DI Day 3

DI Day 3. We had no scheduled competitions today, so we headed back out of town to see some of the sights of Tennessee, this time to visit Ober Gatlinberg, a winter and summer resort near the town of Gatlinberg Tennessee. The town sits near the entrance of Smoky Mountains National Park- very beautiful (you know how I love my nature).

Anyhow... Ober Gatlinberg has several family style activities to do. There is the "wildlife encounter"...

The indoor ice skating rink...

Trevor so happy. Yep- I made him go and do it...

The velcro wall...

The bungee run...

The outdoor water raft rides...

The chair lift to the top of the mountain to see the views...

The Hillbilly Blue Grass Band playing music at the top of the mountain (a little strange to come off a chair lift and find some guys playing blue grass, but they sounded good)...

And my personal favorite, the alpine sledding. The crew before we hit the hill:

I have to admit that I was most looking forward to the sledding as we were on our way there, and it didn't disappoint. This is what it felt like:

Man I would love to do that again.

Trev towards the bottom of the hill

Actually, it was disappointing that it started to rain shortly after we arrived forcing us to find something else to do. The rain eventually stopped and the day wore on so we decided to stick around to see if we could do the alpine sledding again. As luck would have it, we were able to hit the track a few more times.

We stopped off to grab some Krystal Burgers, and our new favorite on this trip, some "sweet bites" on the way home. I'll tell you more about that when we are home.

As we have an early competition tomorrow morning, we are going to try and make it an "early" night. We'll see how we do. Trev is still having a tough time falling to sleep.

Oh, I have to share a few laughs of the day. Here are a sample of a few of the signs posted around this resort that reminded me that we are definitely not in California...

DI Day 2

Travelogue for the experience that is destination imagination- Day 2. A good nights sleep made all the difference for our group. We officially kicked off the competition today as our kids did their instant challenge portion of the competition.

They only allowed one coach inside and so Matt and I opted for Jared as he has not had a chance to watch the kids perform in the instant challenge yet. The DI people did a good job of pumping the kids up and getting them excited for the competition, which was good as their brains were still on vacation mode. After doing a little singing and dancing, they ran through the "tunnel of power" made by the parents and on into the challenge.

The kids are sworn to secrecy, s0 we don't know much about the competition, but they seemed to feel pretty good about how they performed. Each group is supposed to perform a "ta-da" as they re-emerge from their instant challenge. Our group did their team name introduction title and then did some mission to mars and finding old, ugly people improv performance. I would be lying if I didn't say that it was a little like watching the office, painful at times.

We then headed down to the convention center for the thing that the kids had been waiting for all day... pin trading.

Jared getting a little frisky with matt...

Difficult to understand unless you witness it, but pin trading is huge for the Di kids. You have never seen so much haggling, bargaining and manipulation in action amongst a group of kids in your life. Our kids loved it. Here are some highlights:

After dinner, the kids headed back to the aquatic center for some more pool time.

You know that your tired when the dorm beds are feeling comfortable.

The Dodgers WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!!

Logan played his last baseball game on his birthday. It was the championship game for the entire league. Whoever won this game would take 1st place for the 2010 season. Talk about pressure. To add even more pressure, it was also a well known fact that the opposing team liked to steal bases and the pitcher intentionally liked to hit the batters with the ball. There were so many obstacles to overcome to be able to play a good game. Logan was no exception. He feared getting hit by that ball every time he went up to bat.

Logan's role on the team is #1 in the line up. First to bat. He was the one the team depended on to get a hit and get on base. It was his duty the entire season to be the man that got the ball rolling for scoring runs. Check out his intense stance. Can you feel the nervousness? The heart pounding? The anticipation of a ball slapping into his leg?

You can see he actually did hit the ball in the last picture here. It had just bounced off the ground and was coming back up at him.

Logan made a great play while he was manning 3rd base and tagged a runner out! Woo hoo!!! He felt so good to be congratulated by his teammates and coach.

There was a score. I have no idea what it was. All I know is that they won by 1 run. It was a quiet moment. I don't think most of the crowd knew it was actually the end. There was no great cheering. There wasn't a single, "nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, we-ee beat you!" The kids waited for the coach to give them the good news and then they dog piled the catcher. And that was it.

Way to go Dodgers. You deserve some silly time. Get all those wiggles out after being so serious for 2 hours!

At the team after party we learned a few things about our Dodgers... This team practiced more than any other team in the league. Most teams quit practicing as soon as the games began - no wonder we were so good! One other cool stat: our team made 55 runs this season (the most in the league). The next highest scoring team had 36 runs. WOW. Dodgers rock!

Here are the coach's sweet sentiments about our Logan as a player on his team.

There were some hard times - going to practice even when you didn't want to, wearing a cup for the first time, and making new friends. You pushed through all those challenges and actually ended up enjoying the time you spent playing baseball!

Yes, it feels good to be #1 and be the greatest champions of all time. We would be proud of you even if you weren't on the winning team. It's your good attitude and perseverance that have made you such a strong boy and great team player. Logan, we love you and are so proud of you for doing your best this season.

One more time...

Let's Go Dodger's! LETS GO! *clap clap*

Hello From Tennessee

As many have seen that recently visited our family blog, Trevor's Destination Imagination team won the regional and state competitions earlier this spring. Part of winning state means that his team gets to participate at the global finals currently underway in Tennessee at the University of Tennessee. Well, we finally made it here (after a lot of fundraising and donations, 3 plane rides and 4 hour in a car from Atlanta). Jennifer is being a good sport and holding down the fort while me and 3 other DI coaches/fathers (Matt, Robb, Jared) hang out with the kids and do the DI thing. Of course, inquiring moms want to know what the heck is going on with all their kids (I include myself in that group) all the time and so I thought I would do a little recap of the last 36 hours. For the blogging world out there- I'm sorry for the travelogue that will follow, please feel free to skip over and read about Jackson's tortilla chip eating habits!

Babe- here you go (some of the highlights):

Exhausted in the airport in Denver after our 3 am wake up call.

Excitement of finally arriving at Atlanta

This mornings big adventure was the Smoky Mountain Zipline Canopy Tour. Here's the whole group pausing for a photo after the trip with our two guides: Bodie and Cornbread (that's right I said cornbread):

On the way up the mountain:

Trevor in action

Check out Trev shooting down the cable from behind. Does that look fun or what?

Matt getting stuck before landing on the platform

A few of the little zippers

The whole zipline tour lasted almost 4 hours and left everyone ready for some good ol' southern BBQ. We stopped off at a place in Pigeon Forge that was recommended by one of our guides. Called:

If you look closely, you'll see Robb acting a little goofy inside the window.

As soon as we got back to Knoxville, Trevor and the team was dying to get out in the courtyard to do pin trading, a very big deal here at DI. I send some pen photos tomorrow.

That lead up to dinner in the student dining hall and then the global grand opening here at the University of Tennessee. A few things we saw.

We decided that we would rather stay up late and get up late rather than adapt our bodies to East coast time, so the kids headed on down to the swimming pool after the opening ceremony to "cool off" (it's in the mid 80's and a little humid).

We are all running on a little more than 6-7 hours of sleep over the last two days, so I am thinking that we will crash hard tonight in our luxurious accomodations. Only one day here and already its looking like the college dorm room that it is.

More to come tomorrow. Miss everyone.