Ten on Tuesday: Catch up edition

As promised, here's some of what's been going on since we moved Noah into his dorm room at CSU back in August...

1) Classes started at CSU for Noah on August 20. By all accounts, that seems to be going fine. Since he's been taking college classes already for the last three years, the academic side of college isn't too much of a transition for him. :) He probably needs a bit more to do, lol.

2) Asher tested for his third band for parkour on August 25. He handily earned his Nova band and continues to thoroughly enjoy going to parkour regularly.

3) Both Asher & Micah attended a special hand trapping class with MJ on September 14. They loved learning something new and seeing MJ again and are planning to incorporate some of the new techniques into some of their demo team performances.

4) Classes at CEC are going well for Asher, too. He's been in classes since August 9 and is adjusting to actually being at CEC every weekday (though only for 2-3 hours each day) and is doing great at learning study skills and time management. 

5) Both Asher & Micah are homeschooling with me, too. I've updated our curricula lists over on the left. Things seem to be going fine. :) 

6) Micah decided to add a Tribe Teen fitness class to his schedule and started that on September 18. It's a class at the same gym where I do boot camp...and happens to have a couple of his good friends in it. ;) (That's Micah on the bottom left. This was at the end of class, after stretching.)

7) Micah's First Lego League team is off and running. This year's theme is space so the team headed to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on September 20 to visit the space exhibition and ask some specific questions. 

8) While at the museum, Micah and I popped in on one of their new, temporary exhibits (Mindbender Mansion) and definitely want to spend more time there. Hoping to get back there with the rest of the family before the exhibit leaves! (This is another of those instances, btw, where I realized that--though I *feel* like I've spent a lot of time at the museum--it's actually been a long while and Micah has few memories of going, lol.)

9) Micah's also been teaching himself animation on the new laptop he bought and is really enjoying it. He got himself a book and a digital drawing pad and is already creating short animations. (Gotta love self-directed learning!)

10) To that end, we also found this site called Outschool with a variety of online classes. So far, Asher's taken a one time algebra refresher and Micah's taken a one time class on learning to draw comic faces:

Micah's signed up for another one time class about realistic faces and is thinking about doing a longer class after that on drawing the human body. He figures the drawing skills will help his animation. 

Okay, that's some of what's been going on here. Sorry I haven't been posting more. Now that we're getting into more of a routine and finding our way, maybe I'll do better. :)

Elitches

Howdy! Yes. Still here. :) I'll do some catching up shortly...promise. Before that, though, here are some pictures from yesterday. It was Martial Arts Day at Elitches in Denver. Asher & Micah's demo team was invited to perform, so we spent the day. The boys were pretty excited, particularly as the last time Nathan and I went to Elitches was fifteen years ago, lol. 

We started the day picking up three of the other demo team boys and getting to the park at opening. (The conversations on the ride down were highly entertaining and random.) Once there, we met up with all six of the girls on demo team and the kids all took off together. They started right off riding the carousel then proceeded around the park together. Meanwhile, Nathan and I wandered and rode the MindEraser roller coaster:

(I snapped this as we were getting set then quickly zipped my phone back in my pocket, lol.)

After a bit, the boys all met up with us as planned so they could eat and change. Everyone met up together at the performance area, the team warmed up (in the almost 90 degree weather, lol), and then they finally did their thing:

After that (yay, team!), the kids all scurried over to the Shipwreck Falls area to stand on the bridge and get blasted by the ride:

Yup, they got pretty darn soaked, lol. But. At least they'd thought it through and did this before changing back into their (dry) street clothes. :) Then, the whole gang took off again to ride more rides until closing. Occasionally, Nathan and I spotted them and managed some photos:

(Asher & Marshall were on that one. It's the MindEraser.)

(Micah, Jacob & Jonathan were on the one after them.)

Later, we spotted them on the tea cups:

Wow, they got spinning super fast! ;)

Anyhow...they had a blast. Nathan and I enjoyed the people watching and hanging out together. And all of us parents were impressed by what a great, nice group of kids this is. And after closing, most of us met up again for dinner on the drive home:

And then we got into our (at this point) three separate cars and headed for Fort Collins. Again, our van was full of crazy conversation. (Seriously. You literally cannot imagine, lol.) 

After dropping off the other three boys, we made it home about 9:30. Whew. And that was yesterday.