First Robotics Competition

 Last year the kids' school began an VEX IQ elementary robotics team. There were (and still are) no other elementary robotics teams anywhere near our town, so the kids just built and practiced with the robots but did not enter any official competitions.  This year the coaches decided to take the program to the next level by registering for a few competitions in the Atlanta area.  The first competition was last weekend.  Olivia and her partner competed in the "alliance" portion of the event.  This duo was paired with teams from other schools to work together and score as many points as they could in a sixty-second time frame.  Olivia drove the robot for the first thirty seconds.  Her job was to knock down the four hex balls with the robot.  She would then pass the controller to her partner who would try to park the robot on the bridge.  There are other things that you can do to score points, but knocking off the balls and parking on the bridge was our team's strategy.  Olivia and her partner ended up finishing 26th out of 40 elementary and middle school teams.  That's not too bad for their very first competition.

 Since the competition was in Atlanta, we decided to stay an extra night with Cassie and James (Nick was out of town).  I'm so glad that Cassie lives nearby.  I accidentally flushed my keys down the toilet and had to have my car towed to the Honda place to have a new key programmed.  What a mess! Cassie came to the competition and then took my kids home with her while I sorted out the key fiasco.  She was a real life-saver.  Once the key situation was taken care of we all went out to eat at Longhorn and then spent the evening loving on my favorite nephew.  Sweet baby James sugar is just what was needed after a long day.

St Augustine Field Trip

Olivia's WINGS class recently took a field trip to St. Augustine.  It was an all-day affair that included a trolley tour of the city, a visit to Ripley's Believe It or Not, and a trip to the Fountain of Youth.  Olivia reported that she had a great time.  She liked the Ripley's a lot and even took a picture of the metal "Chucky"- the same statue that almost caused her to have a breakdown when I took her last year.  She also liked visiting the Fountain of Youth and thought it was cool that her class got to see a canon firing.  While the canon was cool, the water from the "fountain" was not.  Olivia said that it was gross and made her feel ill.  Olivia was chaperoned by the lovely Granny Mel who also had a great time.

This is the Fountain of Youth (yep, that's it)

Remember the Titans

Both of the kids put in to play soccer this year. Owen had played for the first time last year and really liked it, so Olivia decided that she would give it a shot.  Both kids were on the same team (the Titans) and in the 8-10 year old division, The games in the 8-10 year old division were more organized than in the younger division that we were in last year. There was actually some strategy and skill needed.  Dare I say that I actually enjoyed watching the games?  The kids loved soccer and seemed to get better as the season went on.  They had some really skilled players on their team, and ended up with an undefeated season.  They have both expressed interest in playing again next year, so we may do that.

A "Wonder"ful Halloween

Our Halloween theme this year was "Alice in Wonderland".  Olivia dressed as Alice, Owen as the Mad Hatter, and Brian and I were Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  As usual, we met up at Granny Buie's house and went trick-or-treating in her neighborhood.  The kids had a great time and racked up on candy.  I love Halloween.  It's so much fun.

Kings Island

We were staying in Kentucky on Olivia's actual birthday, so we decided to make a short drive to southern Ohio (state #20) to visit Kings Island.  Brian and I had visited this amusement park prior to having kids, but we were amazed by how much it has changed.  The park was sold a few years back, and the new owners have added many new, quality coasters.  

The first order of business after entering the park was to get the kids measured.  Once they get their "official" measurement they receive an armband stating how tall they are.  Doing this allows them to avoid having to be constantly measured at each individual attraction.  They both measured above 54 inches, which is the magic number for coaster-loving kids.  At 54" you can ride any coaster.  I knew Olivia would hit the mark, but I wasn't sure if Owen would.  He just did meet the height requirement, and he was so happy.

 We spent the whole day at the park and rode every notable thrill ride- including The Beast- currently the #6 wooden coaster in the world and Diamondback-  currently the #9 steel coaster in the world and the kids first hypercoaster (a coaster w/ a drop over 200 feet).  We even got Nana on a coaster!  In case you don't know, theme parks are our thing.  Brian and I loved them before we had kids, and now that our kids are tall enough, it is wonderful to share our love of roller coasters with them.

Ark Encounter

 The Ark Encounter is a Noah's Ark-themed attraction that opened in July of this year.  It is located a short distance from the family farm in Kentucky, so we decided to check it out.  Because the park is brand-new, there are still some organizational issues.  We visited on a holiday, and you could tell they were still working out the kinks of managing large crowds.  Fortunately we did not have to wait in the extremely long line to buy tickets because we purchased ours online.

What I liked about the Ark is that it was built to the dimensions as specified in the Bible.  This allowed me to actually experience the wonder that the Ark was.  Of course, no one knows exactly what the interior of the Ark looked like or what life on the Ark was like. Some artistic liberties were taken with the inside portion of the Ark, but I was okay with those.

I should mention that as of now, this is a straight-up tourist attraction.  I mean, there's an add-on where you can go zip-lining or ride a camel.  I was not moved spiritually by the attraction at all, but I don't think it was designed to do that.  If it were, there would have been a chapel or a minister on hand or something.  I appreciated it for what it was, but it is definitely not a place that I would plan a spiritual pilgrimage to or anything.

Most of the exhibits inside of the ark consisted of large signs explaining the events from creation, leading up to the ark, and then what happened afterwards.  The signs were beautiful, but there were so many people on the ark that it took a while to get up to them.  Then, once I did I felt like if I stopped to read it that I would be holding up everyone behind me.  So, I just took pictures of all of the signs that I will read at a later date. 

Okay- here's the part that was surprising.  There were all of these cages on the ark with animatronic animals in them.  There were the usual bear, pig, rodent-type animals, but there was also a section with animatronic dinousaurs.  The claim is that dinos were on the ark.  I had always assumed that this was not the case, so I was a bit surprised to find them here.  There were signs explaining the claim of dinosaurs being on the ark, and I took pictures of them all, but I have not had the opportunity to investigate this yet.  Overall, I enjoyed the trip to the Ark Encounter.  I would not make a special trip to get here, but not a bad way to spend a few hours if in the area.

Visiting the Kentucky Farm

We had a great fall break this year- even though it began in an interesting way with us hunkering down to brace for Hurricane Matthew.  Fortunately, we got through the night with no lasting damage.  Once Matthew had passed, we set out on the road headed to Kentucky to meet up with Brian's dad.  Even though Poppy and Nana live in Delaware, Poppy is originally from Kentucky and grew up on a farm there.  As a child, Brian spent a lot of time with his Poppy and Mama-Doll on the farm in Kentucky.  It worked out that Poppy and Nana were going to be in Kentucky on the weekend of our break, and so we decided to take the kids so that they could see the Sanders' family farm.

The farm is located in a small town not too far from Lexington.  I had never been to this part of Kentucky, but it is beautiful.  There are rolling hills, horses, and large horse farms everywhere you look.  The Sanders farm had cows, and the kids were just delighted with them.  They really wanted to pet one, but the cows were having none of that.  We drove / walked all around the property.  I was happy to finally get to visit the farm that Brian has been talking about for years, and his stories were accurate- it is a beautiful piece of land.  We don't know when or if we'll get to visit the farm again, so we took lots of pictures.

 While we were in the area, we did do a few other touristy things- one of which was visiting the grave of Man-O-War.  I'm not the biggest follower of horse racing, but I have heard of Man-O-War and know him to be one of the greatest racing horses ever to live.  What I didn't know is that he only ever lost one race and that the name of the horse that beat him was "Upset" and that that's were we get the sports term "an upset" (like "it was an upset") from.  You learn something new every day.

 Olivia's actual birthday occurred while we were in Kentucky, so we had the chance to celebrate that with Poppy, Nana, and Uncle Dustin.  Nana even ordered a cake for her.  Olivia received many nice gifts- including a new American Girl Doll.  It was a great trip.