Pi Pod Trip

We decided to take advantage of the Pi Pod trip to St Louis to explore the surrounding area.  We flew into St Louis and immediately rented a car and had an uneventful drive to Springfield Illinois.   We found out that we had just missed a tornado that hit the airport about an hour after our plane landed.  The Thygersons, who were on our same flight didn't get out of town as quickly as we did and got to hear the tornado alarms and then drive in a storm all the way to Springfield.

We spent a day exploring Springfield, IL.  This is where Abraham Lincoln lived for 25 years and where he left from when he became President.

Here is my family recreating the picture of Lincolns home that was on our ticket.

Lincoln's Tomb

It's supposed to be good luck to rub his nose.

His whole family, except one son are buried here.

 Our next stop was Nauvoo.   Here we are with the Payne's and the Fox's in front of the Nauvoo Temple.

It was a lot of fun to go on vacation with our friends!

 
We stopped in Hannibal MO next.

                           London is white washing Tom's fence



Here are the kids in front of Twains home.    I love his insights and words of wisdom.   One of my favorites is "Travel is fatal to prejudice and bigotry"




Our circle ended us back in St. Louis in time for the competition.    We were able to do some sightseeing in the city as well.

 We had fun in the Science Museum.  London was even able to join us for this.

He was busy when we went to the zoo.   This was our favorite animal.    We called it a Zonky.

The last thing we did before heading home was to ride to the top of the Gateway Arch.

Riding in the pod.

The view

It was a fun trip!

Pi Pod goes to the World FIRST Lego League Festival

This is old news,  but I need to get it recorded,  and I do have pictures of this, so here goes.

London has participated on a FIRST Lego League team for the past two years.   They have amazing mentors in Adrianne & Steve Thygerson, who have put a lot of time, energy, and home space into this project.   The first year the boys competed, we had to go to Pocatello because Utah didn't have a competition.   We won the project event in regionals and got to go back to Pocatello for the State competition.   This year Utah hosted a competition for the first time.    Since our team was experienced, we were asked to 'coach the coaches'  this year.   Our boys were impressive and encouraging and really did a lot inspire coaches to start other teams this year.    Because we were well known, we were in the spotlight during the state competition.    All the teams were looking at us.   Kind of intimidating.

We were only able to watch the robot games portion of the competition.   Parents and leaders were not allowed in the other competitions, so we really had no idea how we were doing.   We knew we were about 14th in the robot games, out of 56 teams.    Then came the awards ceremony.   We weren't winning anything.   All of the awards were given to other teams.   It was getting frustrating and depressing.   At the very end,  they announced the overall winner who was going to represent Utah at the World Festival - Team Pi Pod!!   I think we were all shocked.    We thought we would at least win something,  but we really didn't think we would win it all!   It was pretty exciting.   We had a fun team dinner at Hires after the competition and concluded that we were all going to St Louis for the world competition.

For the rest of the teams their Lego League learning was done for the year.  Ours was just beginning.
We had to raise money to fund this trip.   The boys got a great education in marketing and presenting.  They gave their presentation to lots of different venture funds,  companies, diabetes groups etc.  Here they are meeting the Governor.

We had to make new T-shirts,  get trinkets to hand out,  make a 'pit'  and plan a trip.   I also found out that the competition was the same weekend I had scheduled to perform "Much Ado about Nothing",  so I had to reschedule and rearrange all of my Shakespeare class plans.    We left for St Louis the morning after our play closed.

We got an interesting welcome in St Louis.   There was this nice welcome sign.    The airport also got hit by a tornado an hour after we arrived.

Here is a picture of our pit.   It was a booth where people could come learn about our team and where we were from.    We were between Malaysia and Australia, and across from Korea and behind Jordan.

The boys also put on a skit for the opening ceremony.  They were from 'The Pi Zone'  and could only talk in the number pi.

Two people from each family were able to go in to watch the presentation portions of the competition this time.    Here we are getting ready.

It was interesting listening to other countries sing and play the violin during their presentations while we were in other portions.

Here is our team coming out to the tables for the robot games portion of the competition.

Our team didn't win anything at the World Festival,  but they had a good time, learned a lot, got to rub shoulders with the top World Lego League teams and made us all proud!

Many Wonderful Adventures

We have had a lot of adventures lately.   So many back to back that I haven't had a chance to blog on them yet.    In fact, we are currently on another adventure,  but this is a more leisurely trip, so I am hoping to catch up.  Here we go!

One problem.   I brought my camera, but not the cord to connect it to the computer, to get the pictures off.  We'll see how far I get.

Kid Trips

A few years ago I started a tradition of taking one of my kids on a one-on-one trip each year.

This year it is London's turn,  and I just booked our trip today.  We're pretty excited about it,  but I don't know if I want to unveil it yet.

Here are some pictures of previous trips.

Two years ago Raven and I went to San Antonio Texas.  We remembered the Alamo, and looked for the basement.   There wasn't one.

We went to Six Flags theme park.

We went to Sea World, where we had lunch with Shamu and swam with Beluga Whales.

It was a great trip!

Last year Nathan and I went to Washington DC.  We got a tour of the White House and the Capitol.

 I got to stop at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

An the highlight was Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally.   We got great seats thanks to Nathan asking some people who were camping out if we could sit by them.   It was an amazing experience to see so many people come together from all over to share and support these values.   It was a very peaceful and inspiring gathering of at least 500,000 people.  And when we left, the place was spotless.  Not trash anywhere.  It gave me hope for America. 

Before this I have taken each of the boys to Boston.  They were each only 8 at the time, so I think we all need to go there again.   I think I have stored those pictures somewhere else.

Look for pictures of this years exciting adventure coming in September!

Much Ado about Nothing

One of our big adventures this year wasn't really about traveling, though it did involve some.    I have been teaching a couple of Shakespeare classes for the past two years.   This year for my teen group we did a production of 'Much Ado about Nothing'.   It has been an amazing experience!   It is a year long class and we learn about Shakespeare the man,  Elizabethan and Jacobean England,  his works etc..   After actor's training we produce a play!   It is a lot of fun!   This project is an amazing amount of work, but it is a labour of love,  and I truly love every minute of it!

I made all of the costumes.  I started in September.  Here are the gentlemen's doublets and hats.

And the dresses for the lovely ladies.

Our advertising poster and shirts drawn by Jennica

I love working with this amazing group of youth!   They are truly inspiring.   Their performances were fantastic and their ability to memorize and bring the characters to life was fantastic!   We get to go to Shakespeare Camp next week,  so we are not quite done for the year.   I am looking forward to a small break,  but it will be small because I'm excited to start planning next year!

New Goals

This blog is for recording our journeys and adventures,  of which we have many,  but I am not very disciplined about blogging about them.   I will try to improve.  I have a friend who does a beautiful blog about their family adventures and has a great way of recording even the normal every day life and making it magical.   I love to read her blog and and I look for it everyday.  I am sad when she skips a day.   She is my inspiration and I am going to try to do better.   However,  don't look for this every day.  My goal is once a week.  If I decide I enjoy this as much as she does it may become more frequent,  but if you see how often I have blogged in the past you will appreciate that once a week is a vast improvement.

Here goes.

Merry Christmas!

We had a nice Christmas morning in our RV with our little tree. We didn't have a lot of presents, so opening them took less than 15 minutes. We then packed it up and headed to Univeral Islands of Adventure. We were here on Thursdaya and it was really crowded, slightly less so today. We had a feast in The Three Broomsticks for our Christmas dinner. It was yummy food, cool atmosphere and no work! The Butterbeer was good too. They did a neat job with the new Hogsmeade section of the park. I've taken pictures, but my laptop battery is completely dead and won't take a charge, so I can't post them yet. We are taking a dinner break in the RV and will head back into the park for a while. It was sunny and 72 here today, but is supposed to drop to 52 tomorrow.