Camp Arroyo

On Monday through Wednesday of this week, I'm off to Camp Arroyo with my class. This is the first time I'll be away from Mom and Dad (and relatives) for several days in a row. I'm a little scared but also pretty excited. I love camping and being on my own should be pretty fun. Fingers crossed that it all works out.

Pokemon Cards

I'm totally into Pokemon cards these days. I picked up a world champion deck from Target about 2 weeks ago and have been crushing Dad with it ever since. In fact, this motivated Daddy to get his own champion pack (a different one from mine), so he could compete.

This got me thinking as to which of my decks is the best. So I decided to hold a tournament. Apart from the 2 champion decks, I have 8 regular decks of Pokemon Cards, so we paired each of them off and set up a single elimination tournament. We decided to play a short form version of the game (only 3 prize cards rather than 6) and this has produced some very exciting games. In the first battle, one of the decks had fainted two Pokemon and was one hit away from victory. But the other decks rallied back and managed to knock out the rival's third Pokemon just in the nick of time. What a super close battle. We've already got 2 decks in the semi-finals. We'll see who the other two decks are that make it here as well.

4 Lane Elimination Tournament

I love running tournaments. Recently, we introduced the idea of creating a Hall of Fame for all-time winners in Hot Wheels and other things. This makes the stakes even higher since winning a tournament puts a car one step closer to the Hall of Fame. We already have a couple of vehicles enshrined in the Hall. One is Little Red Roadster, the all-time gravity racing champion. It has won more gravity races than any other car. The second is RoadRunner, the fastest car I own. It has never lost in 4 lane raceway. A relatively short drag course with 4 lanes.

Lately, we've been playing a lot of 4 lane elimination raceway. This is similar to 4 lane raceway except that the track keeps narrowing. After the first third of the race, 4 lanes collapse to 2 lanes. There are little triggers that cause the cars that are behind to get flipped off of the track. The track collapses to a single lane near the end of the course. The winning car is the one to survive and cross the finish line first. The cool thing about 4 lane elimination racing is that, while some cars are faster than others, there is enough randomness that nothing is assured. Last week's champ was an 18 wheeler called "Rubber Duck" after the protagonist in the CW McCall song "Convoy", which I like a lot.

Brief aside: Aunt Holly and Uncle Ted were shocked when I launched into the Convoy song as we were walking to dinner.

Rubber Duck beat a long futuristic racer named Greased Lightning. This week, Greased Lightning was again in the finals against a buggy type of vehicle with machine guns mounted on the front and sides. Since it does not have a name printed on the bottom of it, we named is "50 cal" after its main armament. Both Daddy and I thought that Greased Lightning would win, but 50 cal pulled off the stunning upset and took home the trophy. He's now one step closer to the Hall of Fame.

Aunt Holly and Uncle Ted Visit

This weekend my Aunt Holly and Uncle Ted came to visit from Miami. I had not seen them in years, so I didn't really remember them. I did, however, know that they give some of the coolest gifts. This Christmas they sent me the Hot Wheels camera car, which is totally awesome. I have to put up some videos from the car some time soon. They were kind enough to bring me a cool bright yellow soccer ball when they arrived. It's the prettiest soccer ball I own.

Anyway, after they arrived, they did what adults usually do: talk, talk, talk, talk, and more talk. I was pretty bored with that so I played my 3DS quietly.

Later in the afternoon, I got them interested in playing Settlers of Catan. They had a great time. In fact, when it was time to go to dinner, my Uncle Ted said, "One more turn, one more turn." Then it was Aunt Holly's turn, and she said the same thing. If Daddy had not stopped the game, we probably would have missed our dinner reservation entirely. They even talked about how good the game was at dinner too. I was so happy since this is the first time I've gotten someone other than Daddy to play with me. Settlers truly is an awesome game. It's in my top 3 favorite strategy games. For the record, the others are Civilization and Risk:Godstorm.

Christmas Play

 

Over Christmas, I participated in a short drama camp run by the church. The culmination of this was a play we performed on Christmas Eve. I played the role of a shepherd. The plot was a play within a play--a group of students are putting on a Christmas play and everything is going wrong. Particularly funny was a girl playing a role of an angel who was hoisted up in the air on pulleys. The setup was such that she would kind of drift arouund in circles and have to get out her lines only when she was facing forward. Mommy and Daddy thought it was a very funny play.

Zoe, Pippi, and Squeaky

 

Over the Christmas break, we got to do a lot of rat-sitting. Several of the classes, including my own, have pet rats in class. The two rats in my class are Pippi and Squeaky. You can see them perched atop my head and shoulders in the photo. These two are very nice rats. For a long time, I didn't want to pick them up since their little toenails bothered me. More recently, however, I've been braver about this and now it's kind of fun to have them run all over me.

We also had another class rat, Zoe. She was being taken care of my a teacher I had previously. Sadly, she got very sick, which is why she was home with us. Mommy really takes excellent care of the rats and especially wanted to try to help Zoe get well. Unfortunately, Zoe had cancer, so she never could get well. But she had a wonderful time at the end of her life. Mommy gave her special foods becuase she has trouble eating regular rat food. (She lost strength in some of her paws so that, when she tried to eat foods that required her to use her front legs to hold the food she would fall over.) Mommy also let her run around the house, since she couldn't really run very well and it was difficult for her to move around the cage. Shortly after New Year's Day, she died. We buried her with flowers in the side yard. It was really sad.

Strategy Games

 

I am totally into strategy games. We have quite a collection and I enjoy playing a different one each weekend. Last weekend we played Conquest of the Empire. We played this previously using the simple rules, but this time we played with the deluxe rules. I especially like the power of some of the cards to really shift around who is winning and losing. Whenever we play these games, we have four stuffies playing the four different sides. I control two stuffies while Daddy controls the other two. Part of the enjoyment is having the stuffies react and talk about how things are going in the game. Daddy makes up all sorts of funny voices for the stuffies, and I'm getting good at voices too. Our most recent "voice" belongs to Berkeley Bear, who sounds Russian. Daddy said that the voice is actually from a cartoon character named Boris Badinov, who used to appear in the Bullwinkle cartoons. Boris (er Berkeley Bear) is always talking about anvils, factories, and the amazing strength of Russian women. Not only is there a lot of strategy in these games, they are also quite hilarious too.

Sailing

 

On Saturday, we went sailing again. Since it is rainy season, there is a lot of water in a nearby creek creating pretty good conditions. Unfortunately, there's not much current in the creek, so the boats mainly go where the wind takes them. Still, there was lots of excitement. There is a portion of the stream where things get narrow and end in a small waterfall. Several of the boats "shot the rapids" and went down the waterfall. Boats are not much good after this experience, but it's so cool to watch them pick up speed and slide down.

R/C Car Racing

Daddy and I got a really cool R/C car for Christmas. It's ridiculously powerful and fast. It also has all terrain tires so that it can go over rough ground with ease. Lately, Daddy and I have been playing tag with the cars. He uses one of my older cars, a green outer space type vehicle, while I use the new one. His vehicle is more agile but slower while mine is fast but harder to maneuver. Our favorite game is car tag. The "it" car has to chase the other around the yard to tag it, at which point the process reverses. It's quite nifty to go chasing one another around the yard.

One time during a chase, my car went at top speed over a tree root which acted as a kind of jump. It got huge air and ended up doing a barrel roll in midair before landing on its wheels and continuing the chase. Another highlight was when I drove on 2 wheels up a ramp formed by my scooter. This produced an amazing jump into the wood chips.

R/C car racing is a total blast.

Pinewood Derby

 

It's pinewood derby season once again. I wanted to choose the thinnest possible design so as to be more aerodynamic. I noticed that thin designs seemed to dominate last year's Blackhawk 500 (the regional pinewood race). So this year's entry is the Pikachu-mobile. It's nice and yellow (though lots of graphites dirties it a bit). I was excited for race day. Things went well in the heats. I wond 3 out of 5 races I competed in.

Then disaster struck. Normally, the 5 fastest cars compete in the finals. This year, however, they screwed up the computer settings and only ran the top 3. Despite desperate pleadings from Mommy and Daddy and other parents whose kids were "on the bubble," they didn't end up fixing this, so I did not get to compete in the finals. That made me really upset since my car was the 5th fastest in the heats and would have been a strong contender in the finals. Still, we did pretty well finishing 5th overall.