Apologies!
For my 1 year anniversary of blogging I have been working on version 3.0 of the website. It’s a major renovation that will give me a lot more control over the look & feel of the site. The other day I ‘flipped the switch‘ and inadvertently left a couple of dummy posts from the test sight in the production site. As such, the automated emailer system picked up on there being a couple of new posts – and it emailed them to those of you who are email subscribers. So I apologize for you getting a little junk mail!
Basketball
Basketball has started – and so have the practices! It seems I have been spending a lot of time in gyms these days! Unfortunately, it not me that is working out. Gracie & Dominick have both been having a lot of basketball practices. ( About 3 / week) Fortunately, I do enjoy watching their practices – and it is also some of my most productive writing time!
In addition to being in the gym for their basketball practices, I also spent a couple of hours in a gym for the Rube Goldberg Competition.
Rube Goldberg Competition
Gracie was really concerned that Dominick would make us late to the event. So we erred on the side of being early! We were the first participants there! Unfortunately, others were not even prompt – so it ended up starting late. ( Read the importance of Being On-Time (Not posted yet…)). Ironically, Dominick did not like the fact that they started late because some of the teams were late in arriving.
The Gymnasium was filled with 85 teams of 4 – so 340 students plus some teachers and administrators. So a lot of people in a modest sized gym! The kids did not have much room at all to move around. They were all given a box with identical items with which to build. They had only 2 hours to build their contraption. Unfortunately, I was not able to stay for the entire event – since we are struggling as a family to keep a calendar of events for the kids activities & obligations. I was impressed with their focus and creativity! Dominick and Gracie were on different teams, and neither of their teams won.
I know they had a lot of fun and probably even learned something. I was very happy that they got the opportunity to compete and was proud of both of them for doing so!
Trivia Night
Over the weekend our church had a potluck dinner & trivia night. Melani made and brought Shepherd’s Pie. There were a lot of wonderful dishes and we had a great time! I hope they schedule these more often.
We struggled a little with choosing a name for our team – but ended up settling for ‘NSA Outpost 111’. Gracie was our scribe & runner.
I was impressed with the fact that there were several questions in which Melani and I had no idea what the correct answer was – but the kids did!!
Unbelievably – we didn’t miss a single question and ended up winning the gift basket! Sad that my first thought was of how many lollipops were in the and all the sugar they contained!
Gracie & Dominick receive the Trivia Night grand prize on behalf of team NSA Outpost 111 (See Picture above – Featured Image)
Positive Thinking
One night this past week we watched an episode of ‘Brain Games‘. It was a really good episode that demonstrated the power of positive thinking. They conducted some simple experiments that really showed just how powerful of an effect that positive thinking (Episode #1 Season 6 2015) can have in shaping our reality.
I really like the kids seeing stuff like this – because it helps them understand better just how much of the battle is really in our heads!!
The Skittle Pooping Giraffe…
Ok. You’re probably wondering about the title of this week’s post. No, Jordan Patch (Animal Adventure Park) did not manage to train any of Taj, April or Oliver to poop Skittles (I think they just poop gold for him!)
Rather, it is much more of a mundane explanation. The other night we were watching a show and I didn’t skip over all the commercials for some reason. Sophie saw that stupid Skittles commercial where the guy is ‘milking’ the giraffe and Skittles come out rather than milk. Sophie, at her age is not really familiar with the whole concept of milking a cow – so she must have assumed the giraffe was pooping. So she looks over at me enthusiastically tells me “Daddy, I want a giraffe that poops Skittles!”
Anyone have any idea where I might get such a giraffe…? Maybe I’ll just ask Jordan…. Maybe he has a backup giraffe that he would be willing to sell me that just poops Skittles rather than gold….
Sophie’s Leg
Sophie is healing. Stitches should be coming out on the 21st of this month. Still too gruesome looking to share a photo….
Miscellaneous
Hey, just an observation. If you’re the type of person that likes to binge watch an entire series @ one sitting, I seriously suggest you don’t get hooked on watching Sesame Street. My understanding is that the 49 season series has something north of 4,481 episodes!!! So if 3 year old Sophie sat her dupa on the couch to binge watch Sesame Street in a single session (ok- maybe just 16 hours per day) – she would be almost 4 before she was done!!
Sincerely,
