End of Year Church Activities

The Blast children's program at church is winding down for the summer.  The kids learned about the fruit of the spirit this year.  Each month they focused on a different "fruit" and participated in a mission project.  They also preformed several plays for the church during the year. To reward them for their hard work, they took a trip to Rebounderz.  The kids spent a couple of hours jumping on the trampolines, playing video games, and doing the ninja warrior course.  They had a blast for sure.

This is Olivia's last year participating in the Blast program.  She will be moving up to Youth next year. (!!!!) .  On the last Wednesday night supper of the year, the "senior" blast students were recognized and were presented with a devotional.  She is certainly going to miss her Blast group.

Spring Sports

The kids both participated in a spring sport this year.  Olivia played softball with the rec. department.  They had games both in town and in Alma.  She mostly played catcher, which is her favorite position, and she even caught a pop fly in one of the games. When she wasn't catching, she was in the outfield and she did a good job playing in that position as well.

 I had planned to sign Owen up for baseball again, but he let me know real quick that his baseball days were over.  His age division in baseball is live-pitch, and he is not a fan of that.  The rec department had so much success with the soccer program in the fall, that they decided to do a spring soccer league.  Owen likes soccer a lot, so he decided to play that instead of baseball.  The only downside was that his games frequently coincided with Olivia's softball games, so I only got to see Owen play a few times.  Brian went to all of the soccer games, though, and gave me a full report of each one.  Owen played goalie and improved a lot as the season went on.  He started kicking the ball much farther and he blocked several important shots. 

Relay for Life

 It has been a tradition for the Brian's Toys R Us store to "do it up big" at the Valdosta Relay for Life.  Even though his store closed it's doors in late April, the employees were still determined to have one last hurrah at the cancer walk.  Their theme this year was "Al's Toy Barn: Putting Cancer Out of Business".  Clever, right?  They used all of the sale signs to help decorate their area.  Olivia and Owen also got to attend this year, and they had a blast.  Olivia won the hula hoop contest- which lasted for fifteen minutes.  Owen won the scavenger hunt musical chairs.  The TRU area took home the top prize (again) for having the best area.  I think that it is so amazing that the workers stayed committed to this event despite all that had been going on at the store.  We are sure going to miss the TRU family!

Spring Family Time

 We have been so lucky to get to spend lots of time with our family this spring, and that makes us really happy.

We have taken every opportunity to hang with the babies.  Maren is close by, and we love seeing her precious little face.  We also had a visit from the Berks in late April and were able to celebrate John Daniel's first birthday with him. 

We go see Granny and Papa about once a week.  They get lots of company and are doing well. 

Melanie bought a house that is about mile away from us.  She is in the process of furnishing it and then she will be over here a lot more.  We are all excited about this.

 My cousin Bailey and her boyfriend Blake have gotten engaged and will be married next March.  It is a family tradition that we all go wedding dress shopping together, so she made the appointment and we packed out that little wedding boutique.  She found a dress, and it looks amazing on her.  She is going to be a beautiful bride for sure.

Our town sponsored a "Beats and Eats" event in early May.  A large number of our family members showed up with our lawn chairs, ate a variety of food from the delicious food trucks, and listened to a really good Journey tribute band.  This such a fun event, and was so successful that they are planning to do it again. 

 We have had a great spring, and are looking forward to a fun-filled summer.

VEX IQ Worlds

We have had such a fantastic robotics season this year.  Not only did we have all four of our school's robots make it to the state championship, but two of them also made it to Worlds.  The Worlds championship is a really big deal; this year's competition holds the Guinness record for the largest robotics competition ever held.  As the name of the tournament suggests, it attracts competitors from all parts of the globe.  These kids spent five days in Louisville, Kentucky competing with kids from countries like China, New Zealand, Egypt, and Chile. 

There were 400 teams competing in the elementary championship.  These teams were split into five divisions of 80 teams each with the top alliance from each division advancing to the championship.  Both of the Wacona teams were in the Cassini division, and both teams did very well.  Olivia was driving on robot A.  It finished tenth in qualifying and advanced to the division semi-finals where it ended up in eighth place. 

After the closing ceremony, all of the kids went to Kentucky Kingdom amusement park for the closing celebration.  Riding roller coasters is definitely our idea of a celebration!

Brian was the lucky parent who got to accompany Olivia to the competition, but Owen and I were able to keep up with it via the the live stream.  I watched every single round that both teams played as well as the closing ceremonies. 

I cannot even begin to describe what an awesome opportunity this was for Olivia and her teammates.  Robotics is such a wonderful sport.  In addition to teaching problem solving, coding, and engineering it also teaches the kids how to work together as a team and with kids whom they've just met. 

Manatee Springs

We went camping at Manatee Springs state park with our friends in late April.  I think that everyone under the sun was camping that weekend.  We had a hard time securing a spot at any of the good nearby campsites and ended up having to drive three hours to this campground.  I'm glad we did because this state park was really nice.  We were only able to stay for one night, but we certainly made the most of it.  We arrived around noon, had a picnic lunch, and then walked around the springs to get the lay of the land.  We took the boardwalk down to the Suwannee River and saw lots of wildlife along the way.  There were no shortage of snakes or deer at this park, that's for sure. 

After exploring the area a bit, we drove to our assigned spot and set up camp.  The campsite was nice.  It had running water and an electrical outlet.  There was also a comfort station with showers and toilets a short walk away.  The bathroom was large and really clean.  Once everything was set up, we changed into our swimsuits and headed down for a dip in the springs. 

 After our swim, we returned to the campsite where we cooked hot dogs, hamburgers, and made s'mores.  The kids went "exploring" in the woods behind our tents and found an open area that they dubbed their "secret spot". 

 As it got darker, we broke out the games.  We started with a kids-versus-adults game of head's up and ended with a game of rummy.  As we were getting ready for bed we noticed that the their were tons of fireflies in the woods behind our campsite.  The kids had fun catching those.  All were released, of course.

Even though we were only there for one night, we were able to squeeze in two hikes.  We did a short one on our first day and a longer one before leaving on our second day.  There were several sinkholes in the area and the kids liked  in seeing those.

 My favorite part was swimming in the spring.  Manatee is a first magnitude spring, so there was lots of cool, clear, fresh water.  The set-up around the head spring was nice with stairs and platforms in various areas. They also had an area where you could rent kayaks and paddle out to the Suwannee, but we did not do that on this trip. 

 We had a great time camping.  A lot of this had to do with the company.  The kids both said that there favorite part was being able to go with their friends.  The park wasn't too shabby, either.  I liked it a lot and would definitely be interested in a return visit.