tub.  It is a fun sensory experience because they love the feel of shave cream as they squish it in their hands or rub it all over their body.  

I also love the sweet notes that get written on the wall like "R {heart} M" for Rachel loves Mommy :)  It can be kind of challenging though to write legibly with a can of shaving cream.

And the best part of a shaving cream bath?  We rinse the shave cream away and the bath tub is now sparkling clean!  

Clean kid + clean bath tub = happy mommy!

Stop Telemarketers with the National Do Not Call Registry

I'm so tired of telemarketing calls.  We get them all day long.  

It is especially frustrating when I'm in the middle of doing school work with the kids.  They will take advantage of any possible distraction to try to get a break from school.

Did you know that there is a way to limit the number of telemarketing calls that you get at home or on your cell phone?  It is called the National Do Not Call Registry.  It's FREE to sign up!

The National Do Not Call Registry is managed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency and it is enforced by the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  Telemarketers are required to remove anyone on the National Do Not Call list from their calling database.

To register your phone numbers, simply go to https://www.donotcall.gov/ to register your phone number for the National Do Not Call list.  Once you register, telemarketers have 31 days to remove you from their calling lists so you may continue to get calls during that time.  Your phone numbers will remain on the list until they are disconnected or reassigned so you don't have to worry about keeping up with a registry expiration date.

There are some exceptions in cases where you may still legally receive telemarketing calls.  According to the Do Not Call website, "Because of limitations in the jurisdiction of the FTC and FCC, calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted, as would calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those to whom you’ve provided express agreement in writing to receive their calls. However, if you ask a company with which you have an existing business relationship to place your number on its own do-not-call list, it must honor your request.  You should keep a record of the date you make the request."

This is an important point.  Companies that you do business with have customer databases that they may share with other companies and this can result in telemarketing calls to you.  I try to always "opt out" of any information sharing with companies that I do business with but sometimes it can be challenging to figure out how to do this.

The frustrating thing is that we have had our home phone number on the Do Not Call Registry since July 31, 2004 but lately we have been getting about 3 telemarketing calls per day.  Usually we can tell it is a telemarketing call because of the information that shows up on Caller ID so we either ignore the call or hang up on them if we answer.  However, I've now decided to take a different approach that is a little more of a hassle right now but will hopefully be more effective in the long run.

On the Do Not Call website, you can also file a complaint if you get telemarketing calls once you are on the Registry.  I've recently started collecting information for each call.  Then I inform the caller that I want to be removed from their database and that I will be filing a complaint about their call because we are on the National Do Not Call Registry. filing a complaint for each one.  The essential information you need to file a complaint is the phone number and name of the company that called but any additional data you can provide is helpful.  The FTC may not investigate each one of these complaints but I think if I keep filing complaints then surely it will at least reduce the number of time wasting calls that we get.

We Have a Pet Snake!

Rachel and I were working on raking up leaves in the backyard when Rachel asked me, "Mommy, is that a snake or a big worm?" 

It was a real snake...in our backyard!

Rachel went to get the boys to come out and see.  Nicholas, of course, grabbed his empty reptile habitat and wanted to capture it for a pet.  We put it in the habitat base just so we could get a better look at it and watch it move around.

We got out our snake identification field guide and also posted a picture of it on a local community page on Facebook to ask their opinion of what it is.  We determined that it is a Rough Earth Snake and it is harmless.  Whew!

I'm fine looking at him but I do not like to watch him slither, especially towards me!

We decided to keep Hairy for a few days so he has some dirt and is well secured in the reptile habitat box.  The kids even dug up some fresh worms to feed him.  He has since buried himself under the dirt and hasn't been seen since.  I sure hope he is still in there and not slithering around our house!  Since he likes to be hidden, he doesn't make for a very fun pet so we'll probably release him into the woods tomorrow.  But for now, we have a pet snake.