Modernized Capture The Flag

Yesterday was Labor Day. Grace and I went to our friends' house to play Capture The Flag. We played a bit differently than the traditional way... we used Air-Soft guns!

The rules were a bit different. Each team had to know where the opposing team's flag was, because it's very hard to look for a little flag while being shot at. In our version every player had a gun, and when a player was hit they were out until they ran back to touch their flag.

Our friend's house is perfect for this type of game. They live in the woods so there are a lot of trees. They have a large raised front and back porches.

We had two teams of three players each. My team's territory was the back yard. We had two handguns and a sniper rifle.

Grace's team had the front yard. They were armed with two handguns and a shotgun. The main advantage that Grace's team had was that they had two gas powered handguns.

What I learned from this game was... I can't aim. But most of all, I do not like being shot in the forehead with an Air-Soft shotgun. 


 Good thing I had goggles on.

A City In Our House

This morning Mom told me to build a city for Jack made out of Lincoln Logs. He played with the city for a long time. Here are a few pictures.

He played with it for a long time.

Spring Gardening

Recently I started thinking that I need to work on the garden I started last year. So I weeded it, and watered the few plants that had come back. Mom and I decided to go shopping for some more plants.

Here are the plants we bought: Bleeding heart, Coleus, Impatiens, Begonias, And a perennial that did not have a tag but it looked pretty.

This is me planting.

Here is some of the new plants.

This is one of the plants from last year. I really did not expect this Japanese fern to come back, I was very surprised when it did.

Here is my completed garden.

I am very happy that we have a cat this year; our cat Linus likes to sit with me in my garden, and he keeps away all the rabbits that love to chew on my plants.

This is linked to the Flexible Homeschooler's Family Garden 101.

The Film Festival

If you remember, my brother Luke and his friend Brittany entered a video in the Full Moon Film Festival. Well, on Saturday at 4:00 PM, Grace, Luke, and I went to the festival to see who won. We went first to pick up some of our friends who needed a ride to it. The boys we picked up played Burr and Hamilton in the video.

When we got there we met Brittany. We all sat down and after a little wait it began. First there was a speech and then they showed some of the videos. When "Hamilton vs Burr" came on it was very annoying because it just had to be our video that paused for no reason, and they had to go up to the stage and turn it back on. But everyone laughed at the jokes and the humorous  ending scene.

Here is Hamilton Vs Burr.


Hamilton vs. Burr from Luke Tipton on Vimeo.


Once all the videos were done there was another speech and then the prizes for things like best Actor and best Comedy. Luke and Brittany were awarded best mockumentery. After all those awards were given out Luke and Brittany were awarded third place over all!
I am so glad they got prizes. After the festival ended we went out to Sonic to celebrate.

Filming With Friends

Recently Luke found out about Full Moon Film Festival. He and his friend Brittany decided to make a short and enter it in the contest. The short is about the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

They got a bunch of friends together and gave them all different parts. Luke and Brittany arranged to shoot on some friends land. The shoot started at 10:00 a.m. and lasted until dark.

I was assigned the role of staff photographer. I took a lot of pictures of the shoot. Here are a few:

This is most of the crew.

This is Luke filming.

Rehearsing.  

I like the pink script paper.

I had a lot of fun being the photographer, I hope in any future shorts that Luke makes, I will have that job again. The whole shoot day would have been perfect, had not the weather been freezing. 

Birthdays, Hover boards, And Haircuts.

Last Monday one of our friends was having a party after P.E. The entire P.E. group was invited. Mom told Luke, Grace, and I that we could only go if we finished our school in time for P.E. (after P.E. every one was planning to drive straight to the party).

So that morning along with regular school I had a math test, a narration on the book, Once and Future King, and some science questions had to be answered. After breakfast I started work; a few hours later I was finished.  I was amazed/happy that I got only two questions wrong in my math test.

Mom mentioned that my hair needed a trim, I was really bored with my hair so I asked mom if I could get a "bob."

Tada! My new hair.

At P.E., when my friend Olivia came in, I went over to her wondering if she would like my haircut.  These were her exact words, "You got your hair cut!?! You are going to regret it! It looks cute."

One of the kids that goes to P.E. brought a science project to show everyone; it was a hover board, I got to ride it! It only lifted a few inches off the ground but it was really fun.

 At the party we had pizza and played games, it was really fun. it started snowing really hard so we all had to go home, but it was a really fun day.

Old Games

Our family has made up lots of different games through the years, here are a few:

A game we made up at our old house was called, "Possum Hunting." It was one of the stupidest games we ever thought up.  We invented it with some friends. Our old house had a very large yard in one of those old neighborhoods where trees and possums are everywhere. We and our friends would stand on the back porch at night and slowly walk down near the wooded end of the back yard. Eventually someone would think they saw something and scream, "I SEE A POSSUM!!!!" and all of us would run screaming back to the porch. We would do this about a million times.

Another game was invented by my little sister, it was called "Baby Run Away." In this game all the players acted like toddlers while one player was the mom. The mom had to put all the babies to bed and then would get a phone call. When the "mom" walked out of the room and pretended to have a conversation  all the babies would hide. Then the mom would come back and look for the babies. She had to tag them before they got back to their beds. We loved this game and we played it with friends all the time.

Our old house did not have any stairs so the game, "Mountain Climber" was invented at the house we live in now. "Mountain Climber" had very simple rules; everyone pretended that the staircase was a mountain. We would climb until one of us pretended to fall. We always had a belt to throw to the fallen player; they would grab the belt and someone would climb down to help and of course would also fall in the process. It was a very popular wrestling/falling/screaming game.

Very recently, Grace and I made up a fun "game." Here is how it is played:

1. I walk into a room.
2. I ask Grace a question.
3. Grace replies sarcastically and in annoyance I lightly slap her arm.
4. Grace says in a whiny voice, "Sarah you hit me" but I reply, "No, I only patted you." 
5. Grace starts walking toward the door saying in the whiny voice that she is, "Going to tell Mom."
6. I run in front of her blocking the door saying, "If you don't tell mom ummm... I will give you... some candy." 
7. Grace holds out her hand and we continue acting childish and wrestle a bit till I run to Mom accusing Grace of a bunch of things like hitting, kicking, calling names.  Grace runs out behind also accusing me of things,
8. All of this is done in a silly childish way. It is very fun.
9. Mom usually laughs and then tells to go do something. 
10. Game over.

Snow Day

Yesterday it snowed. It was not a lot of snow, but it was enough for everyone to get excited. Usually when it snows we all go play in our yard, and when we come inside there is hot coco and a fire.

This snow day Luke, Grace, and I were invited to go to a friends house to go sledding. This family has a big house with lots of land. A lot of other teens we know were also invited.

To sled (they don't have any hills) we tied a rope to the back of a four wheeler and tied the other end of the rope to a sled. We took turns getting on the sled and holding on while another person got on the four wheeler and drove fast around a field. It was really fun. I only fell off the sled once, it did not hurt very much at all. The sledding and even falling off the sled was fun.

Some of the kids that came brought Air Soft guns. After we were all done on the sled most of the kids had a battle. I did not want to get shot and I really can not aim so I did not join in.

We were driven home by our friends. When we got home we ate dinner and were ready to relax when Mom said, "Okay time to catch up on the school work you missed today"

Ah well.