Six Flags Over Texas

While we had the family in Dallas for McKay's Geography Bee, we decided to make a fun weekend of it and take the kids to Six Flags Over Texas. My sister-in-law Julie and niece Ashley decided to join us with their kids, so we ended up getting a pretty good group ticket price.

This was the first time we had been to Six Flags. I was hoping it wouldn't be too crowded since it was early April, but seeing that it was a Saturday it ended up being fairly crowded (although my niece told me it's worse in the summer). And I was hoping it wouldn't be too hot since it was early April, but it ended up being pretty hot (although I'm sure that is also worse in the summer).

Here we are near the entrance.

Our first stop was the area with the little-kid rides. Hayley enjoyed most of these, as well as Courtney (although they were plenty tame for Courtney's taste).

McKay is probably just wondering what we're doing here.

And I can't remember what Hayley was sad about here...

And then there's Hannah. Poor Hannah. She has decided that she absolutely, positively, hates any ride that has any kind of drop in it whatsoever -- even a tiny one. Spinining, she can handle, But drops -- no way. (Which kind of surprises me because she loves it when I take the van through the dip in the road at a little bit faster pace.) She went on the first ride we came to (a truck ride) and it was funny to see her squish herself into one of the trucks.

Then we saw the little-kid tea cups and she was so excited -- "I love tea cups!" she tells me. But when she went to get on with Hayley & Courtney, she found out she was just barely too tall (probably less than an inch over). She was SO sad to have to watch her sisters enjoy without her.

And then we saw the little-kid swings. Hannah was jumping for joy -- this is her very favorite ride EVER. But, alas, she was told again that she was just barely too tall. She dissolved into tears on the spot. I asked the worker if they had a big-kid version of the swings and she told me no, but we later found out that there was and Hannah rode it at least 3 times.

The girls and I went on the little Ferris Wheel before we moved on.

After the little-kid rides, we decided to split up. McKay and Courtney wanted to go on some bigger roller coasters, so Brian took them and I headed off with Hannah and Hayley. We became the tame-ride trio. Both Hannah & Hayley took us for a little scenic drive in this gas-powered cars (on a track).

We passed by this raft ride that spun you around a bit. Hannah really wanted to ride it (no drops involved!), but Hayley and I didn't. (Since our trip to Wonderland in Amarillo last summer, I've decided that the spinning rides just don't agree with me anymore.) So we watcher her get spun around (she rode it twice even).

And I realize it doesn't look like the park was crowded, but this was still early in the day. I did notice that the lines for the smaller rides really weren't bad -- it was the big coasters that had a long wait. Brian and McKay probably waited an hour each time to ride two different coasters.

Pausing for a picture on a really big chair!

My tame girls on the Carousel:

We met up with everybody for lunch (it kills me how much they can charge for food inside an amusement park) and then decided to ride the train that loops around the break for a little break from walking in the heat.

Then we split up again. This time Courtney decided to stay with me, so Brian and McKay headed off for another long wait for a roller coaster. We found a few more small rides with not-too-long lines.

Courtney wanted to ride this rodeo ride (very similar to a Tilt-a-Whirl), so the rest of us watched her enjoy it!

We did find the big tea cups, so Hannah was able to go on those with Courtney (Hayley opted to sit out and watch with me). Then it was time for a popsicle break!

We happened to be up toward the main entrance of the park when they did a "Dance Party" with several of the characters, so the girls joined in.

And we got to see Porky Pig & Scooby Doo up close!

By late afternoon, the kids were hot and tired and begging to go back to the hotel and swim in the hotel pool. Brian was hot and tired of standing in long lines. (He tells me it's going to be a long time before he goes to another amusement park -- just don't tell him I already bought the Wonderland tickets for this summer through the school fundraiser!)

State Geography Bee

Last weekend we took the whole family to Dallas for McKay's Geography Bee competition. As I mentioned in an earlier post, he qualified to be one of the 100 kids to compete at the state level. The competition was held at a school district in Bedford, TX, near the DFW airport. We pulled the kids out of school about early Thursday afternoon and hit the road. We got settled in the hotel that night and got up early the next morning to get breakfast and get McKay registered. Here the kids are before leaving that morning. McKay was pretty nervous! We found the school district building pretty easily -- it was only about 10 miles from our hotel. Here's McKay outside the building:

We got McKay registered and went into the main room. They had a lot of chairs set up and a stage area where the final competition would take place. In front of the stage where bags that had an atlas and T-shirt for all the competitors to take home at the end (with some pretty cool globe balloons attached).

As part of the registration, they gave the kids a little tag with their name printed on it for them to pin onto a Texas map indicating where they were from. We thought it was pretty cool that McKay's pin was all by its lonesome -- he was the only kid from West Texas or the panhandle area.

The majority of the pins were in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, the Houston area, or the Austin area, with several also from San Antonio. There was another lonely one way down at the tip of South Texas -- that would have been a long trip too!

We found some seats and waited for everything to start. They had some big screens where they were playing one of the previous year's national finals (which are held in Washington DC and are hosted by Alex Trebek).

When it was time to start, they give us all the instructions and rules and then had the kids divide up into groups of 20 (based on the color of the name tag they were given). Each group was taken into another room with the judges for the preliminary rounds -- no parents or teachers were allowed to watch. So we just sat around and waited an hour or so for the kids to come back in.

In the preliminary rounds, they ask the kids questions in several different categories and keep score of how many they get right. Then they take the top 10 kids for the final compeition, which everybody gets to watch. When McKay came back in after his preliminary rounds, he was excited to tell us he was gonig to the tie-breaker round. It turned out that there were 8 kids who got perfect scores so there were 2 spots left for the final 10. There happened to be 25 kids who missed only one question -- McKay included -- so they came up on stage for the tie-breaker.

Each kid on stage had a little white board. They were all asked the same question and then they wrote down their answer and held it up after a certain amount of time. If the answer was wrong, they were eliminated and left the stage. This was repeated until there were only 2 kids left. McKay ended up getting the first question in the tie-breaker round wrong. We could tell he was really disappointed, but we were so proud of him!

Once the final 10 were decided, they moved into the final round and kids were eliminated (double-elimination in this round) fairly quickly and it got down to 3 boys. And these kids just blew me away. They just did not get any questions wrong -- it was amazing. The whole audience just sat in awe of these kids. Way out of our league! The judges ran out of questions in the regular booklet they had before they got down to the final 2, so they had to go back to past year's competitions and kept looking for the hardest questions they could find and still the boys didn't miss any! (Our girls were getting awfully fidgety -- and hungry -- by this point.)

Finally, they got it down to the final two for the last "championship round", which of course went on and on until they found a question that one of the kids missed. Wow. We found out later that the boy who won (he is in 7th grade -- the competition is for 4th - 8th graders) is the same kid who won the TX bee last year, but he did not win the national bee, so he gets another shot. I think he'll be a tough kid to beat! (And I think by the end, McKay was feeling much better about himself and his performance.)

We took a couple more pictures at the end -- here is McKay with his Geography coach, who also came for the competition. She is the 6th grade geography teacher at the middle school and the sponsor of the Geography Club, which McKay is a member of. She had been helping him study in the weeks leading up to the compeition.

And we took a family picture too!

Here's McKay back at the hotel in this new Geography Bee T-shirt.

Overall, it was a really good experience and we all learned a lot of geography in the process! Next up -- the rest of the weekend including our trip to Six Flags!

Amarillo Amazing Race!

Last week during Spring Break, our friends (the Clement family) challenged us to race them in their version of the Amarillo Amazing Race. My friend Eliza put it all together -- she came up with several clues for places around the city and then placed the clues in each location (there were 6 locations; each team went to the same places but in a different order). The idea was that the kids would have to figure out the clues (she and I each had a master list of each place) and then direct us as the drivers where to go. (iPhone help was allowed by the older kids.) We had a blast!

Getting ready to race! Team C and Team H! Yes, it was St. Patrick's Day. (Team C would normally have a boy about McKay's age, but he was off visiting cousins for the week; instead they had one of their other cousins there visiting them --poor McKay was greatly outnumbered!)

Our first stop led us to the local library branch where the kids had to go in and ask the ladies at the desk for our next clue.

Then we were directed to a McDonald's with a play area. However, we didn't know where any such McDonald's existed, so McKay put the iPhone to work and found it (believe it or not, there is only one McDonald's with a play area in all of Amarillo). The clue also contained a dollar with the instructions to buy the driver her favorite drink while there.

Then we were sent to find the "sea horse" on Coulter St. My kids knew right where this was because it stands in front of our pediatrician's office. (This turned out to be the clue that stumped the other team because while the mom knew of it; it turned out the kids weren't very familiar with it.)

Our 4th clue sent us to a local business called Juliette's Closet (my friend knows someone who works here). The kids figured out it was something to do with the name Juliette and that it was a clothing store so we put the iPhone to work again (and I ended up having to use my little cheat sheet and give them the "Closet" part of the name to look it up).

Next we were sent to the drive-in theatre. The kids figured it out right off from the clue that it was a drive-in, but I had never been there so I didn't know where it was. Turns out McKay remembered seeing it and knew the general area so he was able to look it up on the trusty iPhone map again.

Our last clue was the hardest one for us. It directed us to the "heart of downtown" Amarillo. Hmmm. McKay searched and searched on the iPhone but wasn't coming up with much. I wasn't familiar with it either. So in the end I had to pull out the cheat sheet and find the intersection, which McKay then plotted a course for. It was a big red heart statue in downtown:

We ended up being the first team back by a few minutes. Yay!

Time for the prizes! We had a grand prize and a runner-up prize, but my kids decided that since we had to use our cheat sheet a little they would share the grand prize with their friends.

It ended up being a super fun activity and a great thing to do during Spring Break! Thanks to the Clements for putting it all together and challenging us!

Geo Answers

Okay, so I admit I tried to pick out some of the really hard sample geography questions in my last post. I just asked McKay the questions and he ended up getting 5 of them right, although he guessed on several of them -- but I think making educated guesses is a great skill!

And in case you were curious, here are the answers:

United States
Which of the following states was included as part of the Louisiana Purchase -- Iowa or Illinois?
Iowa

World
Zero degrees longitude passes through which African country -- Mali or Burundi?
Mali

Physical Geography
Sand ridges that connect an offshore island to the mainland are called what?
Tombolos

Historical Geography
Which Mesoamerican civilization followed the Olmec?
The Mayan

Cultural Geography
The combination of trade, colonial conquest, and indigenous people developed what East African language?
Swahili

Economic Geography
Half the world's emeralds come from a mine in Muzo in what South American country?
Colombia

Political Geography
Which type of government can be found in Saudi Arabia?
Monarchy

The Environment
Around which sea has a region of more than 150,000 square miles been offically recognized as an Ecological Disaster Zone due to an 80 percent decrease in water volume caused by diversion of water?
The Aral Sea

Current Events (these sample questions are from several years ago)
In June 2001, dozens were killed and hundreds were injured when a passenger train plunged into the Kadalundi River, which flows from the Kerala state to the Arabian Sea, in which country?
India

Today he and I went over country capitals of the 50 most populous countries (also touching on the official languages and predominant religions in the countries) -- I'm definitely learning a lot as we go!

In the Spotlight -- and a Geo Quiz!

(I seem to be falling behind on my blog posts lately...)

Back in January, I reported that McKay had won his school's National Geographic Bee competition. The next step in the competition is at the state level, however, they only take 100 kids from the entire state. So McKay (along with all the other school winners) had to take a written test. We got word a week or so ago that he qualified for the state competition!

(Sorry for the blurry picture -- I only had my phone camera with me)

Needless to say, we're all very excited for him (especially his teacher that sponsors the school Geography Club and is tutoring him for the competition). It's hard to tell, however, how excited McKay is. As to be expected, he is quite nervous about it and is putting a lot of pressure on himself. He's worried that he'll fail on the first round (although the competition doesn't work that way). And most of all, he's really uncomfortable with all the attention he's getting! Poor kid.

The day his teacher got the news at school, she pulled him out of class to tell him and let him call us at home (she had been waiting anxiously for the letter to come). Then she had the principal make a big announcement to the middle school and several other teachers also said something to him. He gets mad when he hears me telling people about it -- "Why is everyone making such a big deal?" he asks. I tell him it IS a big deal and we're proud of him but at the same time just want him to enjoy the experience and not feel pressured to win. I hope he is able to enjoy it!

The competition is going to be on Friday, April 1 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. We decided to make a fun family weekend to celebrate -- we're going to take the family to Six Flags Over Texas on Saturday and then come back home on Sunday. The biggest disappointment we just learned about the format of the competition is that parents or teachers are not allowed to watch the preliminary rounds. They divide the kids into groups of 20 and put them in a room with 3 judges -- no one else allowed. After the 8 preliminary rounds, they total the scores and take the top 10 (using a tiebreaker round if needed) to the final round, which everyone can watch. So there's a good chance we won't get to see him in action since we're not holding our breath that he'll make it to the final round. But you never know!

So for now we keep studying (he and I have been going over sample questions as well as going through maps of each continent and labeling countries, rivers, etc.) and trying to make it fun. I know I am definitely learning a lot as I study with him!

Here are a few sample questions from a prep book his teacher had. The early rounds give you a choice of two answers while the later rounds you just have to know on your own! How much geography do you know?

United States
Which of the following states was included as part of the Louisiana Purchase -- Iowa or Illinois?

World
Zero degrees longitude passes through which African country -- Mali or Burundi?

Physical Geography
Sand ridges that connect an offshore island to the mainland are called what?

Historical Geography
Which Mesoamerican civilization followed the Olmec?

Cultural Geography
The combination of trade, colonial conquest, and indigenous people developed what East African language?

Economic Geography
Half the world's emeralds come from a mine in Muzo in what South American country?

Political Geography
Which type of government can be found in Saudi Arabia?

The Environment
Around which sea has a region of more than 150,000 square miles been offically recognized as an Ecological Disaster Zone due to an 80 percent decrease in water volume caused by diversion of water?

Current Events (these sample questions are from several years ago)
In June 2001, dozens were killed and hundreds were injured when a passenger train plunged into the Kadalundi River, which flows from the Kerala state to the Arabian Sea, in which country?

As you can see, there are lots of aspects to geography! There is also a map reading category where the students are given a map and then asked questions about it, although I don't know if they have this category at the state level. How many answers do you know? Post your guesses in a comment for fun -- I'll post the answers in a day or two!