History of the San Ramon Valley

One project we have for social studies is learning about the history of where we live, the San Ramon Valley. Last weekend, we visited a Livorna Park to learn something about parks. We also visited an indian settlement area as well as an old cemetery to see the graves of some of the early settlers of the region. This weekend, we visited a museum that explains the history of railroading, cattle ranching, as well as prehistoric creatures that lived in the area.

One of the coolest things was a big train layout in the museum. They had an old Lionel train and lots of old school presents in the center of the room about ranching. I got to see an old baby Brownie camera complete with (used) flash bulbs. Cameras sure have changed a lot over the years.

The Bible Project

As you know, all of the 3rd graders got Bibles from the church. This led to "the Bible Project", an attempt to read the entire thing (except for the super boring parts about all the begats). We went through the books of Joshua and Judges and then decided to double back to the beginning to get some background on all the people and places in the land of Canaan. So we're still in the book of Genesis at the moment.

This project has been going on for some time, but I abandoned it for a while since the Bible never seemed as interesting as reading about Chester Cricket. But I realized that, even though I never think of the Bible as being all the interesting, it really is quite exciting. Yesterday, we finished up the story of Abraham. (How could God have asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac? It makes no sense.) We then covered Isaac and now we're reading about Jacob. The Abraham/Isaac/Jacobites sure are a tricky bunch. They're always pulling off clever deceptions. My only problem with these stories is that God is not busy producing any miracles. I like it when he's more involved. But stay tuned. More miracles are coming.

Play Date...Hooray

Since I have the week off from school, I've been having a lot of play dates. Today, my friend Chris came over. One of the highlights of the evening was a dance party. We turned on the fireplace, fired up the iPod, and got out props for some dancing excitement. We dressed as football players, complete with uniforms and helmets. We dressed as baseball players. (I was on both the A's and the Diamondbacks). We pulled out the Wii guitars and pretended to be rock stars. Naturally, we got out some stuffies as dance partners. It was super cool.

Outback

Last night, I went on a date with Mom to Outback (Dad's back was killing him, so he didn't go). They have the best bread in the whole world. I cut off a piece for Dad and wrapped it in plastic so he could enjoy some of the goodness too. I also had Macaroo with Cheese. What a great restaurant!

Pika Pika

 

This weekend, I did a repeat performance of my Halloween costume for Daddy. He was away in the east for Halloween, so he didn't get to see me live in my costume. I did some classic Pikachu poses including thunderbolt and volt tackle. Above, I'm in my volt tackle pose. Mommy wants you to pay special attention to my cool tail, which she made. It's an awesome tail, but is a bit difficult to get around in.

Super Jump Racing

 

Recently, we added a new series to our Hot Wheels racing championships. Previously, we had classic gravity racing. In that form, cars have to go through a loop, then make a jump and continue driving as far as they can. We've also done sveral types of drag racing including the super short and fast 4 lane racing as well as low and high gravity drag racing. Anyway, the new series is super jump racing. The cars, powered by gravity, go down a big hill to a ramp where they do a jump. The car going furthest wins.

In the photo above are the four winners. The gold car is the indoor champ while the other 3 won outdoor series. In the outdoor one, the cars drive from the top of my play structure, so it's a biiiiig hill. The overall champion is the yellow 21 car, a Ferrari.

Trophies

 

A week ago, we finished the soccer season. Despite a specatcular run, my team, the Celtic, managed to finish fourth (we lost in both the semis and the consolation match). But this was still good enough to earn everyone on the team a trophy. I also got a participation trophy (the one with the soccer ball) as well. I love trophies. They're so golden and shiny and make me feel proud for how hard I worked at soccer. I improved a whole lot and am looking forward to next season.

Rats

 

This week we are babysitting our class rats, Pippi and Squeaky. They are both pretty young and extrmely cute. I like to give them lots of fresh veggies--carrots, mushrooms, celery, and so on. Mom and Dad let them crawl on their arms and shoulders but I don't like their claws on me too much, so I prefer to watch them and pet them, but not pick them up. They're sooooo cute!

Reflections

Each year, there is a contest across all the schools in the area called Reflections. The idea is to express a theme through some sort of creative arts. They can be drawing, painting, video, music composition, or photography. Last year, I competed in photography, won in my school, but finished second at the regionals. This year's theme was "Together we can..." For a long time, I didn't think I wanted to enter, but decided to try at the last minute. I combed through my photographs and found several that I thought were pretty good. My favorite was a picture of a leaf surrounded by water droplets on the top of Daddy's car after a rainstorm. I also submitted a picture of some bridges Daddy and I built out of paper one weekend. This was one of his crazy experiments where the job was to design a bridge that can hold the most toy cars without collapsing.

I had good luck this year--I was the only entrant in the photography category in my school, so I knew I was going to win. The judges selected the bridges picture over the leaf, probably because it was more consistent with the theme. We'll see how I do at regionals.

The List

When Daddy was flying back from the east coast, he came up with the idea of "The List." The List is a list of all the many fun games we've played in the past. It helps to remind me of fun things we have not done in a while, so we don't end up doing the same things all the time. I love the list. The first thing that we did, which we had not done since forever, was to play a game of Deal or No Deal. Daddy even made some custom Deal or No Deal cards using index cards for a more realistic version of the game.

We also had our second stuffy mayoral election. You might recall that Fish surprisingly won the first election on a law and order ticket. His idea was to arm all of the stuffed animals with guns so that criminals would be deterred. He tried to run again on this platform, but it didn't work out this time. Our voting system was a runoff system. Six stuffies competed in the first round with the two highest vote-getters competing in the finals for the mayor position. The first round winners were Pikachu, who ran on the platform that every stuffy should have a pet Pokemon, and Bee, who ran on the return to normalcy platform. They defeated Piggy, who ran on fiscal sanity, Ray (a stingray), who proposed water parks, Fish, and Parrot, who ran on a gun control platform.

In the final round, Pikachu prevailed by a vote count of 25-21 over Bee. Apparently, the stuffies though return to normalcy was a boring platform.

Here's The List:

Card Games
Poker
Uno
Deal or no Deal
Card Sharks
Blackjack
Trump Game
Go Boom
Word Card Games
Pokemon Card Game

Board Games
Klutz book games
Backgammon
Risk
Monopoly
Parcheesi
Chess
Sheboygan
Pictionary
Sorry
Axis & Allies
Othello
Pente

Miscellaneous Games
Dominos
Dungeons & Dragons
Marbles
Jenga
Tiddeley Winks
Stuffy Elections
Stuffy Stories
Pass the Pigs
Let’s Make a Deal
Romans and Barbarians

Sports Games
Strat O Matic
Balloon baseball
Hall Ball
Boxing
Sword Fighting
Football plays
Golf – putting
Golf – targets
Vibrating Football
Pick ‘Em
Fantasy Sports
Tiddley Winks Baseball

Racing Games
Gravity Racing
4 Lane Racing
Figure 8 raceway/prediction
Car distance jumping
R/C Car Racing


Wii Games
MLB2k8
Madden
PE Soccer
Wii Sports
Wii Sports Resort
Wii Fit
Boom Blox
Smash Bros
Pikmin
Mario Kart
Super Mario Bros

PC Games
Sim City
Need for Speed
Crazy Machines

Experiments
Bridge Building
Parachute/airplane jumping
Air rockets – distance/time in air
Predict the urn
Rube Goldberg Devices
Simulators

Outdoors
Spaghetti ball catch
Home run derby
Scooter riding
Army Man Wars
Frisbee
Croquet
Bocce
Tennis
Foot racing
Football practice
Soccer – penalty kicks
Treasure Hunt
Kite Flying
Visit Berkeley
Visit SF
Downtown – Farmers Mkt
Swimming
Hot Tub
Amazing Race

Arts
Photo shoot
Scrapbook
Pokemon drawing
Painting
Dance Party
Comic Book Making

Pikachu

This year was another great one for Halloween. We had nice weather and, best of all, I got to be Pikachu. Pikachu, you might recall, is the cutest Pokemon. Mommy made my Pikachu outfit. My tail is a combination of coat hangers and felt while the stripes on my shirt are also hand made. One of Pikachu's best moves is iron tail. My coat hanger tail accidentally did this move in real life as well. A couple of people got banged with the tail including me! It's hard to sit when you have a big tail.

I went trick or treating with my gang of close friends: Chris, Katie, and Jake. We made quite a haul. I have two large bags of candy, all of which I actually like. (I carefully study the possibilities when selecting from baskets on Halloween.)

Candy, friends, and Pokemon--Halloween is one of the best holidays.

Playoffs

This past weekend, my soccer team, the Celtics, won both our playoff games. The second game was played in a driving rainstorm. In fact, they closed the soccer field immediately after the game. While I always wanted to play soccer in the rain, having now done so, I'm not eager to do it again. My long wet hair kept dripping into my eyes, which was no fun.



Despite missing our regular goalkeeper, our substitute let in only a single goal over both games. Our victory means we're going to the semifinals and will finish in the top 4 in the league no matter how we do. We were supposed to go to Arizona this coming weekend, but I don't want to let my team down, so that trip has been cancelled so I can help the team try to get to the finals and win the league.

Soccer is so exciting, but I'm really feeling the pressure in these playoff games.

Bible

From Aidan's Weblog

A couple of weeks ago, all the third graders got Bibles at church. I thought it looked cool since it has a nice leather cover and silver embossing on the edges of all the pages, but I didn't think it would be all that interesting to read. Well, daddy decided to read Joshua as part of bedtime stories. I have to say, it's pretty interesting. Joshua, with the help of God, has all sorts of tricks to conquer the land of Canaan. We've now moved on to Judges. I wish the Israelites would stop screwing up by worshiping Baal.

Spelling Words

This was an easy week for spelling. We only had 12 words, and they were ones I knew. One of the exercises we have to do is to come up with sentences using the words. Here was my sentence:

Am I dotty or is that cat playing a violin?

The spelling word was "dotty." Mom and Dad got a big kick out of that sentence. I also have to write stories. My stories tend to have a dark edge to them. One of my most recent involved a husband and wife who lived alone on a mountain. They hated everything and everyone. When they house burned down, they were happy for the destruction. But they got their comeuppance. They wandered to close to an active volcano and in they fell. Volcanoes and lava play a big role in many of my stories.

Game Scarf

 

Each week in soccer, the coach awards the game scarf to the outstanding player of the game. Well, two games ago I got the scarf for my stalwart defense. The scarf, by the way, commemorates a "friendly" match between the San Jose Earthquakes and the Tottenham Hotspurs. Oddly, when I first brought the scarf home, Daddy immediately recongnized the symbol for Tottenham but not San Jose.

Outside the box

As you know, I rarely like the straightforward answer to questions. Instead, I prefer to try to think up unusual answers. Now, not everyone likes this approach, but my teach this year sure does. She made a big point of saying how refreshing is that I think "outside the box." Now, the question is, what exactly is the box?

Soccer

I'm in Mustang soccer this fall. My team in the Celtics. Happily, we are undefeated this year. While I play defense, there are a number of bigger boys on offense who are amazingly fast and powerful. Winning is excellent!

Cooking

Homework this year is really different than in the past. This year, some of my homework involves following recipes and cooking things. My favorite homework assignment is fudge cooking. I love fudge.

Another odd thing is that I have to keep track of the cycles of the moon. Each night, I go out into the backyard to make my observations about the phase of the moon. I write this in my notebook to keep a record.

Victory!

At long last, victory is at hand in my Pokemon game. After about two weeks of battling against the elite four and Lance, the grand champion, I finally managed to prevail (with Daddy's help). I was so happy, I could hardly sleep. I jumped up and down like it was Christmas morning. Hooray for Typhlosion--my best Pokemon.

First Day of School

...is no fun. I'd much rather be playing and doing what I want to do, not what somebody else makes me do. We even had homework on the VERY FIRST DAY. Yuck.

Let's Go Oakland

Sigh. The last weekend before school starts. I don't look forward to school, but at least we did something super cool. It turned out my friends family had extra tickets to the A's-Rays game and they gave them to us. Great seats--above the visitors dugout three rows back. It was a very exciting game. Brett Anderson pitched against David Price. Both pitchers were good, and the A's had a 3-2 lead going into the 8th. In the 8th, the A's put in Craig Breslow in relief and he stank. He gave up a 2 run homer and the Rays closed it out with a 4-3 win.

Still, it was very exciting. I especially like to start cheering "Let's Go Oak-Land" and get other people to cheer along. We had some luck with this though it was tough because there were a bunch of Rays fans in the seats surrounding ours. Baseball is so much more exciting in person than on TV.

Check out the photo album here.

Field of Flags

For the final day of Kids Love Soccer, each of us was asked to make and bring a flag of some country so we could have an international soccer tourney. I painted a big flag of Italia and wore my Gianluca Buffon jersey to the game. Buffon is the keeper for the Italian national team. I acquired the jersey when I was in Venice. It was a great game, and I played my usual solid defense. The coaches think I'm a very effective defenseman.

Pokemon

Lately, I've been obsessed with Pokemon. It all started in Denmark when I got a stuffed Pikachu. I think he's my favorite stuffy right now. Then I got interested in all sorts of Pokemon things. I got a game for the Wii and a much more delux game for the DS. In fact, the DS game comes with a Pokewalker, a little device that measures your footsteps so that you can give your pet Pokemon some exercise (they walk when you walk).

My friend Jake came over yesterday and we had a blast playing pretend Pokemon adventures with the stuffies and the action figures. I also have appointment viewing---every day at 8am, the Pokemon cartoon show is on TV. I try never to miss it.

Spud

This Sunday, we did our church play "From Acorns to Oaks." I had the role of Spud, the farm foreman. I had several lines and a short solo as well. Everyone remarked about my amazing energy. My favorite line was when I sprayed (pretend) weed killer on the "rumor weeds."

Hasta la vista...weeds!

I had a great time doing the play. By the way, some lucky readers will receive DVDs of my performance in the mail.

Kids Love Soccer...

but maybe not this much. I signed up for a soccer camp this week called Kids Love Soccer. While I really like soccer, the camp runs for 4 hours each day. In addition, my soccer league, Mustang Soccer, starts this week also, so I have 2 hour practices on Monday and Wednesday.

While I love soccer, this is ridiculous.

Food Challenge

While I was at the Lair, my team won several "food challenges." I got to enjoy the show "Survivor" in the spring, and there, the teams often competed for food. At the Lair, they serve food, but sometimes it is yucky salmon, so I am grateful for real food like Golden Burgers (cheeseburgers). As a result of my team's winning several events in the 8-9 years old battles, I managed to get several food challenges. Hooray for cheese!

Cartoon Shoes

 

My Daddy has worn a variety of shoes that Iconsider to be boring. But these are the worst. He looks "cartoony" in these shoes. In fact, if they were brown, he'd look like the character Mario. He had (slightly) better sneakers, but they wore out while we were at the Lair of the Golden Bear. So he pulled these out. Blech. We're going to Target so I can help him pick out some better ones.

Stuffy Yearbook

Daddy and I are working on a big project. We're making a class yearbook for my stuffies. We've already shot a number of class portraits as well as doing various shots for field trips. For instance, we've got several shots of stuffies on a field trip to Denmark. We're putting it all together in a photobook on Shutterfly, so that, at the end, we'll have a real printed out stuffy yearbook. It's so cool!

Knights

We went swimming at our next door neighbor's house on Saturday. I spent much of that time with Patrick (my neighbor) and Daddy playing a really fun game--the Knights of the Snack Table. We met a Paradise Falls, a small waterfall that is part of the filter system of the pool, to determine which quests to go on. Daddy was Sir Cumference, Patrick was Sir Loin of Beef, and I was Knight Yoshi (Daddy wanted to call me Sir Plus, but I didn't like that knight name.) We went on the quest for the flowers of youth. One sniff of these flowers makes you 20 years younger. I didn't want to sniff since I would be negative 12 years old! We also made a quest to the Circle of Wisdom (the jacuzzi). Knights ask each other questions in the Circle of Wisdom so that all can become wiser. This was a really fun game.

Electric

Lately, I've been obsessed with the Electric Company. Not the new show, which I don't especially like, but the old one from the 1970s. It's such a funny show where lots of silly things happen. I was interested in it a few years ago when Daddy bought it, but it's even better now that I can read everything.

Here's one of my favorite bits: The Adventures of Letter Man. In one episode, someone was playing a horn; however, the evil spellbinder changed the "h" in horn into a "c", turning the horn into corn. Now the person was playing corn! Letter man fixed the situation and said that the person had a good ear for music.

Pikachu

Lately, I've been in love with Pikachu. I got a cool Pokemon game and, when I went to Denmark, I spotted a cool Pikachu stuffy. He's now one of my favorites.

Tivoli

There is a cool amusement park in downtown Copenhagen called Tivoli. It has many amazing rides. Best of all, it's open really late. We saw fireworks at 1130 one night since sunset comes really late so near to the North Pole.

Nudes

When we went to Denmark, we went to lots of art museums. I really like art, but I have to say, seeing naked men is really funny. Every time I'd see their "equipment", I'd laugh and laugh. Somehow, naked women are not nearly as amusing.

Some Great Things About June

1. No school for half of it.
2. No homework in June--teacher gives us this month off.
3. Warm weather. Can wear shorts every day.
4. Swimming in the club, especially using the hot tub.

Comics

Lately, I've been making a lot of comics. I got a game called WarioWare DIY. Unlike most games, where the main point is playing the game, in this game, the point is building the games. In fact, this "game" is actually a suite of programs for making games, music, and comics---essentially a lightweight object oriented programming language (according to Daddy. I don't know what that is. I only know it's fun.)

Anyway, my comics have mostly been about battles between heroes and evil black goo with fangs. Here's one strip (4 panels): 1. Goo covers the city. 2. It starts eating the buildings with its fangs. 3. Hordes of "clone" heroes descend from the sky and squish the goo flat as a pancake. 4. The city is saved.

I like to share my stuff too. You can upload games and comics so that anyone else with a DSi and this game can check it out.

Play

Did my play last week. As you know, I was the golden goose in Jack and the Beanstalk. The play went really well. One parent said it was the best 2nd grade production she'd ever seen. We all got a bonus score from our music teacher for the quality of the production. Everyone told me I did a good job. I tried to sing in a really cool and interesting way. I used lots of vocal tricks. It was lots of fun. Some of you will be lucky enough to get a DVD of my performance. Watch your mail!

Lemonade Stand

On Memorial Day, we ran a special holiday lemonade stand. We used our usual "secret" recipe. I made a big sign advertising and would let passers by know that lemonade was for sale. We ended up selling through two pitchers of lemonade. I made about 10 bucks.

Parachutes

In another of our science projects, we discovered the art of making parachutes on Saturday. For this project, we cut parachutes out of pieces of paper and then dropped them from off of my play structure. We kept a stopwatch and a notepad to time how long each took to fall. I thought up the idea that we should have some "controls" as well. The controls are regular pieces of paper with nothing done to them. We then replicated the results inside using a stepladder so as to take wind out of the equation. Here's what we learned:

1. The control works pretty well. It was better than all but three of our designs.
2. Circles with scalloped edges work better than glider-like shapes.
3. The wind actually made things fall faster rather than slower. (To determine this, we calculated the height from which we dropped things inside and outside. We had the time from the stopwatch, and speed is height/time).

Bridges

 

This weekend we did something really cool. We designed bridges made completely out of paper. Daddy set up 2 Lego stanchions 15" apart and announced that the job was to build a bridge to connect them. We engineers tubes out of paper to form support columns, the underbed for the road, and cross-braces. We then kept adding cars to see how many toy cars the bridge could hold before it collapsed. In the first round, Daddy's bridge won. But in round 2, my bridge won. At the time Daddy's collapsed, it was holding about 4 pounds of cars on the roadbed.

My Birthday Party

 

As you know, I was born in December. But it's always a crazy time with Christmas and New Year's. So I usually have a birthday party with my kid friends later. Well, this year, it was a LOT later--about 5 months later in fact. We had a party at my house on Saturday. The Noah's Ark woman came and we made stuffies together. I made Rector the Racoon. We also had a pinata in the backyard. I was lucky enough to strike the massive blow that broke it open and spilled out all the candy. It was a great party.

Golden Goose

 

Today is my dress rehearsal for the Jack and the Beanstalk play we're doing at school. I play the role of the goose that lays the golden eggs. Mom just completed my goose outfit. Last week, she made the golden eggs. So I'm all set. My part even features a solo!

Happy Flower Day

Last Saturday, we decided to do something fun and new for dinner. Daddy grilled out but we wanted to have a theme. I chose flower day. We got a bouquet of flowers, and I made napkin rings with flowers on them. I also made a giant flower in chalk on our patio. We sat around the flower and had a toast.

To Flower Day!

Dancing under the Stars

We did something really fun last Saturday--Dancing under the Stars. We ate out that night and then stayed out (it was a mild night) to have a dance party under the stars. Daddy brought out his ipod and speakers, and we danced to all sorts of songs. I cannot wait to do this again.

Domino rescue

Daddy and I played a fun game this past weekend, Domino rescue. The idea is that Yoshi and Princess Peach are separated. You need to create a domino reaction (usually across water) to reunite them. Sometimes it's very tricky to balance dominos on islands in the water. It's super fun thinking up and solving challenges.

Tryouts

This week was tryouts for a play our class is doing, Jack and the Beanstalk. I want to be the goose that lays the golden eggs. The goose has an excellent solo song. Wish me luck, I hope I get the part.

Flag Football

I did really well in flag football last Sunday. In a practice scrimmage, I took one run into the end zone, fending off the defender with my patented stiff arm move. In the real game, I did a lot of blitzing. I got to the QB a couple of times and blew up a couple of plays. I also almost made a pick.

Blackhawk 500

Last weekend, the Yoshi-mobile competed in the Blackhawk 500. This is the Cub Scout Pinewood derby race for the winners of the various packs. I was in the Wolf class along with about 15 other cars. I did pretty well. I won one heat, finished second in two others (and third in the last heat). Sadly, I didn't win a trophy though. Maybe next year.

Dr. Seuss

For Dr. Seuss week, we had to come up with our own book based on his work. We also had to illustrate the cover of our book. Above is what I came up with.

Talent Show

Last week, we had our talent show. If you'll recall, I've been in talent show since kindergarten. That year, I did "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". Last year, I did the Lion Song. This year was the most deluxe talent show extravaganza yet. I did "Yellow Submarine" backed by my friends Katie, Grady, and Colby. Mom built us a big yellow submarine prop, and we all dressed as sailors. I did a great job singing the song beautifully. I even did the little call and refrain part in the last verse with a little English accent and a crazy laugh:

As we live a life of ease
Every one of us [Every on of us]
Has all he needs [Has all he needs]
Sky of blue [Sky of blue]
And sea of green [sea of green]
In our yellow [In our yellow]
Submarine [Submarine, ah-ha!]

We all live in a Yellow Submarine!

Sound is Vibration

In science, we learned how sound works. It turns out that sound is caused by vibrations in the air, sort of like ripples in water. Hard to believe since you can't really see the air. We made an instrument that vibrated and this caused it to make sounds. How the heck can sound be vibration?

Flower

We're learning about the parts of plants in school. To learn more about this, we made flowers. But not the usual kind, this flower is accurate. It has several stamens and a pistil too. As well as the all important (red) petals. Flowers are quite interesting.

Prizes!

A little postscript on the fun day at the club. After acquiring tickets, you can swap them for prizes. I swapped 20 tickets for this guy--a duck in sheep's clothing. He's so cute.

Donkeys versus Ponies

Today at the club was a special Easter holiday fun day. They had 3 bounce houses, pony rides, a petting zoo, and a "midway" where you can win tickets for prizes. They also had a buffet featuring corn dogs as well as various kinds of boring adult food. Here are the highlights:

1. Ponies versus donkeys: They had both pony and donkey rides. At first, I was confused and called the donkey a camel. Mom was shocked--a camel ride? Of course, when she saw what I identified as a camel, we both laughed because I got donkeys and camels confused. Anyway, a donkey is a much smoother ride than a pony. The pony bounces up and down when he walks. I had to hold onto the pommel with both hands. The donkey offers a smooth ride--like the TSX. I would occasionally raise both my hands and yell "Yee haw" during the ride.

2. Speed basketball is super fun. Here, you have 30 seconds to make as many baskets as you can. There are 2 side by side baskets, so you're competing against another player for high score. My best game got me 10 tickets. I made 11 baskets including 1 at the buzzer for a 3 point shot--final score = 23.

3. Bounce parachute. In addition to the usual types of bounce houses, there was a bounce parachute ride. Here, you go inside a bouncy tube and strap on your parachute. The house then inflates up really high lifting you up in the air so that you're almost as high as the roof of the club! Then it slowly deflates as you parachute back down to the ground.

4. Petting zoo: Lots of cool animals in the petting zoo including miniature goats and pigs, bunnies, and some very fluffy chickens.

This was super fun.

Paragraph

A good paragraph is like a burger. The topic and closing sentences are like the bun while the supporting sentences are the "meat" (on in my case the veggie since I don't like meat burgers). At school, we're supposed to use the "burger principle" to make a good paragraph. Here's the paragraph I wrote.

99.98% of things are solids, liquids, or gases. Ice is a solid. Water is a liquid. Vapor is a gas. Solids, liquids, and gases are everywhere.

(Sidenote: The 99.98% figure is a "statistic" that Daddy made up. Apparently some things are plasma, which are not solid, liquid or gas.)

Super Speller

This week, I was a super speller. I got 22 out of 22 right on my spelling test including such tricky words as "proofread", "cartoon", and "rhyme." My teacher wrot my score using a bright yellow marker and conferred on me the title "super speller". Yay!

Odyssey

On Saturday, we did our Odyssey of the Mind performance. The theme was to create a party celebrating something unusual. As part of the theme, we had to create unusual noisemakers as well. I came up with the idea that we celebrate the thumb since it's a very important finger. The judges thought this was very creative.

One difficulty in the lead-up to the event was that I kept getting into fights about which lines to say. (I didn't like some of the lines.) Fortunately, it all came together in the performance. I was my usual professional self (when not practicing) and things went really well.

Trophy

Last night was the blue and gold dinner at Cub Scouts. It was a night for recognizing lots of achievements including Pinewood Derby. The highlight for me was getting the 2nd place trophy. I loved getting it. When it was presented to me, I turned to look at all the other scouts, hoisted the trophy high in the air, and then pressed it to my lips giving it a kiss. I was so happy!

Badminton

Badminton, originally uploaded by Beckywithasmile.

This weekend we put up the badminton net and played in the yard. I really like badminton. One of the things we try to do is see how long we can keep a rally going. The record for this session was 10 shots.

Night Out

This weekend, Mom and I went to the Chabot Science Center. What made the trip unusual is that we stayed overnight in the museum. Needless to say, with a zillion cub scouts trying to sleep on the floor, not much sleeping took place. Still it was fun. Got to try on an astronaut helmet. (Didn't like the smell though--smelled like dog.) The highlight of the day was supposed to be looking through the giant telescopes at the place (it's a state of the art observatory). Unfortunately, clouds meant that we couldn't look out. The guide instead substituted the world's most boring discussion of the three telescopes. It was so boring that even Mom left before it was over.

Frisbee Golf

Today we didn't something totally cool--we made up our own frisbee golf course in he park across the street. We brought a big frisbee and a bucket to be the tee box and the hole. We also brought 2 normal frisbees. I had a great time, so much so tat we ended up playing 22 holes of frisbee golf. I like that I get to make up my own holes and then play them. I tend to like holes that are REALLY long. One hole was about 300 yards from start to finish.

Great game.

Walnut Creek

 

for the first time ever, we went boating in THE Walnut Creek. There's not much left of the creek in its natural state (mostly it's diverted in underground culverts), but we found a launching point. Since it is rainy season, there was still plenty of water. There was a pretty good current too. Three of our boats made it from the creek into the Contra Costa Canal. This drains into Suisun Bay. Suisun Bay, of course drains into the Pacific. Kind of neat to think of our paper boats making their way all the way to the ocean.