Family

Yesterday was the Tidewater area Destination ImagiNation (DI) tournament. If anyone was following my updates yesterday, they would have seen that Sam was part of a team participating in tournament.
We had first looked at DI a couple of years ago but neither Sam nor Jake was interested in participating. It wasn't until talking to some DI kids at an open house at the boys' school that Sam thought it might be interesting to join a team. And so he did.
Natalie and I thought this was a good thing for him to do. There's no doubt that Sam is a smart kid (straight A's in the 2nd marking period), but socially, he can sometimes be challenged. And working with other kids, even other kids as smart as he is, is always something that causes stress.
The main part of their contest was to build some kind of robot, and to perform a skit around how that robot changes someone's life.

This year, after talking to some other kids at his school, Sam wanted to join a Destination Imagination team. The team he joined was working on robotics. Sam wanted to get a little more experience with building things, so we followed Make Magazine's instructions for building a vibrobot out of the motor from a toothbrush and an Altoids tin.

The video ends with Natalie saying "that sounds bad." Right after that, I turned off the recording on my phone and right as I disconnected the battery, the weight that the motor was driving popped off and bounced across the floor. I wish I had kept the video running and had Sam turn off the bot. I could have caught it.

Just got off the phone with Pop, and he has just left the Borough Council meeting where he was sworn in as Mayor.
For the next four years, my kids will be able to say their BobPop is the Mayor of Bristol Borough.

Congratulation, Pop. I wish we could all have been there to celebrate the the Boro.

Now I'm curious as to what number Mayor Pop is. As in how many times has the office changed hands since the Boro had its first Mayor.

I'm sure they will be updating the website soon, so until then: Bristol Borough Website.

I just got off the phone with my Dad. He officially has won the general election for Mayor.
The official results are posted to the web yet, but they were already announced in town.

Congratulations, Mr. Mayor!