Five Brown Kids

Jaxon has been working with a team at school for the last couple of months to create a balsa wood structure (15 grams or less) that would hold as much weight as possible and funny skit to go with it. Yesterday was the competition for our region and they earned first place!  This tiny little structure held 352 pounds.  Amazing! They will be heading off to state in a few weeks. We are so lucky to go to a small school with great volunteer parents and two school staff who are the finest OM coaches in the state. Here's  Taye 's OM adventure a few years ago.

Just watched a Chinese elementary school team pack over 1000 lbs on their structure.

It's spring and our schedule moves into hyperdrive from now til school is out. Taye had state age group champs last weekend. He swam the 50 free and 200 fly. He dropped time in both and looked handsome doing it. Next year he'll be on the upper end of this 13/14 age group and a real contender. Jaxon had regionals for Odyssey of the Mind and his team rocked. Their "losing your marbles" skit and balsa wood structure were the very best and they are headed off to state in a few weeks.  Then this week Jaxon and Scotia participated in First in Fitness.  Scotia ran the 100 yard dash with 14 other fastest 2nd grade girls in their schools and placed 3rd!!! So exciting. Jaxon did the 'triathlon' and finished a 1 mile run in 6 mins 36 seconds, 7 pulls ups and a 9.5 second shuttle run. Awesome all the way around! 

From May 28 - June 1 Jax and Tyrone were lucky to travel to Iowa Sate University for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals . It was the same as last year .  A bunch of parents and coaches following the kids around while they pin trade and compete and eat.  It's an easy routine. Tyrone was the only dad on the trip but got along great with the other moms - they have lots of inside jokes now - including a very silly t-shirt that Tyrone now owns. Jaxon has enough OM t-shirts to wear a different one every day of the week, and pins from Poland, Singapore, China, Korea, Switzerland and Canada. He is one lucky kid. The structure held 250 pounds

Jaxon's Odyssey of the Mind team won first place in the regional competition yesterday!  On to the state competition next month.   Last year he was the lone 3rd grader with a bunch of 5th grade boys.  This year his team is all 4th graders with lots of cute girls and the coaches are the best teachers you can imagine. The win was not without its challenges - the structure had to be adjusted at the last minute and that caused a few anxious tears(Jaxon would like me to note here that it was just some girls and not him).  With the changes it didn't hold nearly as much as they had hoped.  But they rocked in spontaneous and the skit so it all worked out.

Jaxon had two weeks of basketball camp this summer. I loved that it gave some structure to the day and kept him a little busy. Saw this quote on a blog and totally agree. Camps made this summer totally manageable. 

So I posted lots of pictures during my adventure with Jaxon to Michigan State campus for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals .   It was a great week - so totally out of our normal routine.  We attended the opening and closing ceremonies in the huge Breslin Center, slept in our tiny and sparse dorm room, survived the shared bathroom that didn't lock and loved every meal at the cafeteria that I didn't have to plan, shop, cook or clean up after.  We watched lots of other teams perform - and enjoyed seeing some of the other projects like Pet Project and ARTchitecture the musical . Twice we waited in a crazy long line at the Dairy Store for the best ice cream I've had.  And of course the boys performed their long term project (the structure crushing) and did great on their spontaneous problem. Jaxon spent lots of time trading pins and collected quite a few from different countries. It was a wonderful week and I'm thrilled that Jaxon got to have this experience of a...