Odyssey

This past Saturday was Odyssey of the Mind. This was the first year we were competing for prizes, so I was all charged up. We had to make a Rube Goldberg device, so the team came up with a clever idea. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, wanted a new perfume sprayer, so Artemis and Hermes went down to Earth to find an inventor to make one for her. It was so successful that they decided to tell the world about it. My job was to be the media guy. I created a video ad using my camera and tripod as well as a magazine ad for the product, the Perfumer3000. I even made up a website and 800 number. (Must be 18 years or older to order.)

The device itself consisted of a tennis ball rolled down a tube into a suspended crystal ball. The tennis ball would knock the crystal ball like a pendulum. It would then hit a water balloon, which would fall thereby lifting up some rubber tubing causing water to spray out. At least that was the theory. Unfortunately, we never got to run the device since we ran out of time in the presentation. That was a big disappointment. So we came away with no medals.

In good news, we had a party at our house afterward and got to eat a lovely chocolate cake.

Blue and Gold

This Friday we had the annual blue and gold dinner at Cub Scouts. It was a Hawaii theme, so I was decked out in my shell leis. I also got my trophy for coming first in the pinewood derby. I really like getting trophies, but I was a little disappointed in this one. For one thing, it wasn't as big as I would have liked. In fact, it was no bigger than the participant trophies. Also, they misspelled my name on the trophy. It lists "Aiden Morgan" as the first prize recipient. Still, I had fun. I also won a solar powered flashlight in the raffle.

Duck Island

 

I had a bath last night. Now baths are okay. I still don't like washing my hair, but I can live with it. The best part is doing fun stuff in the tub. Anyway, yesterday I made this duck island. Since the washcloth was pretty dry, I found that it floated like an island. I put some ducks on it and had them float around. I was so excited that I called Mom and Dad in to have a look and shoot a picture. This was really cool. The ducks floated on the island for a long time.

Markets

 
Every month we have a market day in school. On this day, kids are free to bring stuff to sell in exchange for tickets, a sort of currency in our class. Today, I brought in lemonade to sell. To get people interested, I set the price really low at first, only 5 tickets. Then, when I got word of mouth out about how good the lemonade was, I ended my "sale" period and raised the price to 10, then 20, and finally 50 tickets per cup. I sold out completely and made a boatload of money. So what did I buy with this newfound cash? Well, one of my classmates was selling her stuffed peregine falcon. I got him for only 50 tickets. I also got a pair of toy cars for just 10 tickets each. I got some silly bandz for 1 ticket each. SinceI don't care much for silly bandz, my plan is to "flip" them next time since they usually sell for about 5 tickets. I love the market.

Investments

This weekend Mom and I went to Target and I made some additional investments in my plush Pokemon collection. They had several cool stuffies that were so cute I couldn't resist them. Of course, my first instinct was to ask Mom if she'd buy them for me. She reminded me that I had my own money, so I plunked down cash to bring home the cuties. I'm glad I did.

Chinese Food

I took out a book on Chinese cooking from the library so I could learn more about how to make Chinese food. This week Mom and I have been making different recipes. I really like helping to prepare the meals. We made fried wontons stuffed with pork and ginger. We also made long life noodles with prawns. Tonight we're making spring rolls. Homemade Chinese food is delicious--even better than the stuff in the restaurants.

The Bible Project: Update

We're making great progress in reading the Bible. It's so cool and exciting. We just finished 2nd Samuel this morning. Right now, David is the king of Israel. He's had so many adventures: dealing with Saul, switching sides and joining the Philistines, switching sides again to Judah, dealing with his son Absalom taking over. Just amazing.

Sailing

 
Saturday wss a perfect day for sailing, so we went off to Walnut Creek for a paper regatta. We made 6 boats: The Tide, The Fire, The Bee, The Yoshi Egg, The Rainbow, and The Leaf. Each boat had a different flag. One had a Japanese flag while the others had custom original flags that I made up. Each boat also had a driver. Some of the drivers included Archie the Artichoke, Alien, Sammy the Snake, and Rapunzel. Off they went down the stream. There was a nice current and some wind so the boats went on lots of adventures. The fire got sutck on the opposite bank, but some helpful ducks made enough splashes nearby to set it free. It was awesome.

Pinewood Derby

 
Just over a week ago, the Pinewood Derby was held. My chief mechanic (Mom) and I worked to build the fastest car ever. It is the gold one in the picture above. We worked very hard for maximum speed. We sanded the wheels (one of them melted and we had to get a replacement), polished the axles, and put all sorts of weights toward the back of the car to just hit the weight limit. Within my bear pack, I won a couple of races and came in second as well. That got me to the overall finals where I competed against the best cars from the whole troop. My car finished first in the finals--I was the fastest overall car at the derby! Now, it's on to the Blackhawk 500, the regional pinewood event. I am speed!

Lemonade Stand

 
It was a beautiful weekend this weekend, sunny and in the 70s. A perfect time to open my first lemonade stand of 2011. On SAturday night, Daddy and I went out and bought lemons and cups. We got up early on Sunday and made our first batch, then set up shop on the corner to attract people going to church, walkers, joggers, and bicyclists. I ramped up the marketing a couple of ways. First, I made three signs to place around the neighborhood advertising the stand. Then, I put on my Hines Ward shirt and got out my two football helmets to tie in to "Super Bowl Style" lemonade. I had a lot of good sales pitches. Some of the best were: Stock up now for your Super Bowl party. Lemonade. It's super delicious. I also talked about how it was fresh squeezed and homemade.

Business was brisk. I sold 2 and a half pitchers---about 35 cups. I made about 30 bucks too. I'm really motivated to raise money since Nintendo is bringing out the 3DS protable platform at the end of March. It features a 3D screen that doesn't even need special glasses to produce 3D effects. It also works with my DS games. Unfortunately, it costs $250, so it's pretty expensive. I've set aside mooney for the 3DS fund, including my lemonade money.