DI

What is DI you might ask? Well, me too. I had never heard of it until my dear long-time friend, Trish called to say that she was in town last week for the Global Finals of DI. (Destination Imagination) So on Thursday, the kids and I headed downtown to the convention center to meet Trish and see what DI was all about. It was a bit overwhelming, I must admit! There were somewhere between 7 to 10 THOUSAND people (I've heard different totals) that were from all over the world who had come to Knoxville for this global competition. Trish is a teacher and has been involved with this program for the last several years and she is so excited about all the program has to offer for kids! We had a great time visiting with her, watching some of the competitions and even participating in the KEVA booth where Helen and Beckett built their own creations. Here is a picture of Helen with her KEVA plank creation.
Here is Beckett with his KEVA plank creation. Some of the structures that were being built were amazing! (including Beckett and Helen's!) They both earned a pin for building their structures. Pin trading at the DI competition was HUGE!

Will didn't build a KEVA creation. In fact, I had to keep him far away from the booth or I was afraid that some of the work that these kiddos had done would go crashing down! He was quite tired of being in his stroller and wanted to be moving! A 19 month old boy in the middle of thousands of people was a bit un-nerving....but we survived! I didn't take any pictures of Beckett and Helen's pins, but Trish made sure that they each got the Tennessee pins. All of the students attending the competition stayed on the UT campus and one of the neat things that they do is trade pins from all around the world. Each student brings pins from his/her own state or country and then they trade and try to build up their collection. The "pin trading" was going on everywhere and many students had hundreds of pins that they have collected over their years of DI competitions. To my knowledge, our county schools are not involved in DI, but I have heard that there are a couple of local homeschool teams. It appears to be an excellent program for students to learn and experience teamwork, creativity and problem solving! We will be checking into it! Thanks, Trish, for calling and inviting us to come see what DI was all about and also for stopping by on Sunday afternoon to visit more!

We had a pretty laid back Memorial Day weekend and enjoyed having Sean home an extra day! This week has seen the end of the baseball season with a loss in the first round of the tournament. Other excitement has included a front-end loader and a bobcat in our front yard digging up and replacing our water line. That was big fun for the boys because who doesn't love to watch big machines dig and move dirt??? And if you haven't checked out the Slam in a while.....you ought to link on over there and see a little video of Beckett and Will. It ought to make you smile! :)