Goal!

 Today was Week 2 of the fall soccer season and it doesn't get any better than having rain the day before- AND no cancelled games.  Cool, cloudy weather!  I will have to get more pictures of Evan (Mustangs) up next week.  I only saw 4 minutes of his game last week and none this week.  I have a good video of him at goalkeeper, but need to edit it before I upload it.  Stay tuned!

Leader of the pack

My attempt at wearing as many team colors as possible.

OFFICIALLY, Xavier's league doesn't keep score OR have goalies. 

Xavier cheering for Cole's Cheetah team.

Umm, can you pick out my child?

All that glitters is not gold . . .

Sometimes it is cake!

Cole helped me to make an Olympic rings cake that we donated to annual St. Mary's Jamaica, which coincided with the day of opening ceremonies, Friday, July 27th.

Lest you be concerned that I was promoting the Olympics, which in ancient times were dedicated to the Greek god Zeus, at a Catholic festival. . . .we learned during this study that the official motto of the modern Olympics is

CITIUS*ALTIUS*FORTIUS

a phrase originally coined by  French Dominican priest Fr. Henri Didon in his work with youth and borrowed by his friend and contemporary Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics.

Our main activities for this short unit on the Olympics included

 constructing a "lapbook" covering ancient Greece, and the Olympics, both modern and ancient;

What the logo might have looked like if Lockhart had hosted the 2012 Games.  Yes, that's sausage links, a cotton boll, and a bale of cotton in there. 

Evan was quite disappointed that Olympic fencing was not more accessible.

 a minibook on London;

and staging our own miniOlympics both ancient and modern.

If you are going to have Olympics, you've got to have a

 FLAME,

 and an Olympic flame can only be started by the sun's rays.
(Please click on the links for your viewing entertainment.
 Hit the back button on your browser to return to the blog.)

Starting an Olympic Flame 

Almost . . .

Though a little disappointed with our results in Lockhart, we did manage to get a full fledged fire going when we tried again at Grandma's with a different magnifying glass. 

We lit a garden torch and then Xavier lit the cauldron during the opening ceremonies.

 Evan represented Sweden (see our previous post, A Brilliant Week), Cole represented the USA, and Xavier represented Scotland in our parade of nations.

Then it was on to the ancient Games. Events were discus throwing, wrestling, and footraces.  Not many pictures to post here.  Read up on the ancient games yourself and I bet you can figure out why.

The winners get a crown made of the sacred olive branch and a song sung in their honor.

Night #2: Modern Games

Shotput, Javelin, (slingshot) Archery, and Triathlon

Granddad figured an appropiate weight for a shot, proportional to body weight, and found rocks to match.  Xavier put his shot the best and edged out the competition to win Gold.

Evan in fine form

Love that little tongue sticking out

Cole's mark fell just short of Xavier, even after three rounds

The Shotput medal ceremony

Your 2012 Shotput Gold medalist!

In an effort to get this post online, we are skipping coverage of other events and moving on to triathlon.

Running . . .

. . . swimming. . .

. . . running. . .

. . . biking . . .

. . . swimming. . .

. . . running. . .

. . . biking. . .

. . .swimming. . . .

So good to be done!

There's a reason we rearranged the order of the traditional triathlon events.

That's the goddess of victory, Nike, who appears on every modern Olympic medal.

Appropriate then, that the older boys were competing in their Nike brand compression shirts.

The Ironmen!

And finally, leave it to my kids to find the best use ever for an Olympic flame:

This suffices for closing ceremonies!

If you just can't get enough fire, then
Click here to watch a MAKE TV episode that features a solar death ray. 
Lucky for you, this episode also contains a wonderful piece on artist Rueben Heydey Margolin.  I think this short video should be shown in every art class and every math class.  We were able to visit one of Margolin's installations in Berkeley during our San Francisco trip.  He also has an installation in Dallas now, but I've been to SF more recently than Dallas....

If you can't make it through the episode or want a few more details on starting fire with big lenses check out the pictures and commentary on the blog of the original Makers

Lightning Lizards!

Xavier had his first soccer practice today.

It didn't start well.

  He can still be very shy - 

and stubborn.  

But after sitting out about

 half the practice, 

he finished strong.

Practice again Thursday!

Three down

Last Friday, Evan lost his third tooth, upper right front.  
You can hardly tell from this picture how big is the hole it left!

 I'm sure there is a joke here somewhere about holes, swiss cheese, and smile for the camera, but I'm not going to find it.

Just dropping by

I was very impressed with the "parachuter" that Xavier drew last week and wanted to share it with you all.

Chomp, a mechanical dog.

Saturday I made a mechanical dog named Chomp

As American as. . . .

pumpkin pie?

I threw our pumpkins from last fall out past the fence to compost and discovered new plants sprouting this spring.  To my husband's delight, I mowed around the vine and, sure enough, we harvested two pumpkins just in time for July Fourth.  So nevermind that Pumkin' Chunkin' stuff.  Cole has his heart set on seeing if we can blow these up with some Blackcats.

And here is Cole's interpretation of "Grand Ole Flag".  . .. or something like that!