Star Trek

Have I mentioned that we are science fiction geeks at our house. It is a lot of fun. And it always sparks interesting conversations. Sometimes deep philosophical ones, and sometimes silly what ifs. My children are very imaginative and surprisingly observant. They notice flaws in logic and will talk about how the creators world view has influenced their work. They like making props and costumes and movie adaptations of the books they've read and the movies they see. It is a good thing their mother is a pack rat and always has lots of materials for them to work with.
Our latest journey has been into the world of old school Star Trek. We have determined that Kirks favorite color is green. And that this must have been a super fun set to work on. And that special effects have come a llllllooooonnnnngggggggggg way.
Not wanting to copy story lines, my children have created their own ship. It is called the USS Dreambuilder. It's mission is to explore new worlds and no kissing everything, and no socialist message. (Their words, not mine. But I do agree with them.) They have Captain Elizabeth who is short, cute, and bossy. Kind of like Kirk ^.^ An engineer who yells at the captain a lot. She is Barbara and wears a red shirt. But she has a name so that is okay. Then there is the pilot Charles McCoy, the great great grandson of the famous Leonard McCoy. He too is bossy. Their are occasional guest appearances by a one legged navigator named Billy, who doesn't show up often because there are steps on the way to the ship that are hard to navigate with crutches.
They have created quite a few props. There are lots of badges, communicators and phasers that shoot potato pellets. There are lots of panels with buttons and switches and monitors. I could never describe these so I took a video.
You have to excuse the mess, it is a room under construction. At the end, I have to clarify, we don't have cable, the only thing my kids watch are things we choose to let them watch and when we choose. No mindless watching. And we don't have gaming systems and they are only allowed half an hour of computer time a day if they have finished all their school lessons and chores. So not very often ^.^ Things like this ship tend to be a distraction. But I'm okay with that.

ps. Did you see that lense flair? JJ Abrams would be so proud!