Road Trip to TN, Day 5.

This day was a divide and conquer type day. In the early morning Addy, Marlin, and some from the group,
 
 went horseback riding out in the forest for two hours.
Apparently, Marlin was not so thrilled with her horse,
 who was a bit fractious.
 The boys had no interest in riding. So after a slow morning in,
 we decided to seek out putt putt,
 and an arcade!
I think they were pretty happy…
 For our evening entertainment, it was duct tape ball night.
Marlin was not into it, so I told her to just try it out,
 and check out the other peoples amazing costumes,
 but still, she had made up her mind.
I think it was better suited toward the teen crowd.
 However,
 
Kaya,
 
 was a dancing machine!
We stayed for a bit, pin traded ( of course!),
and then headed back for a good night's sleep!
 Hop on over to here, to see more amazing pictures of the ball!

Road trip to TN, Day four.

It was finally time for our DI week to officially kick off. We attended the Pep rally, which I really am not sure exactly where the pep was? Maybe there was pep in the 80's song playing brass band? You know, nothing screams PEP!, like a marching band rendition of C'mon Eileen, and My Angel is the Centerfold… So basically it turned into a major pin trading event:

We hung out for a few hours, until it poured, and I mean poured rain.
 We headed inside to eat snacks and watch different challenges.
 Addy found a team from Turkey who he chatted with for a bit. That was pretty neat. The rain let up so we headed downtown to grab a bite. By the way, we LOVE Knoxville. It is such a beautiful city with an easy laid back vibe, and there are so many dogs everywhere! Anyway, we hit an awesome spot where I had the best juice ever, and Marlin chilled out for a while at a bookstore.
 We needed to head back to the stadium, as that night was opening ceremony. This was quite the event! I have not been to a crowded loud concert arena in years. Remind me to invest in nice noise reduction earphones for all of us before we go to something similar again. It was super loud! It started off with some of the kids from the team parading out to represent their team and the state of Connecticut in front of 20,000 people. We were only allowed to have 4 kids from our team to March ( Think Deligates) So Kaya decided to hang back with us. We could not find where we needed to be, so we found a stadium staff to help us, and he took us backstage through out the halls that hide behind the scenes.
It was an adventure!
 We successfully made it to our seats, and watched those kids of ours walking out proud and tall.
I did not have a lens to zoom in to see them, I will cross post when and if those are out there. Then it got very boring for an long, L O N G time. With all the Thank you's, and guest speakers, and a talk on brains? But then it delivered with a cool song mash-up, laser lights, and pyrotechnics.
I think the kids were excited and in awe, all while covering their ears.
Oh, their poor little cilia's!
 I guess I will start looking for good deal on those head phones…
It was pretty cool!
At least it was in the beginning, and the end…
 :>)
 Jess has her photos and videos up and running. Pop over here and check them out!
So exciting!

Road Trip to TN, Day 3.

This day held so many promises, and the clouds held so much rain! We were scheduled to go zip lining at a really cool place that had six lines, way high off the ground. We really, really, wanted to go. It started to rain on our way there.
 Kind of a bummer.
But a strange and wonderful thing happened! It had stopped by the time we got all geared up! All I have to say about our zip lining experience is that at first we were nervous,  but we had a great time, and by the end we were hanging upside down at times zipping over the canopy.
Very cool experience!
Look at us go!

Next, we packed up to have lunch at Parrot Mountain.
We made some pretty cute friends that we didn't want to leave!
We  left our new feathered friends behind,  headed to Pigeon Forge, to the Titanic Museum. I could not take photos in there, but it was so interesting. I never knew how much I would enjoy learning about that tragedy as much as I did.
Thank you,  Cath!
; > )
 You could feel an iceberg, learn personal stories, saw beautiful artifacts, and become a different individual from the past. You were given the name of an actual person when you arrived, and you would discover your fate at the end!

Only Marlin and I survived.
After we got back to our hotel, it was time for a pin trading seminar. Pin trading is an extremely popular activity here at Globals.
 It's a big deal.
We are newbies, and one of the Dads on a well versed DI team gave us some pointers on how not to get had.
 
 Then we caravanned off to two different locations to get some real world experience!
Marlin was not a big fan. She enjoys walking around with her friends watching it, but she is not interested in a collection of her own.
 The boys are HOOKED!
They adore pin trading and have become very adept negotiators.
 It's very exciting to see them so engaged. The have met and traded with kids from all over the United States and from China, and South Korea so far. Addy found two teams from Turkey that he chatted with. It's been fun.
We are loving TN so far.
The Globals experience is a whirlwind.
 There is not much down time, but we are experiencing so many "first's" All this expended energy has been very worthwhile. Oh, also, we had our first car accident as a family! ( insert sarcasm)
We are all fine, it wasn't too bad, but we got rear ended. My car will need some work when we get home, but both parties involved are fine, and that is all that matters.
See, another, new experience!