Road Trip to Oklahoma

If you come to me and say "Let's go to _________" (fill in the blank with anywhere in the continental USA), I will be ready to jump in my car and start out.  I love to travel and prefer to do it by car so I can see all there is to see between here and there.  My friends call me crazy but I come by it naturally as my family traveled up the East coast numerous times and even took a driving trip to CA and back one summer.  I have a desire and goal to visit at least all 48 of the continental states, all 50 if I have the opportunity.  Right now, not counting Hawaii and Alaska, I have 9 states to make it to so when my Hannah was given the opportunity to compete at Nationals in Oklahoma this year, I said, "Let's drive!" much to the disappoint of Hannah who hoped to make her first plane trip and instead has been proclaiming "17 long hours in the car!"

We, being Hannah, myself, my mom and Gretchen, left Saturday morning with the plan to make it to Memphis, TN by around 5:30-6 p.m.  We had great driving weather but the traffic was a different story.  When we made it to Dothan, AL, the traffic was very stop and go, making it difficult to get through quickly.  We made decent time until we got past Montgomery, AL where we hit about 20 miles of extreme backup just outside Birmingham which probably cost us 30-45 minutes.  The worse thing was we never saw a cause for the backup!  By that time, we were starving and looking for a somewhere to eat but we wanted a decent meal not fast food.  Unfortunately, we could not find anything so we finally settled on Cracker Barrel in Jasper, AL.  It was very busy so we probably lost another 1.5 hours getting our food.  All that to say, we didn't arrive at Memphis until 10 p.m. which was actually 11 p.m. our time.  We were exhausted and pretty much fell into bed.

Sunday morning found us awake early so we got breakfast and then went for a swim in the pool.  

Now you may be wondering why the pool was shaped like a guitar.  Well, the reason we pushed to get to Memphis was to be able to see Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley.  My mother is a big fan of Elvis and has always desired to see Graceland therefore when I found a hotel right down the street from Graceland that had lots of Elvis memorabilia, I booked it.  Good thing I did as they had a sign on the door saying no more rooms when we arrived.  After breakfast, we took a walk down to see Graceland.  We could see the wall in front from the hotel.

We then got in the car for another 7 hours of driving.  We spent most of the day in Arkansas.  Due to a not very filling or good breakfast, we decided to stop for food.  Again, we had trouble finding anything beyond McDonald's or such so when we saw a sign for a cafe, we decided to give it a try.  It turned out to be a good choice.  They had a buffet with some of the best fried chicken I have ever had.  Their coffee was good and strong too!

Finally, we made it to Oklahoma!!  However, we had a few more hours to go so we pushed through and made it to our hotel by 7:30 p.m.  We look forward to some sight seeing in the morning! Stay tuned for the rest of our road trip.

Wait...it's May?!?

Ok, someone tell me how it has gotten to be May already?  I was just taking down Christmas and now I'm sweating like it is already August.  Wait, wasn't that how it was in December?  Seriously though, I have lost a few months here on the blog and I was doing so much better about posting.  So what has been going on you ask?  Speech tournaments, of course.  We had a tournament every 2-3 weeks from the middle of February to the beginning of May and working as Logistics Coordinator means I am actually working on things 1.5 to 2 weeks before a tournament so it was all I could do to try and keep the household going while doing tournament prep.

The girls had a great season with each of them taking 3 speeches to the Regional tournament - their duo on coffee, Hannah's Original Interp and her Open Interp on "The Day the Crayons Came Home" and Abigail's Open Interp on "Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty and Other Notorious Nursery Tale Mysteries" along with her Bio Narrative on Fred Rogers.   We had high hopes for Regionals and 2 speeches made it to the elimination rounds which was Abigail's Open Interp and the Duo but both of them only made it to semi-finals.  No invitations to Nationals were earned.

So you are finished and free for the summer, you say?  Well, no, actually not because the Monday after Regionals, we found an e-mail offering Hannah an At-Large slot for Nationals with her Open Interp.  Now I know you must be wondering why Hannah got the slot and not Abigail since Abigail was the one who advanced at Regionals.  The reason is At-Large slots are based on how you do with a speech throughout the season which accumulates points.  We were hoping for the same thing for the Duo but our points were not high enough.

Now we are planning a trip to Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, OK in the middle of June.   We have decided to drive for mainly financial reasons but also for the fun.  This means Gretchen and my mom can join us too!  So stay tuned and I will try to post as we travel.  Of course, I will hopefully do some more posts in between that time.  In the meantime, enjoy some pictures from our great tournament season!

Breaks

We climbed in the car to leave Florida and headed northward, our minds wondering if there would still be some of the snow they had gotten over the weekend.  When we arrived, cheers erupted as we saw white all over the ground.  My youngest quickly donned on her gloves and coat to begin making snowballs and snowmen.  That night was freezing temperatures so the next morning there was some ice around.  I left the room first and quickly found out just how slippery ice was on a road.  Thankfully, the injury was only found with bruises on my hip, elbow and wrist.  Later that morning, as I sat with ice on my arm, I find out that one of my girls had also fallen on the ice, my youngest who had been enjoying the snow with friends but then found herself on some ice.  Down she went with thump and an arm hitting the curb.  Yep, Daddy took her off to the urgent care to confirm what was suspected - a broken bone.  This was a first for our family but she was full of smiles as she returned with a sling and wrapped up arm.

We were at the NC National Open tournament when all this happened so her sisters, Hannah and Abigail, who were timing and competing, didn't have a clue about the drama until later that day when people started asking them how their little sister was.  I did try to reach them earlier!

Other than the falls on the ice, the tournament was a good one.  Hannah and Abigail were very excited to find out they advanced with their Duo to semi-finals and Hannah also advanced with her Open.  They also received some good feedback on their ballots which was very encouraging for all of their speeches.

The youngest has decided it might be awhile before she wants to be in snow again so it is a good thing we are back in Florida where the only ice is in the freezer.  She went to get her permanent cast today so she will be styling for a few weeks.  Mama will also be getting lots of practice with her writing because school must go on.

Holiday Craziness

Well, I don't know about you but the end of 2015 into 2016 has been crazy.  I didn't even get my Christmas decorations taken down and put up until this week!  The week between Christmas and New Years was taken up with preparing for our first speech/debate tournament and our annual New Years Eve party where we had about 20-25 young adults enjoy ringing in 2016 and 5 of them stayed the night for breakfast and another round of games.  The first Saturday of the new year found us celebrating a marriage and a new baby for 2 (different :-)) family friends.  On the 5th I celebrated another year of life that the Lord granted me although I had to do it in between packing as we left for Boca Raton early on the morning of the 6th.

The 6th-9th of January found the twins, G and I at our first tournament of the year.  It was quite a tiring one as we had later nights than normal and just as early days.  It didn't help that it was 1/2 a mile walk to get from where I was to where the girls were at on the campus.  Florida Atlantic University is enormous so be sure to pack a lunch, map and walking shoes if you ever go.

This week found me trying to stay home as much as possible and getting caught up on laundry, school, housework and anything else that needed my attention like putting up the christmas decorations.  Thankfully, my hubby had taken down the outside lights while I was gone because winter finally arrived in Florida, (low of 25 degrees one morning!) so it wasn't the best weather to be outside for long periods of time.

Enjoy some pictures from our holidays and tournament and have a great weekend!

 Christmas eve before going to see lights

 Annual Christmas morning picture

Getting her ready to move out on her own! 

 This was the first of 3.

 Too true around here.  He also thought it was funny I bought him Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Did you get me what I think you did?

 Yay!  I can store all my oils in one place!

 This is true of all my girls! 

                   

 New Years Eve

Waiting for speech breaks.  They both advanced with their Open Interpretation.

Doing their Duo on coffee

Upstate Tournament

As I mentioned in my last post, we traveled to our first tournament of the season on January 6th.  It was held in Central, SC at Southern Wesleyan University.  It was quite hectic before we left as I am serving as Registrar and Logistics Coordinator for the region so I was on the computer answering lots of e-mails.  Victoria also decided that she couldn't do one of her Informative speech because the topic, human trafficking, was too emotional for her after researching it.  She is required to do a platform speech this year so I told her she had to write another speech for this tournament.  I did give her permission to use her script for this tournament.  She chose to write on introverts and then asked if she could switch to the category of After Dinner Speaking.  She was given permission and finished writing the speech on Saturday.

The first 1.5 days of the tournament are the preliminary rounds so Tuesday afternoon began the announcement of breaks.  This is when announcements are made about which students are moving on in their respective events.  Debate breaks were announced first and we were excited to hear that Victoria had made it to double octas in Lincoln Douglas.  She did not advance any further but it did earn her a spot at the Regional tournament at the end of the season.

 Members of our club, Apolojax

Speech breaks were made Thursday morning and the excitement was high!

 We found out that Victoria broke with her Open Interp...

 and Hannah anxiously awaited to hear about Humorous.  Can't you see the agony?

 Her prayers were answered and she made it to semifinals!

 Later in the day, many of our club members sat together to hear about speech finals.  We hadn't heard about After Dinner Speaking because the low amount of students only allowed it to break to finals.

 The girls anxiously await and find out they both made it to After Dinner finals!!  Yes, that was the speech Victoria rewrote and managed to memorize in time!

 Hannah also found out that she made finals in Humorous!  She was a little excited!

At the awards ceremony, we found out the results of their hard work!  

Now to prepare for the next tournament which is here in town!