D.I.

By Emma Johnson

I participate in a activity called D.I. (Destination Imagination). Two weeks ago was the regional tournament at East Valley High School in Spokane. The night before the tournament I was recovering from being sick. Megan, Michael, and I were in Beauty and the Beast for A.C.T and if you saw it, we were villagers in the village scene and mob scene. Michael was also in the tavern and battle scene. We were also serving trays in the "Be Our Guest" scene. Megan and Michael were finishing a performance and everyone else in our family was watching. I was staying home with my mom and she was trying to brush my hair (I had tons of tangles from being sick!), finish packing, and cleaning the house. We were going to spend the night at my Aunt Kim's house because she lives close to the tournament. That way we wouldn't have to wake up very early to drive to Spokane. When they finally got home then we got in the car and set off.

When we got to Kim's house then we set up our beds and went to sleep. It was 1:30 in the morning and we were going to have to wake up early! We couldn't go to sleep because Skitter, their hamster, was running on his wheel. Luckily, Aunt Kim came and brought him downstairs.

In the morning, we had scrambled eggs, cheese, bacon and hash browns that Kim made in the crock pot for breakfast. Then we had donuts! We packed up and went to the tournament. When we got there, we had to look for my team. Our team name is the Red Radical Rockets. I'm the only girl on our team. We found them and we got ready. Before we performed we watched other teams.

Our challenge is called DIrect Deposit. We had to get some objects over a six foot barrier into some targets. We couldn't touch or look over the barrier. We made a crane and I made the targets. I sawed and hammered the wood and painted them red. We also had to perform a skit which we made a recycle truck because our skit was about recycling. We didn't get any objects into the targets but we did a great job on our skit. Then we had to do an instant challenge, but that's TOP SECRET! We got third place! I even got a medal.

Why?

Derek and I have had many discussions about the water cycle as of late. He is so full of questions. (Mostly "why"s; those are the hardest. Gotta teach that kid "how,"; much easier to explain.) When we go over the Blue Bridge after taking the kids to school he'll ask if the water is going to the ocean. He knows that the water came from the waterfalls and streams in the mountains. The other day he asked why there is snow on the mountains and it again reminded me how miraculous our world is. I explained to him that it snows on top of the mountains in the winter and then melts in the summer and comes to us by the river when we need it most. Natural water storage! The Creator thought of everything.

However, as most often is the case, he kept asking "why." I'm starting to ask him what he thinks. This time I told him because it's pretty and we can play with it. Then came the other word I hear a lot. "Oh."

Tonight on the way home from taking the three older kids to play practice Merian was telling me how she wanted to ride a taxi. One of the questions she had was where they were located so she could catch one. I told her that in places like airports and big cities, like New York, they just waited around for when people needed them, but in other places you have to call for them.

Without missing a beat she starts, "Here Taxi, Taxi!"

I meant with the phone, Merian.

Eliza has been kind of bossy lately. I know, that's shocking for a two year old. Today she was quite upset because I wouldn't let her do something she wanted to. I was ignoring her tantrum, but Derek calmly explained to her, "Lizie, if Mom says no you can't do it because you need to be good and choose the right and then you'll be happy." I loved watching him calmly explain things to her just like his older brother and sisters reason with him. He's becoming one of the older kids. He's always proudly proclaiming, "I choose the right!"

Megan had been studying hard for her semester final in vocabulary. However, because of our slow/late start she crammed a whole semester into a few weeks and was having a little bit of a hard time remembering everything. I convinced her she needed to move on and just take the test instead of spending more time studying. She reluctantly agreed and did pretty well. It made me laugh to read the questions she bluffed her way through. It reminded me about when we first moved to the Tri-Cities and she was introduced to a whole new way of doing math, where explaining why your answer was correct was just as important as getting the right answer. I admire her for always taking a stab at it and it makes me smile to see what she comes up with.

Part of the test asked questions involving the vocab words (in italics). The object was to answer the question in a way that would show she knew the meaning of the words.

Q. Do you plan on studying humanities when you matriculate into a university?

A. That depends on whether or not I'm interested.

Q. Would you expect members of the gentry to be genteel?

A. It is likely that some would. (I gave her a second chance on the one's I felt she needed to describe more and she did pretty good except for this one. She then added: There is often genteels in gentrys.)

I love having my kids at home and learning with them!!!

i loved going sledding and playing "do you love your neighbor?We had mp3 player parties on the the bunks. usually on my top bunk.We all sat together and listened our mp3 players till late at night.We also switched our mp3 players around. usually i listened to the phantom of the opera Kenna's mp3 player.then when the grown-ups told us to go to bed and Kenna,(who slept on the bottom bunk) climbed up to my bunk and we listened to Alyssa and Brennen loudly talk noisily.

-Emma

Camp Zarahemla

We didn't take any pictures so I snatched these from Carrie's and Tallia's blogs. We had a fun couple of days sledding and eating and playing. Grandpa Lewis kept the lodge warm. I want to have the kids write their favorite parts, since that was the whole idea when we started this blog.