Ok, quick blog tonight, my presence is required for a Spy Alley game, and I've got one eye on the Lightning while I type. (I told you I'd be a bandwagon fan! My city is in the Stanley Cup Finals, guys! how can I not get on board? We're dying the rivers blue, everyone is talking about it, and everytime it storms- which is often this time of year- everyone's tweeting about the lightning and thunder!)
But, I did want to get you all caught up on the Fenderson gang for this week. We were tracking Cody Fenderson this week. He was in South America, and stole the Galapagos Islands. His likes include learning the location of countries, and kids who are smart. His dislikes kids who don't put in much effort, crappy schoolwork. (Fun story, I just told Hayden to read my off Cody's dislikes, and he got to 'crappy' and was like 'Oh no, I can't say that!')
We did something a little different this week, because Cody agreed to turn himself in if they boys became experts in South America. At the end of the week, there would be a series of tests. If they passed, Cody would turn himself in. If they didn't he would remain on the run.
The Home Office wanted to prepare them for the tests, so each day the boys were sent a case file on a country. They had to fill it out to become an expert in that country. But, they still couldn't use the internet. They were welcome to any books we had on hand, and so they gathered up a stack of them and pulled out the almanac and the globe and got to work.
They really did work hard on these files. Maybe because they wanted to learn a lot, MAYBE because the Home Office would pay up to $5 for a good filled out folder. You see, we recently had a little more in the budget than we thought we would. It happens this time of year, but you can't count on it. It just either shows up or it doesn't. If/When it does, we usually give the boys a little money to spend. This year instead of giving them some money, they earned it with the case files.
Either way, they did work very hard (though some harder than others. Peyton spent the most time on his every single day. He also got the most money.)
The first day Hayden got Chile. I took pictures so you could see all the folders. On the front they colored in the country...
the inside was a poster about that country, and a fact sheet...
... and the back was the flag of their country, along with a fun fact. (thanks Crayola for the free printables!)
Calib had Argentina....
though he totally forgot the last page...
And Peyton had Peru..
He was very detailed.
The next day was Calib's birthday, so they didn't get new files to do, but they did get their first payments. Everything was top secret, so they were not to tell their brothers how much they got.
The Home Office gave them detailed reasons on the amount of money they were paid. Hayden got $3 for his first folder.
While Peyton earned the full $5.
Calib, meanwhile got $4 since he forgot that last page.
But, it was his birthday too, so he got an extra gift.
Which you probably saw in my last blog, was Calib's new bike!
This process went on all week... the boys would work on their case files, and get paid accordingly.
Hayden took on Ecuador..
...Paraguay...
,,, And Uruguay...
Peyton got Suriname..
....Columbia....
... and Brazil (which he was THRILLED about).
Calib got Venezuela..
...Bolivia..
and Guyana..
By Thursday they had all their files done.
Friday they all got their last payments. But, in addition, Hayden had an interesting proposal just like Calib had a few weeks ago in Africa. Cody wrote Hayden a letter trying to get him to throw the test so he would be free to escape.
Unlike Calib, Hayden refused to take the bait. He wrote Cody back refusing the offer, and then wrote the Home Office to let them know what Cody was up to. The Home Office was VERY impressed by Hayden's honesty, and sent him a little something extra for that last folder.
Today the boys got their series of tests.. there were three, and they were all timed.
The first consisted of 20 questions. They were allowed to use their files but nothing else.
Calib would call out the questions, and his brothers would locate the information in the folders.
Sometimes there was some yelling at Hayden for not filling something out.
For the most part, they got them right. Just a few were wrong. (Patagonia is Chile and Argentina).
Then they had to match up sticker flags on a map they were given.
They laid them all out, and got to work.
They did an excellent job, and got them all correct.
Last up was something you 80's/90's kids should recognize from a little show called 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago.' A map was drawn on the patio outside and the boys would have to label it correctly without any help, all from memory.
But when thunder struck, we had to try and protect it.
It didn't survive the two hours of rain we had today though. It had to be redrawn.
But then they had to label it all and ring the buzzer when they had it right.
Had it on the first try!
Cody is a man of his word, and turned himself in, since the boys had indeed become experts in South America. This is a sneak peek of the package currently in the mailbox (the boys have not noticed the flag is up yet.) The Home Office wanted to get them an inflatable turtle (in honor of saving the Galapagos Islands), but Calib had just gotten one. Instead, they got a dolphin. Plus some snacks and some plinko chips.
Public school got out this week, so we haven't been up to much else. Nobody wants to deal with the crowds, and we've had a bit of the sniffles going on around here. But, I do have some odds and ends to share.
I got our June birthdays up. Which, admittedly wasn't too difficult since it's just the one. I've already done most my research for his too. It took me two weeks to decide to buy the book the second George Bush wrote on the first. It took me two days to finish it. A good read. And that coming from a Democrat.
We had our first tomatoes off our new tomato plant.
And we picked up some bigger plant pots for some of our trees who had outgrown theirs.
We need to move into a house where they can be planted into the ground stat!
And we made a couple trips to the pool.
Don't try getting a nice picture of the kids on the turtle though, like you see on the box....
It'll never happen.
Instead, everyone just plays king of the turtle.
We went to PDQ for dinner one night, since they had previously screwed up our take home order we had some serious freebies (and a lovely handwritten note from the manager apologizing for the screw up).
And Hayden had his summer reading kick off party. (He loved the puppies from the Human Society, I wanted to bring every single one home.)
Baymax was there..
And there were some crafts..
And Police Officers and Firefighters there to share about their jobs.
That's it from here. We are going into our weekend without much on our agendas. I'm off to check the mailbox, watch the rest of the Lightning Game (ugh, they just scored and its all tied up again- we really need to win this one since we lost the first), and kick some butt in Spy Alley
Next Up: I have no idea, all I can focus on is being one week away from our five year anniversary extravaganza (total first world problem of figuring out exactly how to spend our five days at Disney).
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