DNA

Micah's First Lego League team this year was named DNA...Defending Noble Astronauts. The theme this year was Into Orbit and focused on long duration space travel. Because it's been a long day, I'll direct you to last year's post for a run down on how things work. :)

(This year, btw, I didn't have a JOAD tournament to go to so was able to be there most of the day...even through the fire alarm that got triggered by something in the concessions area, forcing everyone to stand outside in the snow (did I mention it started snowing last night and went much of the day?) for 10-15 minutes while the fire department arrived and cleared everyone to reenter. Fun times.)

Like last year, Micah especially worked on the project presentation (writing the script). He also made the logo and business cards for the team. The three team members who were returning for their second year did a great job of demonstrating that they'd really learned from last year, and overall the team did a fabulous job.

This was one of 12 qualifier events in Colorado this year, and they're sending nine teams to state in December. Our team placed first in the robot performance, with a fantastic score in their second scored robot run (scoring almost double what the second place team earned). And they were third in the overall placings!

So they'll be off to the state competition in December!

Congrats to them (and to our friends on other teams who we enjoyed visiting with during the event) and a huge round of applause on a job well done!!

Five on Friday

Howdy. Just popping in to share five pictures from my phone that apparently I haven't shared yet. :) 

This first one was taken in Old Town last month during a day off we took. (CEC had the day off, so we took the day off from homeschooling also.) It was such a lovely day...eating at the Waffle Lab, wandering Old Town, and grabbing a snack at Whole Foods before heading to the theater to watch a cheesy movie. 

This one was taken a week-ish later as we were walking in our neighborhood. We were trying to capture the beautiful orange foliage behind/above us, since it was some of the only fall color we could find. (After the cold snap, most of the leave just up and died.) 

Obviously, this one was taken Tuesday after I dropped off our mail in ballots. Sorry it's not great...I took it in the car, in the dark, while I was waiting for Noah to finish his voting. Because he couldn't register to vote until so close to election day, he had to vote in person. I picked him up from campus and had him vote near our house just before we all went to watch "Free Solo" at The Lyric...which was really cool (both the documentary and the theater).

The next day (Wednesday), Asher had a history test, a Spanish test, and his driving test. Yeah, busy day. ;) 

And, since he passed his test with flying colors, we made a (surprisingly quick) visit to the DMV the next day to get his license. Yup, officially have two licensed teenage boys now. :) For his first solo drive, Asher drove himself to parkour last night. 

So. Keeping busy here and hitting milestones and all that. As is to be expected, the next week or so is full, but we're very much looking forward to Thanksgiving week, as both CSU and CEC have the whole week off (and we'll take the week off from homeschooling as well). Woohoo! Happy Friday and weekend to you!

Eighteen

My Noah turned EIGHTEEN on Friday. Eighteen.

Since he had class and his brothers did also (plus karate), we ended up celebrating yesterday instead...picked him up while brothers were at karate, breakfast and then home to fill out our ballots* before going back to pick up boys, family games at home for the afternoon, dinner out, and more games at home before taking Noah back to campus. Just a nice quiet day. :) 

(*Yes. Noah registered to vote on Friday. Because he wasn't able to register until so close to election day, though, he wasn't eligible for a mail in ballot this time around and will need to go to a polling place on Tuesday. Nathan and I held onto our own mail in ballots and filled them out with Noah, so that he could ask any questions if he wanted and because we like to discuss the candidates and issues as we each make our choices.)

We also took our traditional birthday pictures. It was quite windy and chilly so we weren't outside long. And I realized that that was unusual for us because almost all of the other birthday pictures we've taken of Noah have been lovely weather, even though it's November. Technically, though, if we'd taken the pictures on his actual birthday, the weather would have been sunny and nice. 

In any case, here are the shots over time since he became a teenager...

Is it just me or does it seem like Noah might be gaining on Nathan? :)

And I managed just this one shot of the birthday boy alone:

I'm realizing this may have been the last year I get shots like these, but I'll be happy about it...because at least I got these. :) Thankful that my boy is just down the road at college and that he still enjoys coming home and spending time with all of us. He appears to be doing just fine at CSU, registered a couple weeks ago for his spring classes and seems to be doing his laundry, lol. Happy.