Crawfish and Rain

Monday afternoon, Henry was able to complete his Director Proof over Zoom.  He became a Cycle 1 Memory Master!  He worked really hard this year to memorize all the subjects.  Many weeks he took the initiative and studied the material on his own.  He has always been crazy good at memorizing information and retaining it!  I think half the reason he does it, however, is for the special dinner at a restaurant.  A few years ago, he decided to not do the memory master and at the end of that year he said he really missed not being able to go out to eat.   

To celebrate completing his memory master proofs, we made him a chocolate cake.  It was our intention to bake it for him, but he wanted in on the action, so he basically baked his own chocolate cake.

That same celebratory evening, Josiah regaled us with a very unique concert.  He had a song playlist that included Queen, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Europe, and Sesame Street.  Instead of himself lip-syncing the words, he had his puppet, Al Dente, do the singing.  They say there is nothing new under the sun, however, I would be very surprised if any other child has had their chef puppet perform We Are the Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody.  When Al Dente had finished his numbers, Josiah danced to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.  It was quite the event.

This was our last week of CC for Henry and Caroline.  Henry received his Memory Master medal, which he wore all day.  Caroline had a pizza party in her class because some of her classmates were moving up to Challenge A.  

After lunch, Henry's Essentials class did Faces of History.  Henry was Alexander the Great and he stood up on stage and gave a very excited, very rapid and energetic speech about all the lands he conquered.  Since they spoke in first person, at the end of their speech, they had to say, "Who am I?"  Then the audience was able to guess.  

They finished it out with their traditional ice cream party.  It was a good day, albeit exhausting.  Josiah still has two more weeks of classes, but his last week is just exams, so he's nearing the end, too.  

This was the last week of Awana as well.  Each week at opening ceremonies, we say two pledges - to the U.S. flag and to the Bible.  Caroline was picked to say the Pledge of Allegiance this week and I was there to capture it.  She did a good job of speaking at a pace the rest of us could keep up with.

This weekend we went to our first ever crawfish boil.  It was at the home of Todd's Krav Maga instructor.  This is something he has annually, which made our family the clear crawfish-eating amateurs of the afternoon.  When we first walked up the driveway, we noticed the two giant pots, but then a few feet beyond the boiling pots, were the fresh crawfish just waiting.  He had bought 100 pounds of crawfish!   When they were cooked, he put them on giant trays.  To our untrained eye, this looked like a massive amount of crawfish per person.  Todd and Henry took a tray and sat down with some seasoned eaters.  They were taught to twist off the tail, suck the head (but it's really the abdomen), take off the first segment of tail shell and then push up from the bottom of the tail to eat the tail meat.  They both got into it and easily ate two trays of food.  It was a lot of work for a little bit of meat.  I did try it, but will probably stick to shrimp - much easier!  Josiah and Caroline were a no-go to try it.  There was also jambalaya, which was very, very good.  The man who puts it on is originally from Louisiana, so it was the real deal.  

Right after the crawfish boil, Josiah and Todd had to get ready for their concert.  We had bought tickets to Rain years ago.  The original concert was for April 2020, which was at the start of all the lockdowns.  After several postponements, they finally got to go.  They are a tribute band for the Beatles and Todd said they did a phenomenal job.  They started off dressed as the Beatles in their suits, singing their old stuff.  They they gradually would change costumes and hair and sing the later songs as well.  It was 34 songs in total!  Todd said they even sounded like Paul McCartney and John Lennon when they spoke.  Todd's favorite part, however, was at the very beginning.  They did the usually announcement, with a small addition.  "There is no flash photography, no video recording, and no smoking......ANYTHING."  The adults got a laugh out of that.  

They got home late and Josiah fell asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.  He is very much an early bird, but he cannot do nights.  

Josiah did a little chalk art this weekend as well.  

Agent Peely (Fortnite)

It was a good busy week.  As much as we enjoy our activities starting up in August and September, we are equally joyed by them ending in April and May.  Now we just have regular school for the next few weeks to finish out the school year.