Piano Recital and Robotics Competition

December was busy and fun.  

Isak and Kira had some new things that we got to support them doing.  First up, was their piano recital on December 9.  

It was at St. Pauls' Episcopal Church.  A favorite moment was when Noah whispered in my ear, "Why are there so many t's?"  It took me a second to understand what he was asking, and then I responded, "Those aren't t's, they are crosses to represent Jesus dying for us."  "Ohhh."  :)

Isak played "Joy to the World."

Before and after they performed they bowed or curtsied.  

Kira played "Jingle Bells."  

They both did wonderfully.  I loved hearing them perform and I enjoyed the other performances as well.  

Right after I took this picture, the tornado warning bell rang.  So we all went quickly to designated tornado areas.

Our area was in the kitchen.  We stayed there for a while until the warning became a watch.  Then we drove home.  Thankfully, all of us were safe and our home was too.  The tornado touched down about 20-30 miles north of us and a few miles south of us.  Kind of scary, especially when I saw the footage of the tornado in Nashville.  So that was our first piano recital experience.  

The morning of December 16th, Isak and Kira had their first robotics competition.  It was a scrimmage with the local schools so it was a little less intense and more of a learning experience for the teams.  

The gym was set up with tables and teams testing out their robots.

Below is a photo of the competition table.  They get one minute to drive their robot and get points.  There are two drivers on each team and they compete against one other team.  So each driver gets thirty seconds.  They try to knock over the red blocks, pick up and deposit green and purple blocks into a box and then park their robot for points at the end.  Here's Kira with her teammate for their 1 minute.

Here's Isak with his teammate for 1 minute.

Isak also wrote a code for the robot to drive by itself and get points.  He got it to work and it was pretty awesome.  

They each competed three or four times.  And the competition lasted almost four hours.  

Nels came with Sofie and Noah for about an hour or so.  They ate bananas and were like wild monkeys so Nels took them home.  :)

Here's Kira with her team.

And Isak with his team.  

And all together. 

They have two more competitions.  One in January and one in February.  

It's so fun to go watch them do their things!