Merry Christmas One and All!

A few days ago we decorated our tree and put up manger scenes! It is amazing how just a few things like that can make every thing feel a lot more Christmasy

Yesterday we also watched "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" It was fun as usual.







On a different subject our FLL tournament was a success! Our team got the  "Citizenship Award". We are having our end of the year party this thursday.

Two days ago I went to the store to get my new indoor soccer shoes, because I start indoor soccer today!

Hocky has been going well, I just got a new hockey stick also!

last Thursday and Friday my family and some friends went to the "Operation Christmas Child" warehouse. There we checked that all the boxes were OK to be shipped, then we loaded them in to bigger boxes and sent them on their way!

Water Park Resort

Yesterday I went to a small indoor water park with my friend Luke. His parents where going to a confrence at the resort so Luke and I go to hang out at the water park. It was pretty cool.

Today I did more FLL stuff. We went to the local nursing home and took some games along. When we arrived there were already some residents waiting for us. Four people from our group went to the nursing home, one of us (my friend Nicholas) went and played checkers with one of the residents, while the rest of us played sorry with a few other residents. It was really cool how much the residents opened up and started talking! The residents were really getting in to the games. The lady playing checkers with Nicholas had a "less than clean mouth". And one of the ladies playing sorry with us had no fear of cheating! if she did not like the card she drew she would just draw another one!
It was a really fun experience.

Today I smashed walnuts.

Earlier this summer we picked up a bunch of walnuts from our yard and took them to the basement. They sat in our basement for a few months and dried. Than I took a hammer to them and smashed out all of the meat.                              WHAT FUN!!!!!!!

I am not even touching the ground!

still nothing has happend lately so I will again post cool pictures!

This is our FLL robot

this does not look much like me, but it is still cool

 A nice action shot.

toby chased a squiral right on to the bench!

I am not really sure what to write so I will just post some pictures.

this is us at my grandparants house when the lake froze over.

a parachuter from Arizona.

this is a bird that we saw in Arizona.

us and some friends at the "Operation Christmas Child" warehouse. we will be going back on the 6th of december.

 

A lizard thing from Arizona.

a ground hog that we saw in Arizona

Homeschool Play

Over the last few weeks I have been participating in the homeschool  4th - 9th grade play. The play that was done was "My Fathers Dragon". The play is about a boy named Elmer Elevator who finds an old alley cat out in the rain, they start to talk and get to the topic of flying. Elmer says he would do anything to fly and the cat suggests a way that he could fly when he is still young. The cat used to go exploring and happened upon an island called " Wild Island " a dragon is being held captive there and the cat says that if Elmer were to rescue him the dragon would fly him most any where. So Elmer goes to "Wild Island". He meets a bunch of wild animals but in the end he saves the dragon.

HATCHET Synopsis

 Hatchet is a book about a boy named Brian Robeson. Brian's parents a divorced, he lives with his mom. The story starts with Brian on a plane on his way to see his father. The pilot has a heart attack and dies, leaveing brian alone in a plane that he has no idea how to fly. after a while the plane starts to fall brian luckly falls in to a small lake and he lives, but he is stranded so he has to learn to fend for him self. It is a really cool book that I would definently suggest reading.

Farmer Boy synopsis

Farmer Boy

This was a fun little book about a....... Farmer Boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   (imagine that)

The farmer boys name is Almanzo, he is 9. Our story begins in winter at the begining of the school year. As the book continues the seasons change and Almanzo grows older. It is a book I would sugest to others.

My first hockey game

In my first game of the season my team won the game 4 - 3. I scored 2 of the 4 goals

I scored them both in my first two shifts and had many other chances. My next practice is next wednesday

FIRST LEGO LEAGUE UPDATE

In "FIRST LEGO LEAGUE" we have know finished three different missions at this rate we should be able to have all of the missions done by the event on December 8th. For the Senior Solutions we are also doing pretty well. I think that it to will be done by December 8th. I will continue to send out updates!

On Sunday I was at the church doing a Operation Christmas Child packing Party. We would pack shoe boxes with toys and toothbrushes and toothpaste and other stuff like that, we then put them in a big Cardboard box, than they are shipped to kids all over the world to all the kids who do not get Christmas gifts. It was a really cool experience.

In First LEGO League we have finished our first program!!! Mike and I spent about 10 hours making it. (over the span of three days) The robot does three differnt programs.

this is similar to our robots design

it goes Bowling, it turn on the TV and it brings a broken chair the the base. Mike and I are takeing a brake while the other kids work on another program.

this is the board that our robot does




Our compation is on the 8th of December. Hopefully we will have all of our programs made by then and will be a competitve team.

Plans for the weekend!

On Saturday I have the "State Homeschool Cross Country Meet" in Milwaukee. It is a race that I have never run this race so it should be fun.

On Sunday I have the last game of my soccer season is in Davenport. Sunday is also my birthday so I am excited for that!

Book Synopsis #3


A Wrinkle In Time


There is a storm and Meg can't sleep so she goes down stairs to get some hot chocolate, when she gets to the kitchen she finds her young brother Charles Wallace already there. After a while their mom comes down also.
Than a strange lady named Mrs. Whatsit comes in from the rain and tells them that the tesseract is real, and shortly after that she leaves. The next day Meg and Charles Wallace meet a boy named Calvin. The three of them go to find Mrs. Whatsit and her two friends Mrs. Which and Mrs. Who. They take Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace on an adventure to find their missing Father. Their Father was captured on a planet called Camazotz. The planet of Camazotz is controlled by IT. (you will have to read the book to find out what/who IT is)

On a completely different note, I am supposed to talk about this art class I am taking. The first week we drew a picture of our self and what we think our alter ego would be. The second we did plaster gauze (which is basically ultra paper mache ) It was very cool.

THE FLAMINGOS FLY IN CASSVILLE!

We (the Flamingos) had a great meet yesterday,
for the Middle School boys we got 1st, 4th, 9th, 10th, and 15th. (Me, Andrew, Ezra, Jacob, Luke and Seth)
For the Middle School girls we got 4th and I think 12th.
For the High School girls we got 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

  And for the High School boys we got 2nd and 11th

the start of the race

Andrew and I trailing the first two kids

My sprint to the finish in first place!

Oh yeah I forgot... It was raining and COLD!!

First Lego League

Right now eight other kids and I are doing a thing called "First Lego League."
In " First Lego League" we do lots of nice stuff which includes building a mindstorm robot and programing it to do an obstacle course, we also have to give a presentation about some of the problems people have as they age, than we have to give a solution.

ERAGON

Book synopsis #2

My next book selection was Eragon by Christopher Paolini



      Eragon lives with his uncle and cousin in a town called Carvahall the town is right next a ravine called the spine. One day Eragon is hunting in the Spine and he find a big beautiful blue stone.
      He takes the stone so as to sell it but no one will by it. after a while he finds out that it is a dragon egg! (only as it is hatching) Some creatures called Ra'zc discover him and kill his uncle, Eragon is than forced to flee which he does with the town storyteller Brom.

Last weekend I had a cross country race AND a soccer tournament!
I got 11th out of about 45 runners in my race with a time of 9:30 (it was a longer race than the last one)
My soccer team won the first game 8-0, lost the second 2-0, won the third 6-0 and won the last 6-2.
We got second. The team that won was the team that we lost to. However they only beat the team we beat 6-2, 2-1 so we should have beaten them and won the tournament.
oh well

Last weekend I played 3 soccer games the first two I guest played with platteville we won the first game 6-2 and lost the second game 2-1. (all this was on saturday)
On sunday I played a game with my Dubuque team and we won that 4-1.

I finished the Hobbit on Monday, so here is my synopsis of the book.

        Hobbits are a very respectable kind of people that hardly EVER go on adventures, so at first Bilbo Baggins wants nothing to do with the thought of going on an adventure with Dwarves and a Wizard. But at last they convince him to come. 

         This adventure has many dangers that Bilbo does not expect, not the least of which is a giant dragon named Smaug, also a creature named Gollum, in Gollum's cave Bilbo finds a ring that will turn him invisible, with this power he convinces the Dwarves that he is a master burglar. And uses this new found skill to complete many tasks

In my soccer tournament over the weekend we lost the first game 2-0, and won the second and third games 3-1 and 3-0. That was enough to put us into the finals. We lost the final by a score of  2-0 so we got second place.

On thursday I had my second cross country race of the year.(on the same course as my first race) I finished 6th of 35 racers with a time of  8: 11. Thats 30 seconds faster than my first race!

        My soccer team had the first 2 games of the season yesterday, we won the first game 4-0 and the second game 6-2.
In the first game one of the parents took stats and found out that we had possession of the ball 69% of the game. (which lasted 70 minutes)
     
         I also have another cross country race on thursday so I will make sure to get some pictures.

I read the next 2 chapters of the hobbit, but I realized that some of you have not read the book so I will let you read it your self and I will just tell you what chapters I have read.

Book 1: The Hobbit

I read the first two chapters of the hobbit today. For anyone who doesn't know, the main character of the book is a hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins. At first Bilbo wants nothing to do with an adventure but in the end he is drawn into the Idea by a wizard named Gandalf and a few Dwarfs. As I read more I will continue to give a quick summery of what I have read for the day.

My Book List of the Year

My Mom and I made a list of the book that I will be reading this semester.

 My Mom's Choices                                                My Choices

1.  A Wrinkle in Time                                            1.  The Hobbit
        Madeleine L'Engle                                               J. R. R. Tolkein

2.  Farmer Boy                                                    2.  Hatchet
        Gareth Williams                                                  Gary Paulsen
   

3.  Chasing Vermeer                                               3.  Eragon
         Blue Balliet                                                         Christopher Paolini


4.  The Twenty-One Balloons                           4. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
         William Pene du Bois                                          Sir Arthur Conan Doyle



Feel free to read these books too!

Tomorrow I have my first cross country race of the year! Once again we (the flying flamingos) will wear bright pink shirts.


GO FLAMINGOS!!!!!!!

My tournament results

If any one wonders I got 5th place at my tournament.
I did not play much in the 2nd or 3rd game due to injury but by the time of our 4th and final game I felt fine!

My season officaly begins!

Tomorrow I have my first soccer tournament. It is a 6 on 6 tournament in Ceder Rapids.
It should be a great tournament!

RECIPE #1

Over the year I am going to try new recipes and post them on my blog.

Here is the first of many.


                                                           Scale of 1-10       1 = Bad    10 = Amazing
Chicken Tacos                   Serves  4-6                      Rating: 7.5



INGREDIENTS:


4-5 Thawed Chicken Breasts

1 Pack of Taco Seasoning

these are the tacos!

10-16  Ounces of Salsa




Put the chicken in the crock pot.

Put the taco seasoning in the crock pot on top of the chicken.

Pour the salsa on the chicken and seasoning.

Cook on high for 4-5 hours.

Than cook for 2-3 hours on low.

At this point the chicken should start to separate.

Take a fork and separate it completely.

Than eat with a tortilla. (I like cheese and lettuce on mine also)

The School Year Starts!

      This is the time of year when all those poor public schooled children have to go to school,
while we stay at home and do our school work in half the time!
    This year I am just doing math, writing and Bible studies the rest of the time I will be doing model planes, playing with LEGOs and helping around the house. It should be a fun year!

I am back!

Alison, Andy, Emily and I just went to Michigan to visit our relatives, it was a fun filled week of tubing, jet skiing, eating and relaxing.
Pictures coming soon

Top Ten Games

I have been going through a bunch of our games and have chosen my ten favorites.

1. Bandits   (A wild west based card game.)

2. Euchre    ( A four person card game.)  

3. Risk       ( a game were you try to conquer the world.)   I have a Lord Of The Rings version

4.Wits and Wagers  (a trivia game where you guess the answer and than bet on who is right.)

5.Stratego  ( A game similar to Risk where you try to conquer the other team.)

6.Clue       ( A game where you try to guess the murderer, the weapon and the room the murder was in, based on what cards you have in your hand.)

7. Apples to Apples  ( match a thing card with a adjective card and see who has the best card.)

8.Chess     (Defeat the opponent.)

9.Scrabble ( Create words to get points.)

10.Monopoly  ( Get properties in order to gain money. )

MICHAL PHELPS IS THE MOST DECORATED OLYMPIAN EVER!

If you don't know, yesterday Michal Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal which is more than any Olympian ever. Of his 19 medals 15 are Gold, 2 are Silver and 2 are Bronze

THE  OLYMOPICS ARE HERE!!!!


So now that the Olympics are here I have not done much except watch sports all day!
I am perfectly fine with it though. Here is a list of my top ten most watched sports so far.


1. Swimming
2. Gymnastics
3. Soccer
4. Handball
5. Skeet Shooting
6. Synchronized Diving
7. Volleyball
8. Equestrian
9. Water Polo
10 Badminton



I hope you all are enjoying the Olympics as much as I am

A Musket Demonstration

 Pictures From our vacation to my Grandparent's house and Mackinac Island

The British Army

The American Army

The American and British Commanders

Tubing

Tubing

Tubing

Tubing

Lake Michigan

Shivering Timbers at michigans adventure

                     

        

Here are some pictures of Lake Michigan, The Grand Canyon and Michigans adventure

Thunderhawk at michigans adventure

The Grand Canyon

 

 

 

The Return To The Blog!

I am back!
so far I have had an eventful Summer with Soccer, an Amusement Park, Tubing, Lake Michigan, The Grand Canyon (that was really in the spring but close enough) and a 6 hour game of Monopoly!
I will get pictures up soon but my camera just died!
Joey Ott