You Lose Some, But You Win Some Too

Today has been a competitive kind of day. It started way earlier than my one day to sleep in should due to Seth needing to be in a nearby town for his Destination Imagination competition, which started at 7:30 am. Yawn.

We got off to a precarious start when I ran over Henry's scooter as I backed the van out of the garage. We don't have three cars. We don't need a three car garage. But, man, I'm telling you there is constantly something behind my van. The crunch set me off and I totally yelled at all three boys. I hate it when I do that. It wasn't all three's fault. I don't even know why I had such a hair trigger this morning, but I'm going to blame it on my failed Rhodes Cinnamon Rolls. Rhodes things never work for me. They either over raise or do nothing, as was the case this morning. Even though I cooked them for more than the recommended time, they were gooey, dense and uncooked. I don't know why I'm writing about failed cinnamon rolls. I don't even know why I'm blogging about a broken scooter. I suppose my point is that we had a rough morning.

There are always two components of the competition - the Instant Challenge, where the team has to think on their feet and come up with a solution to whatever situation the judges give them, be it a theatrical improvisation or to build something using only the supplies given and the bigger category challenge the team has been preparing for competition for months.  Seth's instant challenge started at 7:38 this morning.  They other part of the competition involves choosing one of seven different challenges.  This year, Seth's team chose the category, "Foiled Again" which involved building a weight bearing structure out of wood, aluminum foil and glue, which had to weigh less than twenty-five grams, as well as coming up with a skit where a character is "foiled" or thwarted in something they wanted to do.  While the skit is in progress, each structure is tested to see how much weight it could hold.  There were other size requirements, including height and width, and it was really interesting to see the variety of structures the different teams came up with.

The entire point of DI is to allow the kids to work together to come up with their own solutions.  Seth's team built a structure you'd probably expect a bunch of ten and eleven year-olds to build.  It wasn't level and when they set it into the testing mechanism, it failed the height requirements.   Unfortunately, this drama threw their concentration during their skit and they didn't finish their performance in time.  It was so sad to see these really bright and good group of boys and girls who really had worked hard so disappointed.  Seth especially took it hard, I'm not exactly sure why.  Their skit was really cute and clever and they all said they felt they did well in their Instant Challenge, but they still ended up placing 9th out of 11 teams.  No moving on to state for them.



Both of the fifth grade teachers came to cheer on their students.



Happily waiting for the "go" signal.



Once they get the go, they have eight minutes to set up, perform and get they weights on the structure.  You can't really see it, but the thing on the far right hand side that looks like a plunger sticking up, is the top of the mechanism for testing the structure.  They had to fit their design inside a box and then the judge put the square red top on.  If the red square touched the four corner posts, the structure didn't meet the height requirements, which is what happened to our team.  They messed around with it a little, and at one point had all four points not touching, but then the structure started to lean and it was disqualified.



Seth and his friend, Elise, star as nerds who get bullied by a couple of pranksters.



The pranksters get the nerds by throwing a bowl of foil on them.  But, they were eventually "foiled" when their next prank ended up getting them.



The team with their team managers after they were done.  You can see how upset Seth is.

Jay wasn't able to watch Seth because he had signed up last fall to run in the Moab Half Marathon.  Winter is always a difficult time to train but whatever Jay has been doing is working because he destroyed his PR (personal record).  Last year, he ran it in an hour twenty-five minutes and this year, a year the winner ran almost three minutes slower than last year's time, he ran it in 1:19.  He came in second in his age group and fifteenth out of more than three-thousand runners.  I love it when people I love succeed in their endeavors and it was fun to hear the excitement in Jay's voice when he called to tell me about the race.

This evening, we enjoyed watching the BYU game against Gonzaga and Jimmer Fredette's incredible three-point shots.   Having lived in Spokane for five years, we love the Zags too, so it was hard to see them lose, but when I say things like that, Jay tells me I'm not a very good fan (I hate that teams have to lose!).  Henry is so sick of having basketball on the TV all the time so right in the middle of the game, he found the remote control and switched it over to Wonder Pets.  Of course, being the sensitive child that he is (we are three for three in that department) he got more upset that we all got upset.  He spent the night in his room in protest, creating all sorts of havoc (like hiding all of Sam's bedtime things) but I had learned my lesson from this morning and didn't get upset a third time.  In fact, I made sure I gave each of my beautiful boys an extra kiss (or two.  Or five) when I tucked them into bed.  Hey...I'm calling that a win.