Rome May Not Have Been Built In A Day, But We're Making A Pretty Good Go At Trying To Finish It Up Over The Weekend

As I noted Friday, the eight year old and I are building a model of the Circus Maximus for school this weekend. And I have to say that so far, it is turning out very, very nicely.

Yesterday morning, we were the first ones into Michael's and bought out virtually their entire stock of balsa wood. Coming home, we settled into a nifty little arrangement whereby I cut and shaped pieces, while the gel sanded them and glued them in based on a rather clever little numbering scheme we developed.

So far, both of the long sides are done. I am in the process of putting together the rounded ends and a couple of towers and arches and then we need to finish up with the inner island and painting the whole thing. The arrangement we've worked out is that I am going to build all of these components and then the gel is going to attach them to the model itself.

The Llama-ette is intensely proud of what we've built so far. As it happens, my In-laws are coming over for dinner. They have a digital camera, so perhaps we'll take a pic or two if the thing looks like it's close to completion this evening.

YIPS from Steve: Meanwhile, Uncle Steve-O is hard at work at the little Ben Hur figurines, not to mention a little unscripted attack by Spartacus and his army of slave gladiators.... Fortunately, I've laid in a good stock of modeling glue to help.

Those little Dolphin thingees marking the laps are a pain to make, let me tell you.

UPDATE from Robbo: Well, we finished the project and it actually turned out rather better than I had expected. The Llama-ette, who did almost all of the glueing, is as proud as Lucifer of the results. My father-in-law took a couple of digital snaps - if they turned out, I'll post one.

Most importantly, perhaps, some seriously good father-daughter bonding time was had.