Wren: Odyssey of the Mind

Wren has been working for the last 3 months on a team project called Odyssey of the Mind.  The organization Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program.

So the regional competition was today here in Walla Walla.  The problem that they needed to solve was called the Pet Project.
  
Problem 1: Pet Project
Divisions I, II, & III
The problem is to design, build, and run three vehicles that will deliver parts to an Assembly Area. The team will create a signal that lets the audience know which vehicle is about to travel and deliver a part. The parts will be assembled into a pet animal. Once assembly is completed, the animal will perform a trick. The theme of the presentation must include the delivery of the parts, the assembly, and the pet animal.
Cost limit: $145 USD. 

Wren is working on editing a video and we will post it on youtube and share it with family and friends when it is finished.  The team did a great job working together to solve this problem.  Great work team!

 

Boys Can Cook

Stuart was away this week teaching Raft Guide Leadership, so the boys and I decided to have a Boys Can Cook week.  On Sunday, we divided up the week between us, each choosing 2 days to cook and made a menu.
Sunday: Wren
      Pizza and Salad Bar
      Key Lime Pie
Monday: Dinner at a Friends house
Tuesday: Wren
       Asian Stir Fry with Tofu, Carrots, Snow Peas, Onions and Red Pepper
Wednesday: DAkota
       Mac-n-Cheese-n-Peas
       Chocolate Milk
Thursday: Dakota
      Quesadillas with Refried Beans
      Carrots with Dip
Friday: Mom
      Walnut Cheddar Loaf and Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Saturday: Mom
     Big Cheese Pizza (So I was going to make Walnut Cheddar Loaf Sandwiches but instead I hosted Wren's middle school Odyssey of the Mind team for a team party after their competition.  See next post for more on Odyssey of the Mind.)

Then we made a shopping list and went to the grocery store.  It was amazing how helpful the boys were at the grocery store when they were buying food for their own meal. Yeah!

Although I did not get picture documentation of every meal as intended, the week has been a great success.


 Dakota's Quesadillas

Wren's Asian Stir Fry

 Wren's Key Lime Pie
This was my personal highlight of the week as it is one of my very favorite pies and I had never made it before.  We found it both delicious and easy to make so we will make it again.  YUM!

Life on the Home Front

Life on the home front is good.

 I have been doing some baking based a book my dad gave me called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  The gist of it is to mix up a big batch of dough (no kneading) and store it in the fridge.  Each day when you want to bake some bread, you cut off a piece, make a round, let it rest and then bake it.  Last Saturday morning, I got up early, rolled out some dough, made up some cinnamon rolls and let them rise while I went for a run.  Back just in time to put them in the oven and out came yumminess.

 Tried my hand at a baguette...looks good but not quite a light and airy as the real ones.  Still tastes like good fresh bread..YUM!

 Dakota has  been into building lego tree forts for the ewok lego figure that he got.  His creativitiy for building structures has really exploded lately.  The transformation from needing to build a set to building what he wants has been quite delightful to watch.

 He has also decided that he wants to be a tree climber.  No real surprise there.  He called Stuart at work the other day and said, "Dad, will you come home and climb trees with me."  Guess what Stuart did...Of course he came home and went tree climbing with Dakota.

Wednesday night, Wren had his big Spring Concert.  He is so great!  He wants to play in Jazz band next year and start the French Horn...His band teacher thinks the more the merrier as far as instruments go... so go Wren.

Over at the property, we are having a little mini-spring so the apricot tree is being fooled into blooming.  I hope we don't get a big freeze because... Can you imagine the amount of apricot jam I could make if all those flowers turn into fruit.

These early bloomers the forget-me-nots are poking out of the winter leaves offering a perfect breath of loveliness.

And with the mini-spring comes the first plantings.  I have most all of the seeds in the ground that say "plant as soon as the ground can be worked."  So sweet onions, red onions, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, peas, carrots, beets and chard.  The garlic that I planted in the fall is up.  And seed potatoes were shipped today.  I hope it all fits.  Here the red onions looked striking as I set them out for planting.

Dakota's 2nd Annual Art Show

Dakota had his art show again this year with a wonderful art opening and yummy cream puffs.

He purposely planned on wearing exactly what he drew in his self portrait.  You can't see the big black rain boots but he has got them on. 

Family Snow Play

So this past Friday, Stuart took a day off because he had some comp days built up.  This is the day Dakota is in school all day so the 2 of us snuck away for some parent time.  So what did we do...we went skiing.  And to our supreme disappointment even though we had just gotten 17 inches of new snow, it was so wet and heavy that the skiing was not that fun.  Lucky for us, we had brought some alpine touring skis from the OP that allowed us to unlock our heels, put skins on the bottom of the skis and head up hill from the top of the lift to the view of the day.  No pictures sorry. 

All that to say that on Saturday, when we usually would be headed for the ski hills with the boys, we were not that psyched.  So we had to be creative in our escape from the inversion fog plans.  Dakota mentioned a few weeks ago that he wanted to build a snow cave/fort.  So with that vision, we headed up to the Sno-Park.  With over 6 feet of snow, we found a nice hill side and spent 3 hours building a snow cave.


It was really hot in the sun so we down layered.

 We dug two caves next to each other and then connected them.  Here is Wren .

 And Dakota just after the connection was made.

 All the boys!

Both boys in there caves!

After the cave we hike through the woods a little way down to overlook the Umatilla headwaters.  The hill was so steep from here that the snow ball rolling was the activity of the hour.

 Check out how big this snow ball gets before it breaks up.  And then right at the end you can see it roll by another one that did not break up and is even bigger.

After the snow cave and the giant snowball rolling, we still had some time so we build a loch ness snow monster.  

Penguin Slide

We got an ice storm a week ago and school was delayed by 2 hours.  Everything was covered with a few millimeters of ice.  So the boys went out to slide down the hill in front of our house.  I did not catch any video or pictures of Wren but here is Dakota doing his Penguin slide. 

Cross Country Skiing with the Girls

Two weeks ago, I went cross county skiing with a great group of women.  We headed out from our favorite Sno-Park, Andies Prairie.  This is where we go sledding and near where we have hiked out along the Umatilla Rim.  The terrain is rolling hills atop confer covered plateau.  We had a wonderful ski, stopping for a bit of lunch and then carried on around our 5 mile loop.  Somewhere around mile 4 we lost the marked trail and were left confused for a few moments.  Our trusty map put us back on track with just a bit of cross country travel.  Luckily, we were on cross country skis.  Returning to the car after a full day of adventure with friends we headed home.