Early Halloween

Bode had his school carnival last weekend.  The kids get to wear their costumes, and there are various games and prizes and food.  The carnival helps raise money, so we go and spend some bucks and have fun.  Mommy, as you know, really gets into Halloween, much more than I do.  I don't really know what she was in costume--some sort of cross between a western and science fiction chick, but she looked pretty cool.  Bode, in keeping with the Star Wars theme from last year when he was Darth Maul, was The Inquisitor, the evil bad buy from Star Wars Rebels season one.  We took some pictures before heading down to the school.

We arrived right at the start and bought our tickets to participate in the many games and activities.  We think Bode is at the point where the games will be boring next year--there are things like a football toss and ring toss and face painting.  He still enjoyed doing it this year, so we will have to what the future holds.  I say this because the other morning, I thought Bode was going to wear his Cars sweatshirt with Lightening McQueen on the front.  He informed me he is told old for stuff like that.  Sheesh.

At the carnival, we stopped by Ms Radke's room.  Bode spun the wheel of destiny and won a prize--they always win prizes like candy or something no matter what they do, so we filled a sack with candy by the night's end.  We also took a picture of Bode, Ms Radke, and his buddy, LaSean, who was an awesome looking minion while Ms Radke was a character from one of the stories the kids read in school.

We also took a cool picture of Mommy and Bode.  Adorable.

Bode had dinner at the carnival and sat with his buddy, Cayson.  Ashley and I didn't eat--hot dogs weren't ringing our bell, but I did have a yummy slice of pie.  We went home after a couple hours and lamented Auburn's 4-OT loss to Arkansas :-(

Bode has had the past two days off from school--parent-teacher conference time.  We had our meeting with Bode's teacher on Wednesday.  We could not have been more pleased.  Ms Radke had wonderful things to say about Bode--how helpful he is, how well he writes, how knowledgeable he is about science, how polite he is; and at that point, we had to verify she knew we were Bode's parents and not some other student's.  She assured us she was talking about Bode, and when she mentioned he does have a small problem of talking a lot, we knew it was our kid :-)  As a reward, Bode and Mommy spent yesterday at some space symposium/learning center.  Bode loved it and learned lots about the planets and space, and they even had a Minecraft modification that was space-related, which he played for an hour.  They also made some goofy hats.

Bode has his final soccer game of the year today, so we'll be heading there in an hour.  Auburn plays Ole Miss today, so I'm not too optimistic.  It'd be nice to see Auburn get a win, as it's been a tough year for Ashley considering the high expectations with which the season started.  Otherwise, it should be a nice quiet day.  Maybe I'll go out and mulch up the garden.  Pleasant day.

Corn Maze

With Halloween just around the corner, we decided to go to a corn maze, and not just any corn maze.  Thirty (30) acres of corn maze located at Anderson Farms just north of Denver.  We met up with Dave, Teddy, and Charlie early on Sunday morning, early because we wanted to beat the crowds.  Here are a couple good pictures of the cousins (Charlie is in the mask).

The farm is huge, but I don't know if they do any harvesting of the corn.  I think they can make much more money growing corning, cutting it into a maze, and then charging $15 per person to visit (plus concessions, etc) for a couple months.  Maybe I should look into something like this for my retirement...but I digress.  There were chickens...

and also some goofy signs.

The farm is kind enough to provide a map, which was rather accurate, both on a piece of paper and at the start of the maze, which Bode immediately committed to his photographic memory.

If you can't tell, the pattern is a skier (bottom) and a snow-boarder riding a chair lift.  All the lines in the picture are the maze paths.  We headed out, with the goal of reaching all eighteen checkpoints.  There was a nice lookout platform at the start.  I headed up and snapped a picture of Bode and Mommy.  It looks like we are miles and miles from civilization (or in Nebraska), when in reality, we're only a few miles from your normal suburban-type structures (strip malls, Subway, gas stations).

We took turns playing the part of navigator.  Bode nor Charlie wasn't very interested in finding our way through the maze; they did love the stalks and stalks of corn that were lying around.  Teddy tried his hand at navigating, with some success (and an assist from Uncle Dave).

It took us close to 90 minutes to complete the maze, which isn't too bad.  We did take some short cuts through the rows of corn rather than following all the paths.  We tried to eat lunch at the farm, but the lines were horrendous.  Instead, we opted for a nearby Firehouse Subs, which, as luck would have it, was also televising the Bronco game (note Uncle Dave's shirt--he's a big fan).

Bode has his school's Fall Carnival tomorrow, and then only three days of school next week (parent-teacher conferences).  I think Ashley and Bode might head up to the mountain estate.  The ski lifts aren't yet open, but Breckenridge did get some snow yesterday.  Winter is coming :-)

First Swim Meet

Bode had his first swim meet today.  We could not be more proud of how he did.  This was our first swim meet as parents, so it was a bit of a learning experience.  First, Bode is in the 8-and-under age group.  Thus, he swimsagainst boys over a year older than him, so we had to temper our expectations.  Bode signed up for four events:  the 25-yard butterfly, the 25-yard backstroke, the 25-yard freestyle, and the 100-yard individual medley.

If you've never been to a swim meet, you must realize it is organized chaos.  Every child competing has two or three family members cheering them on, there are tons of swimmers, and a pool deck is only so big.  It was very crowded, but I was very impressed with the efficiency the officials conducted the events--very German-like, although by the end of the day, I was very tired of hearing a whistle blow.  We arrived a little after 7 am, and Bode and his team swam for 25 minutes to warm up.  This seemed odd to me, because some kids' events were until two hours later, so it wasn't clear to me how the warm-up was helpful.  But being a newbie, I kept my mouth shut.  Soon, it was time to race.

First up is a picture of Bode getting ready.  Next time, we need to get him a cap for his head and some bike shorts to swim in to cut down on the drag.  No speedos thought--a small number of kids wore them, and, in short, it looks horrible.

His first event was the butterfly.  Ashley brought the good camera and took videos of each race.  However, the file sizes are huge, so I had to reduce the resolution.  If you want the HD video, you'll have to come to the house to watch :-)  But I think the below accurately capture the events.  

Note he gets second in his heat.  He was third, but he had a strong second half of the race and passed that other boy.  Ultimately, he was 7th out of 12 boys, but he beat all the other seven year olds with the exception of one boy, Max, who is a ridiculously awesome swimmer, and he's six months younger than Bode.  Max was the overall winner in the butterfly.  Bode knows Max from his days at Donna's Dolphins, and I think the two of them enjoyed hanging out together between races more than the meet itself.  You can see Max in the first frames of the above movie--he's the blond boy leaning against the diving board.  Bode's second race was the back-stroke.  We think this is his best stroke, and he did very well, winning his heat by a large margin.

He was 9th (I think) out of 22 boys, and, like before, beat all the other seven year olds with the exception of Max, who was the overall winner (the kid is a beast).  Next up is the freestyle.  He won his heat by a large margin.  Note at the next meet, Bode will be in faster heats because he will now have an official time and will seeded accordingly.

Like the backstroke, he was ~9th (I think), but this time, another seven-year old (and Max) beat him.  Max must have swum poorly because he only got second--he's slipping :-)  Bode's final race was the 100-yard IM.  This consists of a 25-yard butterfly, a 25-yard backstroke, a 25-yard breaststroke, and finishing up with a 25-yard freestyle.  There is no IM for 8-and-under, so Bode was swimming against other boys who were 10 years old.  Thus, the reason for him looking slow.

He swam great, but sadly, he was DQed :-(  Apparently he didn't do his turn off the breaststroke properly--he needs to put two hands on the wall instead of only one.  He wasn't bothered by this--understood why, said he'll do better, and was his happy self.

It's getting darker earlier, the weather is a bit cooler, and the garden has stopped producing.  Winter must be coming :-)  Pleasant evening to all.

Cross Country

Bode finished his second year running cross country.  As I've said in previous posts, Bode is more of a social runner--the type of guy that shows up for the evening runs at the local pub just for the beer and the company and believes the run is just something to get over with.  The team had six meets this year, but two were cancelled due to rain and/or lightening.  The last one was somewhat annoying, as both Ashley and I raced to get to the meet.  The kindergarteners and first grade races went, and as the second graders were getting ready, the meet was called.  And I've no issue with the meet being cancelled--it was fixin' to pour down.  We even got some large hail on the cars as we were driving home (which is the primary reason for my annoyance).  As always, we are very proud of our little dude.  Here's his certificate...

and here's the team photo.  Bode is in the second row from the back towards the right-hand side.

We spent Columbus Day weekend up in the mountains, doing a little work on the mountain estate.  The weather was amazing.  Ten years ago, Ashley and I went up to Breckenridge over Columbus Day, and we almost were stranded because we got 20 inches of snow.  A little different this weekend--highs in the 60s and maybe even the 70s.

The trees in the picture above were painted blue to raise environmental awareness.  It was a water based paint, and there were signs up saying the paint didn't hurt the trees...but I'd sure be ticked off if someone painted me all blue even if the paint was water soluble...but I digress.  We walked around the town, and even went ice-skating (sadly, no pictures).  This week is a big week.  I'm sure I don't have to remind people of the Auburn game Thursday night (not been a great season thus far).  Then, on Saturday, Bode has his first real swim meet.  He will swim the 25-yard freestyle, 25-yard butterfly, the 25-yard backstroke, and the 100-yard individual medley.  We are excited to see him in action.  Not much else is going on here.  The dogs are fine, Ashley is fine (smoking fine if you ask me), and I'm still teaching.  I also received a new charger for my camera battery today, which is the reason for the dearth of pictures--just in time for the big swimathon, so look for a lot of pictures next Sunday!  Pleasant week to all :-)