Jackson was fantastic as always. I watch him practice week after week but he always amazes me at the tournament. I love watching his expression change throughout the weekend from nervous to pride.
He was asked to lead quite a few parts on the Demo team this year and did great.
He worked hard and had such good sportsmanship. He earned 4 gold medals, 1 silver and 1 bronze. We celebrated his hard work by going out to lunch at Johanna's Kitchen after the tournament, which has turned into a tradition.
Jackson just finished a large study on Medieval times. As part of his assignments he made; a shield for History class, a cardboard castle with a essay inside for English class, and a weaving in art class. I absolutely love how his classes coordinate to have actives and assignments based around the same theme even though he has a different teacher (and classroom) for each subject.
The school put on a Medieval Festival for the 4th grade at the end of the unit. They attended in costume and were treated like royal lords and ladies. The kids got such a kick out of it. The school staff and volunteers out did themselves, it was a lot of fun.
While the Lords and Ladies dined on their feast, they were entertained by "real" knights. After a brief explanation on their armor and weapons, the knights started a sword fight. It was priceless watching the kids cheer on the two knights representing their half of the the room.
After the feast the kids became part of the entertainment
(shot on my cell phone, excuse the poor sound/picture quality)
Singing in a round
Singing the Medieval rap they made up about the Feudal System
Hot Cross Buns
(4th graders playing recorders, you might want to turn down your speakers haha)
After the entertainment, the kids got a chance to experience different activities from Medieval times:
Archery
Jousting
(foam) Sword fighting was his favorite activity of the night
We've been going to the same pumpkin patch for years now. It gets bigger and better every year. They have quite a collection of old farm equipment, a fun corn maze for the kids and great spots to take pictures. As part of an online photography group, I entered the above picture taken at the patch and was honored to win.
We had a lot of fun picking pumpkins this year.
Run away tractor!
Thousands of pumpkins and Ashleigh found her perfect pumpkin atop two tons of hay. She scaled the two giant hale bales in the picture behind the tractor
(and her pants were full of itchy hay for the rest of the night haha).
The corn maze had the tallest corn stalks I had ever seen!
We had record warm temperature this year for Halloween. It was fantastic for trick-or-treating.
I've wanted a fog machine for years and we finally got one!
Ashleigh fell in love with this purple body suite and she had a blast with it, especially at her friend's Halloween party. She was the life of the party.
Jackson was very discouraged when he couldn't find a realistic looking knight costume. He said he just wanted to stay home and hand out candy. I was trying to convince him to try another costume and even scoured the costume store to try and find him something. I found some (very) realistic looking snakes and recommended wrapping them around his body and he could be a snake trainer. He loved the idea. However, his plan evolved a bit and he wanted it to look like the snakes were coming out of his body (eww). Ashleigh worked her magic special effect makeup and gave him a nasty looking gash on his cheek.
Jackson's Jack-O-Lanturn on the left and Ash's on the right
Jackson got dental floss from one house! Haaha
After Ash and Jackson got back from trick-or-treating with their friends in the neighborhood, Ashleigh left with her best friend to tick-or-treak in a different area. Jackson felt he didn't have much candy so I took him around a different part of our neighborhood. This is my 30 second cowgirl costume so I could get some candy too. It was fun.
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