Monday was presidents day, and was the first president's day we've had since we've celebrated every presidents birthday. Last year we were still just baby presidential historians.
Asa told me "I love that you think this is a real holiday." I'm not sure what he means by that because it is a real holiday, and it's my favorite of the whole year. It's such a diverse holiday. I mean, what other day of the year do you celebrate the best of the best, but at the same time celebrate the Millard Fillmores of the world!
We had all kinds of fun presidential activities for the day. But, the biggest of them all was a game of True American. I invented the game last presidents day, but I wanted to do something different so that I could play, so here's how this game worked:
We all started with a president on our headband that we had to guess (We use the headbands from the game, Headbandz). We drew the cards from that glass jar you see- there's one card for each president- and they are color coded for their party. (It comes in handy for a couple of different games).
We all stood on our chairs in the corner of the room, with two pillows to get to the middle table. Each turn around you'd have three questions to help figure out what president was on your headband. Once you figured it out, you hit your buzzer and yelled "JFK.... FDR.... *insert president here*"... you don't want to buzz in before you know though, beause you can lose out on one of your snacks in the middle.
Once you guess it, you get to have one small cup (a shot of sorts), of a prohibition cocktail (sprite with cherry juice). Asa usually goes with rum and coke or a smirnoff split up in his dixie cups, and because I was out of dixie cups, I just had a sip of my drink when I got it right.
Anyway, then you have to say three things about the president you just guessed, taking a step for each correct fact. (You can't use any fact you used to help guess who it was in the first place though- they have to be new facts). Once you get to the middle, you get to work your way up the snack ladder. You start with pez from your presidential pez dispenser and work your way up to the rootbeers).
If you fall into the hot lava (by not stepping on a pillow and instead falling into the floor), you have to go back to your chair and start all over. If you get a fact wrong, your turn ends and you have to wait until it comes back around, and if you guess wrong, you lose that snack (maybe, we're kind of lenient). Anyway, when you get to the middle and get your snack you draw a new president for your headband and go back to your chair and start all over again.
It's the best game ever. I totally invented it based a on fictional drinking game from a TV show. Everyone gets excited about a good game of True American. Calib totally nailed it this time around though, he smoked all of us- getting his rootbeer first. You'll also notice there's only four rootbeers. Last one there doesn't get it- like musical chairs.
And since there was no set up of asking questions, I got to play this time too. It was great! Though I came in second to last- Hayden was last, but I don't really drink pop, so I gave Hayden my rootbeer. Worth noting- Teddy Roosevelt was not president during the Spanish-American War, Peyton. Ugh.
Ellie and Phenom are big William Henry Harrison fans.
We also played some games, including Guess Who: Presidential Edition. I just took an old Guess Who Board and changed out the pictures to be presidents!
And we took our jar full of presidents to play another game. You draw out presidents and see how many presidents you can get everyone else to guess in 90 seconds- however you can't say numbers or 'he came before or after'. I usually kill this one. I got something like 19. Peyton did a respectable 15 though.
We also finally played our Hail to the Chief game. It was accompanied with Teddy-Roosevelt-would-be-proud- amounts of coffee.
It's a combo of president and state questions to earn either delegates or electoral votes. First you play the outside of the board called "The Convention" to get a certain amount of delegates (based on how many players you have- that can change). Once you do that, you move to the inside of the board for "The Campaign" where you work on getting electoral votes and make your way to D.C. It was lots of fun.
I find the easiest way to celebrate any holiday/event is by centering your meals around them. I mean, hey, you have to eat anyway. We did have McDonalds for lunch, which is a rarity- but they were BOGO AND they fit in with presidents day, because Big Macs were a Bill Clinton favorite.
For dinner we of course had Nancy Reagan's Mac & Cheese (the boys and I decided we need to write her a letter to tell her how much we love it!) We also had Calvin Coolidge Vermont Carrots, JFK Corn Bread Muffins, and apples- which you can attach to Martin Van Buren (or if you're going with 'fresh fruit' you can say they are a Lincoln or John Quincy Adams thing).
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The day before president's day, was Valentines Day. We don't really do anything for it, it's just not an us holiday, but like I said themeing meals around holidays is easy. Every Valentine's Day we have heart shaped pancakes for brunch....
...and fondue for dinner!
The fondue is the only reason anyone cares it's Valentines Day-- I mean the boys are amazed we let them have chocolate for dinner!
Lonnie and Jan next door did bring us over some treats. I went to grab my camera like five minutes later, and most of them were gone already.
Besides presidents & valentines day, we also continued/finished up Hayden's birthday celebration with a round of the Country Game. He usually asks to plays on his birthday, but since that day was so crazy busy- we all promised we owed him a game.
The Country Game is basically just everyone playing with Hayden's toys. First we have a draft to pick out what big playsets we get.
Then we do the same thing with action figures.
Everyone picks a corner of the family room to set up their cities/lands/towns
(Poor Ellie she doesn't know what the heck we are doing half the time- but she's always in the middle of it).
Then for awhile, everyone's lands play nice- sometimes on your own, sometimes together.
In Peaceful Patagonia, Hook and Emma got married.
But then Darth Vader from Peyton's town showed up...
,,,,and things deteriorated.
Then every land starts attacking other lands-
--and it becomes a huge mess. But, everyone has fun. And we usually let Hayden's town win.
In other birthday news, we had a couple of birthdays to celebrate. William Henry Harrison (we watched president in 60 seconds and had a pop quiz for WHH), shares his birthday with a would-be-president...
...Samuel Tilden! You might remember him from the Rutherford Hayes timeline. He is the person who came the closest to the presidency without ever actually being president. Unless you count Edith Wilson (ha!) Anyway, he was a lawyer who was good with money- he actually helped Martin Van Buren manage his finances! Later he became the bachelor governor of New York, and fought hard against the political machine, particularly, Tammany Hall. He won the popular vote, and everyone went to bed election night thinking he was the next president. However, during the night Devil Dan (a guy who is also super interesting- he killed France's Scott Key's son because the guy was having an affair with his wife- and he did it RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE! Then, Edward Stanton- who would later become Lincoln's Secretary of War- got Devil Dan off with the very first temporary insanity plea. If that weren't interesting enough- he lost his leg fighting in Gettysburg-- but I digress) convinced everyone, including political machine leader Chester Arthur, that Hayes, not Tilden, could still win the electoral college if they just refused to concede. And so, a mess that we can only compare to the George W. Bush/ Al Gore 2000 debacle ensued. Except, this was in the 1800's when you can get away with a lot more- and a whole lot of shady business was done- and bam! Hayes was our next president, not Tilden.
Tilden probably could have challenged it. But he was afraid of dividing the country further, and so he eventually let it go, and let the Republicans win. He was a soft spoken guy and wasn't going to push it any further. The Democratic Party tried to convince Tilden to run again two more times, but it never actually ended in a nomination. Tilden died at the age of 72, and was buried in New York. His grave, in reference to the election, reads "I still trust the people".
Anyway, there's a whole book on the election- I'm working on it now. It's pretty fascinating. And in a reference to Sam Tilden's fight against Tammany Hall- we played the game, Tammany Hall!
It was pretty intense.
A couple days later we have another set of birthday twins- Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. But, fun fact these two share the exact same birthday, year and all (1809).
For Lincoln we watched the president in 60 seconds and had a pop quiz. For Charles Darwin we learned about evolution and natural selection. The boys are actually going to be working on lapbooks about Darwin the end of this week. We watched a crash course biology on natural selection.
For an activity, the boys had to pick their "species of forks" and see who's species could survive by picking up the most food (m&ms) in 60 seconds.
At 30 seconds, their species was switched out.
For the record, Calib's species went extinct. He wasn't able to get any. Hayden did ok, but Peyton did the best.
In other home school news, we're following the primaries- and we recorded how states go about their primary elections (open, closed, caucus) and put the dates on our map. As a reminder if anyone hasn't joined our Candy Bar Election group, please please do so!
I was also amused by Peyton's answer to number 4. (It was a question about functions).
Hayden writes his own books. I was impressed by his cover he made all on his own for one of his books, but he also started a new comic book series this week called 'The Calib Chronicles', and I'm telling you, it's gold. My issue is #2: waking up.
Asa and I had a couple of dates this week too. We went to see the Lion King at the Straz Center and it was every bit as amazing as I thought it would be- even from the very last row of the gallery. Unfortunately, you couldn't bring in cameras- even though everyone was taking pictures on their phones (we still aren't into smart phones).
And I got a new magnet! FUN!
We also went to see Deadpool. Asa really wanted to go see it, so I went along. It is not at all my kind of movie, but I'll go anywhere if Asa's going- and they have the fancy new reclining seats, so that was fun!
I also present to you, Peyton with his fun mail of the week.
After my mom left here- she headed to San Francisco. Arriving just two days after the Super Bowl (which was held there), she was able to pick up all kinds of goodies for Peyton.
And, my friend John Pagel, who lives in Denver, sent Peyton a newspaper from the day after the Super Bowl. We're going to frame it!
Asa also ordered his Xbox One. I really wanted him to use his graduation money on himself, and he's wanted an Xbox One for a long time. And while he hasn't gotten the extra controller or another game yet, his BIG bonus check (and his BIG raise, because he's such a good worker!) will be here next Friday. He can get something then (and the rest of it gets tucked away in the house fund this year).
Also, we're making progress on the cat/Ellie front. We came across a little dog/cat pow wow.
And that's it from here. We're just about headed into an office week, so it'll just be the boys and me working on some things, but then we'll be back into a three day weekend and a work from home week!
Next Up: Florida Weekend #2.
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