Road Trip!

We headed out to our first quiz meet of the year early Friday morning. We rented a six passenger SUV for the trip but by the time we loaded up three adults, three teenagers and all of our stuff, it was a little crowded!



Zach and Andrew were in the very back and probably had the least amount of leg room. Steph and I were in the middle and we managed to have fun in spite of the sleeping bag/suitcase barrier between us!


We made pretty good time on the way over to the coast and Twin Rocks Camp with good, but cold, weather and dry roads. We were there in plenty of time to join in the ice breaker games. This was an office chair relay. A little dangerous, but fun. . .


We were divided into four teams and each team had to alternate groups of three people who would ride into the center of the gym and answer a question. . .


It wasn't dangerous so much for the groups of three as it was for the person in the middle asking the questions!! Glad it wasn't me!!





It was good to see Steph's brother, Zac, who is going to college in the area and came out to the camp to help with the quiz meet. . . You can tell they were happy to see each other!! :)



The rest of the evening was spent playing Mad Gab. . .




You probably had to be there to find the humor but it was hilarious. . .



It was great to hang out with the McConaughey's. . .


Steph and I even ended up staying in a cabin with the Newberg girls!! I took this picture of Elsie and Hailey and sent it to Gloria who was very sad to miss this trip:
This is dedication!! It was so cold outside and Talli and Marissa laid out on the porch and studied!! Brrrr. . .

We had to be up and around before 8 a.m. on Saturday for a full day of quizzing. . .


Zach actually memorized chapter's 1-10 of 1 Corinthians so I had a feeling he would do pretty good. . .


Smile, Steph!! :)





I always love when Ken and Judy officiate. I think they are the most fair and impartial of all the judges and score keepers!

Tami does a great job, too. . .

In fact, we knew the officials in every room! It was nice having Zac as a score keeper!!

All of the teams did a good job and really encouraged each other. . .

Michael came along just to experience the thrill of being a Quiz Master. He did a fine job!

After the morning rounds and lunch, the Verse Off began. . .

There were 10 "survivors" of the Verse Off which is pretty amazing considering they all had to memorize about 25 verses so they could quote verses word for word in order to avoid being eliminated.

Talli's late night review paid off!!

More quizzing rounds in the afternoon. . .

Besides the Newberg team, this Hayden Lake team is my favorite to quiz against. . .

They take it very seriously. . . but not too seriously!!

Gary has the "fun" job of tallying up all of the scores. He spent about 12 hours sitting in this chair entering (and re-entering!) scores into the computer in order to be ready for the awards ceremony in the evening. . .

We had a couple of hours between dinner and the awards ceremony to hang out. . .

Judy, Tami and Ken:


Stephy and Elsie:

Hailey and Elsie:

Quiz Master, Michael. . .

The Award Ceremony started with the certificates for "surviving" the Verse-Off. . .

After the middle school team and individual awards were given out, I started to record because I figured Zach made it into the top 8 in the high school division. . .

He worked so hard and definitely deserved it!!!

The evening activity was a bonfire at the beach.

It was fun but very, very COLD!!

We didn't stay at the beach long because we had big plans for a game of Cities and Knights. No pictures but we played until about 1 a.m. when Steph finally put us all out of our misery and won the game. It was fun but we were all very tired from a very long day.

We were up by 7 a.m. on Sunday morning in order to eat breakfast and hit the road for another long road trip. This is the cabin we stayed in:

I ran over to the beach to take a couple of pictures of the ocean. It was beautiful . . .

Once again, we packed in like sardines and headed for home. . .

It's a very pretty drive. . .

It was a very looooong drive. . .

It was a great weekend but I was very happy to pull up to my house and unfold my body after 9 hours in the back seat. I've decided I'm too old to sit in the back! I don't regret any of it, though, and it was a very nice way to spend my birthday weekend!!! I'm very proud of my team!