March 8, 2007

Gloria loves to ride her bike. She spent a chunk of time today riding up and down the alley behind the shop getting soaked clear through from the puddles.

This week in history we have been studying the great fire of London in 1666. The fire started when a baker was "stoking his fire and a coal fell out, unnoticed, and began to burn it's way into a stack of brushwood nearby. . . " It quickly spread to the baker's house and someone went to alert the mayor. When the mayor checked out the fire he said, "Pish! A woman could put that out." He was wrong. The fire burned for 3 days and destroyed 4/5 of London. Zach has been reading a very informative book on the side about the great fire and the plague that preceded it and has been filling us in on all kinds of interesting facts (including the origin of Ring-Around-the-Rosie. . . we all fall down [dead]). Our activity this week was to build London and then burn it to the ground. The kids have been preparing all week.

We started by coloring the templates that we will use to build the city:

Each of the kids had their own ideas of what London should look like so I let them have plenty of creative license.


They bounced ideas off of each other:

Zach is building his on a narrow street to demonstrate how the fire easily "jumped" from house to house:

The plan was to "burn London" tomorrow but Gloria finished up tonight and was anxious to see it go up in flames:

We lit a match in the corner to simulate the dropped coal. . .

It started to spread. . .

London reduced to ashes. . .

Tomorrow we'll see how Zach's London fares. . .

On a completely unrelated note. . . the kids are beginning to think like me about this blog! Yesterday I found a box of pictures from Gloria's babyhood and there were several of Zach pushing her around in cardboard boxes. Without any prompting from me (honestly) they got into position and told me to take a picture for comparison purposes for my blog!! They've changed just a bit. . .

March 7, 2007

Today was a busy day, but it was all good. I'm feeling quite hopeful with the onset of spring and the warm, breezy weather. It helps that we are in between shows and Rob and Dale just finished a big case order that's been hanging over our heads for over a month. I'm also feeling the effects (real or imagined) of working in a bright sunny office!!

The kids have been enjoying getting outside and even though our backyard needs a major overhaul, they are making do with what they have. This morning when I looked out the window they were perched precariously at the top of an old slide while sitting on an ancient Little Tykes alligator teeter-totter. Of course I had to take a picture so they had to hold their position for a few minutes while I grabbed my shoes and my camera and ran outside!!


It's really difficult to capture how funny this looked with a still-camera!!

March 6, 2007

The kids took advantage of the beautiful spring-like temperatures today:

March 5, 2007

This was the first day I almost didn't take a picture. I hate to admit that these are late-night, last-minute, it's-been-a-loooonngg-day photos.

March 4, 2007

At church today, the quizzers were recognized and congratulated in front of the congregation:

I went to the shop after work hoping to set up my office in the new building so I can actually get some work done this week. It was a huge undertaking, but with help from Rob and Dale, this was the end result:

It's not perfect and we still have to put up walls and add carpet and lots of other things, but it is so much better than where I've been for the past few years!

Zach went up on the roof to help Rob run the phone lines over.

Sweet Gloria!

March 3, 2007 QUIZ MEET!!

Saturday was our fourth and final meet of the year. The kids were well prepared and were looking forward to the event.

If you look closely at this picture, you will see one of the secret's to Zach's success. Each chair has a pad on it that is wired to a box on the judges desk; once the quizzer's "seat" is lifted off the wired seat, a light goes off for the judge to see. A quizzer doesn't need to jump to be recognized, he or she just has to lift their backside off of the chair. Zach has nearly perfected this swift motion.

The Boise Quiz Team at their final match!

We did well all day with our final talley at 15 wins/2 losses. In one round we were tied with the #1 team who has consistently beat us and on the tie-breaker question, Andrew was the first one up and answered correctly- it was beautiful!

The rounds of quizzing started at 9:45 and ended at about 4:00 with lunch in the middle. The verse-off began at 4:15 . . . Zach knew all 20 of his verses and had practiced until he could almost say them backwards. . . then the bright lights and the people and the stress. . . he blanked out on the first one. :( But life goes on. Talli went on to do very well!!

At the awards ceremony after dinner, Zach recieved a blue ribbon for first place for an individual in the middle school division. I was so proud!!

Our team also took first place!!!!

Since this was the final match of the season, point totals were added up for the three out of four best meets and season awards were announced. For the 2006-2007 quizzing season, Boise Friends placed third!!! The kids were awarded really cool individual plaques as well as a larger plaque to hang up at church.

To decide on the top three in the individual category, they called up the top 8 quizzers for the season and had them quiz against each other for one final round. The round would end when 3 people quizzed out, resulting in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. It was very stressful and exciting and we were all on the edges of our seats!!

When all was said and done, Zach was the 3rd person to quiz out, recieving 3rd place for an individual for the year!!! All of the top 8 quizzers were awarded a medal for this acheivement!

I'd say we did ok!


After each quiz meet the hosting church plans a fun event. This meet it was a gym full of fun activities including a joust and karoke!!

Gloria and Megan were pretty evenly matched.

Rob got in on the fun and wanted to be King of the Hill!

Zach and Jered having fun!

This was a catapult activity where you had a stretchy rope around your waist and you had to see how far you could stretch out before you were flung backwards with great force! Gloria seemed to like this one the best.

Steve and I sang a little karoke (Summer Nights!!) but thankfully there are no pictures to prove it!!

This has very little to do with quizzing, but I found this picture in a box a few weeks ago and I've been desperately wanting to post it. I figured I could just wait until Halloween, but I found the perfect blogging moment at the quiz meet!!

When the Koskela's lived in Boise, we had four families that would trick-or-treat together. There were four older kids and four younger kids

I convinced the same four kids to pose in the same order for blogging purposes only!!!!!
I just couldn't help myself!!! I'm guessing they were about 6 and 7 in the first picture.

It was an exhausting day but we all survived it. The team has already started studying for next year!!

March 2, 2007

Tomorrow is our last quiz meet of the season. We had one last practice tonight and now the boys are staying the night so they can go to the meet together. They have really worked hard over the last couple of months and I'm sure they'll do well tomorrow. I'm very proud of them!

Gloria has been practicing for American Idol lately. This afternoon she was standing on Rob's desk singing "Aint No Mountain High Enough. . . " She's really pretty good!

March 1, 2007

We woke up to snow again this morning and it snowed off and on all day. We could see more of the same over the next few days. Weird for March, but good since January was so dry.

We have been studying the 1600's in History this year. Most recently we have studied the 30-year War in Europe, the rise of the Manchu in China, Japan's "closed door policy", and this week we are learning about the Moghul Emperors of India. I find all of this very fascinating and have very little memory of learning these things when I was in school. History was never very interesting to me until I began teaching my kids and now it's my favorite subject (I'm also really enjoying Algebra with Zach, but that's a story for another post!). Gloria has been begging to do something with glitter and is under the impression that public school kids use glitter everyday, so when I saw a craft using glitter listed in our "extended activity list", I decided to go for it. The ruler of India during this time period was Shah Jahan (self-titled King of the World) and he was very wealthy and loved beautiful things. He had a Peacock Throne that was covered with emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and pearls. Zach and Gloria each designed their own Peacock throne this morning and had a great time while they were at it:



Although Zach and Gloria are studying the same things in history, they obviously are each learning at their own level. Zach studies more indepth on his own with supplemental literature but we read the main book, work on timelines and do related projects together. I think Gloria learns more from Zach than she does from me.

Zach's completed creation looks very much like the directions intend for it to look. (". . . It had a gold body, a tail made out of sapphire, and a huge ruby on its chest with an enormous pearl hanging from it.")

Gloria, on the other hand, would much rather make the design her own than follow the rules:

She was so thrilled that we were using glitter and "jewels" that she got a little carried away!! Later in the day she spent a little more time and created something a little closer to the description!!!

I guess I need to get out the glitter more often!!!


Tonight we had our last soccer game of this session and. . . . .

. . . WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!

At half-time we were up by 1 point and having fun. . .


FINAL SCORE: 7 TO 5!!

I didn't get a picture, but Dale scored the final point!! Go Dale!!