'Tis the Season

The last few weeks have been packed with various Christmas activities.  One thing new to us this year is our Christmas tree.  Granny Buie got a new tree, and so we are now using her old one.  Funny enough, our previous tree was also a Granny Buie hand-me-down.  The kids loved adding their new ornaments from Disney, Space Camp, and Texas.

December has also marked the return of our elf, Pickles.  He is way more mischievous this year than he has ever been before.  Funny how that coincides with the fact that Brian is now home with us during the Christmas season and has taken on some new duties.

The kids have also enjoyed attending various Christmas parties at school, church, and with friends.  I think their favorite was the gingerbread house party.  They love spending time with their buddies.

This is Owen's last year to participate in the children's Christmas program at church.  This year's program was about using you unique talents for God's glory.  Owen is good with technology, so he created a scavenger hunt for the class, filmed it, and presented the edited video at the performance. 

Following the church performance, we drove to another local church to see their live nativity.  I thought that it would be something we just drove up and looked at, but it was like a 30 minute play.  They had bleachers and everything.  It was so impressive and well done, and it reminded us all of the true reason for the season.

Christmas Parade

 The Christmas Parade is one of our favorite holiday traditions.  The kids love meeting up at the usual "spot" and watching the parade with our family.  This year was Maren's first parade, so that made it special.  We usually go to Christmas in the Park following the parade, but there was a last minute date change for the parade (due to the football team being in the playoffs), so the two events did not coincide. .

Christmas Band Recital

 The middle school band had their Christmas recital last week.  I must admit, that my expectations were low.  I mean, these kids haven't been playing that long so I thought the songs would sound really bad.  Man, was I wrong.  The kids did a fantastic job.  I was pretty impressed- especially with their band director for getting them to play this well in such a short period of time.  Olivia is certainly enjoying being in the band and learning to play the French horn. 

Robotics Update: One qualified, one to go

The kids attended their second robotics competition of the season in early December.  Olivia's team has worked to improve their robot, and they've fixed some of the issues that they had in the first competition.  They drove well and finished in the middle of the pack.  They plan to make further improvements over the Christmas holiday.  These kids are working their butts off on this robot, and I am proud of their progress.




If you will recall, Owen's robot had some major issues at the first competition and they finished last.  I am pleased to report that the problems have been fixed, and they rocked it at the second competition.  They finished second in skills and also second in alliance.  Better yet, they qualified for state.  Owen was so excited!  

Tech Fair

 The kids each completed a project for their school system's tech fair again this year.  Olivia competed in the category of 3D modeling.  For her project, she designed and built a roller coaster using No Limits2 software.  She worked really hard on her project.  Not only did she work on it for hours at home, but she also did several "run-throughs" of her presentation.  She was noticeably nervous on the day of the competition.  Her efforts paid off, and she was awarded the first place medal. 

Owen and his partner entered in the category of device modification.  They worked on their project at school, so I didn't really know what they were doing until the day of the competition.  I still don't know if I understand it.  Basically, they are using a device called a makey makey to change a computer program.  In this case, they hook some wires up to various fruits and play a piano on the computer using the fruit.  They also did well and finished in second place.  The top two finishers in each category move on to the regional competition, so both kids will be competing again in January. 

November at the Zoo

Every November the city of Jacksonville hosts a "kids free" event in which kids get admission into various places for free.  The Jacksonville Zoo is a participant in this event.  We haven't visited the zoo in a couple of years, so we decided to head that way.  We had a great time.  They have installed a new "great ape" area since we were last there, and it is impressive.  We enjoyed seeing it as well as the other animal exhibits. 

The Fair

The kids' robotics teams had a booth at the fair this year.  The goal of the booth was to let people know about the VEX program in hopes that it would raise interest / inspire other schools to start their own teams (so that we don't have to travel so far to compete).  During their two-hour shift, the kids talked to passers-by about the program and did robot demonstrations.  Once their shift was over, we went and rode the rides for about an hour.  Even though they enjoyed the rides, they wanted to be with their friends who were still at the booth. For this reason we went back and stayed at the booth until it closed for the evening.  We had been at the fair for five hours at this point, so we decided to grab a bite to eat.  The fair was much more crowded in the evening than it had been earlier in the day.  Still, we were able to squeeze in a few more rides and attractions. Our last stop was at the snack booth to get funnel cake and fried Oreos before heading home.  It was a full but fun day.