WA State Elementary Chess Tournament...

The Scientist's 2016 Chess Championships started out with a drive to Tacoma and checking into our very nice Marriott hotel. 

 Then we needed to find some dinner.  We took a walk and found "The Rock" resturant which had a 30 minute wait.  The area was packed not only from the chess families but because it was a Friday night.

 The menu was a little scary but the food was great - when we finally got to order and eat.  I think it was 9 o'clock at night.

  The next morning around 500 kids and their families poured into the Tacoma Convention Center.

It was a tough day of matches. But it was fun and we bought tournament shirts.

We saw friends from our local tournament circuit.

 Our 4th grader placed 31st out of 164 other 4th graders.  He earned 3.5 points out of 5 and brought home a significant trophy.

 Awesome job! We are so proud of you buddy!

2015-2016 Chess Season...

The local elementary chess tournament season is over.  Just 4 tournaments in Whatcom County make up the season.  It was the Scientist's best year so far.  Most of the time his grouping is 4th and 5th graders.  There are roughly 30-40 of them each tournament

 The season started with a first place win at the Lynden Christian Thanksgiving classic.

 At the Assumption Catholic tournament he was running a fever and his nerves got the best of him that morning when we pulled into the parking lot.  He still managed to do well and place 4th in his group.

 At the Wade King tournament he placed 2nd.  He lost only to the first place player.  It was quite a battle in game five.  He seems to really enjoy those tough games. 

 The final tournament was the Ferndale Chess Jam.  He placed 3rd. 

He was happy to have a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place trophy to complete the local tournament season.  In April we will head to Tacoma for the Elementary State Chess Championships. 

December Days...

 Catching up a little.  I turned 43 in December.  Josh and the boys gave me a wonderful evening at home and I also went out to dinner with family. 

 In December Josh flew to California with the Professor to pick up a truck and trailer from his Dad.  We will be using this to travel to speech tournaments and have some great family adventures I imagine.  I'm so thankful not to have to tent camp anymore.  I'll leave that to the Boy Scouts.

 The Scientist is an awesome big brother and Blossom's playmate during much of the day.  

All the boys are great teachers and her knowledge and vocabulary blow me away each day.

 Chess continues to feed this boy's mind and he plays whenever he can.  Even during a trip to visit veterans at Meadow Greens.

 During the Christmas shopping season I loved my Tuesday mornings out with my sweet daughter.  She brings a smile to everyone we meet and gives them big smiles and a confident "HI!"

I loved finding this awesome deal at the Little Red Wagon in Lynden. 

 It was like new with a better than great price.

Our next outing was to get the Christmas tree...

Chess Buddy...

I'm so amazed at the patience the boys have for Blossom.  She loves to spend time with them and thankfully they enjoy teaching her all the wonderful things she needs to know.   Like colors, shapes, the alphabet and of course the names of the chess pieces. 

 Yes, she knows the names of all the chess pieces and can say almost all of them when asked to identify a piece.  An amazing little sponge of knowledge. 

Bellingham to Seattle...

On Monday the boys and I woke up at 6am to get ready for a whole day of trains and Seattle.  We joined the Whatcom Homeschool Association's field trip and participated in the "Schools on Trains" program offered each year through Amtrak.

Our train left Bellingham at 8:30 am and we arrived in Seattle just before 11:00.  Our day would include 5 different modes of transportation and plenty of selfies. 

The boys kept themselves busy on the train ride down.

With the help of another homeschool family we quickly found the light rail that took us to Westlake.

From there we rode the Monorail to the Space Needle.

By 11:30 am we had already rode 3 different types of trains, walked a good distance and we were HUNGRY!

Look!  I found Weedle at the Needle!

Thankfully there was minimal wait time and we were up on the observation deck eating the lunch of  champions, hotdogs and donuts by 12 noon.

When we were planning this day I gave the boys some options of what we could do for the 6 hours in Seattle.  They all felt that the Space Needle was a must see.  I agreed and added on the Experience Music Project museum because it was close.

Let me just say....
I now have the EMP out of my system.  Seriously, I felt that it was just a waste of time.  It touts itself as a music, pop culture, experience.  I'm pretty sure my boys could have done without everything else and just spent multiple hours in the Indi-video game room.

 These are new games being developed by different designers from around the world.

There was the tower of guitars which caught our attention for a few minutes.

The EMP building is laid out just as goofy inside as it is outside.  I don't even want to get into explaining the madness.

After an hour or so we headed back to Westlake via the Monorail and into the mall for more snacks.  Then it was time to make the Scientist's day.  We looked out over the Westlake square and found chess.

He's been wanting to play chess in the city for quite awhile.  All the movies about chess have parts with chess in the city.  So, we made it happen.

 He sat down quietly and watched this game until it was over and then asked if he could play.  He ended up playing the gentleman on the left.

Half way through the game there was a crowd of 8 people gathered around watching.  The Scientist had a strong game and the crowd was rooting for him.  (Gangsters and all.)  In the end he took a respectful loss.  It was a great experience.  I can only imagine what empathy the Scientist will have for all types of people because of these experiences with chess.  What you look like, smell like, or where you live, just doesn't matter in chess.  Your mind is all that matters.

You can't see it in this picture but near the end of the game there were people from so many walks of life watching and talking about the game.  He was complimented and so was I, just for being his mom.  They wanted him to play more but it was time to move on.  We got a couple cheers when I told them we homeschool and this was a field trip. 

 On our way back to the Amtrak in the International district I snapped a few more pictures.

The train station is so grand!  I wish I had learned some history about it before we went.

By 6:45 we were on the Amtrak headed back to Bellingham.  We were tired but the boys in the group had a blast hanging out in the back of the train car.

We finally walked back into our home at 10 pm, tired but full of memories from a great adventure.