As you can see, June is a busy time for me. There are multiple family and friend birthdays, not to mention the last week of school. Things are crazy!

Jim is an avid Star Trek fan. He has a picture of the crew on a refrigerator magnet; when his little boy saw them, he said, "Look! It's Daddy's Wiggles!" (Here's a link to The Wiggles for anyone who hasn't been around young children in the past three years.) So Jim decided to have a Science Fiction costume party for his 40th.

I love sci-fi and anime, but I've never cosplayed. I briefly toyed with dressing up the whole family as The Wiggles, then decided to try to stay on-theme. Melissa and I were going to go as The Fly, but we didn't know how to make the bug mask. We considered several other things, and thought we'd have to be lame and go without costumes because we were running out of time. But then Eri had a brainstorm.

We went as The Magic School Bus.

No, there are no pictures.

The family had to split up for other parties and things. Eri colored in a t-shirt with lots of relevant symbols, like Ms. Frizzle's dress. Kayla got a big book and pigtails so she could be Dorothy Ann ("According to my research..."). Tatiana found a red dress and yellow t-shirt to be Phoebe ("In my old school..."). Melissa and I spray-painted two boxes fluorescent yellow, added black tape and paint to turn them into a school bus, and ran some clothesline through them.

Melissa and I stand together to make the bus. I'm the back, she's the front. It looked terrific.

We had some argument over whether The Magic School Bus was science fiction. It's plenty science, but is it fantasy or fiction? I assert that accepting one little transforming bus as science fiction is no big leap... if you can accept a story that combines instantaneous teleportation and communications, faster-than-light travel, force fields, a galaxy entirely populated by humanoid lifeforms, full sensory holgraphic submersion, and constrained plasma energy weapons all in one go.

As soon as we stepped in the door, everyone recognized us. Everyone wanted to try the costume on. Their autistic son was actually climbing into the box with me still in it! We let them play, and when they were done, we put it back on to take some pictures.

In the end, we left it at their house for the boys to play with. They did seem to love it.

Happy 40th birthday, Jim!