DI tournament

Colton and his friend Austin wearing silly hats they were selling at the tournament



Our team and the "Buddybot" they invented



I am breathing a sigh of relief because we had the DI tournament and now it is all over! No more coaching a team of 7 crazy 1st graders! I don't know what I was thinking when I volunteered for that job. I'm claiming temporary insanity. I will not make that mistake next year. I told Colton he is welcome to do DI again next year(he did enjoy it), but I will not be coaching. DI stands for Destination Imagination and it goes from kindergarten-12th grade. It is a school sponsored thing and it is supposed to teach kids to work together as a team and to come up with creative solutions to problems. To "think outside the box." First graders do not get a lot of the concepts and considered it more of a playdate. We had all the meetings at my house because you can't do them at school and they were usually once a week right after school. This went on for 4 long months leading up to the big ALL DAY tournament. At tournament the kids do one instant challenge(which they don't know what it is) and then perform their central challenge which is a skit we had been practicing for a couple of months. The kids had to make their own costumes and props. Adult interference is completely prohibited. At the end of the day they have an awards ceremony. The tournament was in Mineral Wells this year(about 1 1/2 hours away) and we left at 7AM and did not get home until 8PM. The actual challenges only take about 30 minutes each so there was a lot of down time in between. We took the kids to a dinosaur fossil park, pizza hut, a regular park, and out for ice cream in between our challenge times and the awards ceremony. Colton loved getting to spend all day with his friends, but I found it completely exhausting and had a headache for most of the day. The tournament is "non-competitive" for the young kids (K-2nd), but they do give a few awards for outstanding work. Our team was one of the few teams to receive an award(only 12 out of 56 teams get an award) We received the Renaissance Award which is for teams who demonstrate extraordinary amounts of effort and preparation in their solutions or outstanding skill in engineering, design, or performance. It was exciting to get recognized after all the brutal months of preparing and the kids got to go on stage and get a medal. I secretely wanted to steal Colton's medal because I felt I deserved it for all the agony-hehe! After we "won" my mind was temporarily clouded by the victory and excitement and I thought "I could coach again next year. Maybe it wasn't so bad..." and then I came to my senses. Maybe it is like childbirth and you forget the pain after time passes. I doubt it though. I will add some pictures from the awards ceremony as soon as my friend emails me the pictures:)