Saturday, February 27, 2010

2010 Week 9

Sunday
Chef-son, aka Ice-carver-son, ended a two-day competition, the Nationals (National Ice Carvers Association) and was awarded silver medal and fifth place. Here is one final photo (Courtesy of Ice Alaska) of the Chimney Sweep.

 

Monday I was visiting a friend in the hospital, picked up the Muncie paper, opened it and on the second page, there was mentor Michael of Team 1720 with the  little robot at the annual scrimmage. Eleven FIRST robotics teams from around Indiana showed up to practice on a playing field before the six-week shipping deadline Tuesday.


As it turns out, they (mentors and students) spent most of the day Monday and through the night fixing and finishing then packing and crating their ball-gathering-and-kicking robot that can operate equally forward or backward and is appropriately named Palindrome.

Tuesday, besides being catch-up-on-sleep day for Mike, it was writing day for me (big assignment due Wednesday), so no 'clean-desk-photo' this week. However, you may remember that last week I asked a question about the poster of Garfield. Only one person responded, Sara! And she had to search the internet for an Argentine beverage. Someone else asked for the answer so here you have it, a free cultural lesson. The beverage is called mate. Technically speaking, mate is the gourd that you drink out of and yerba mate is the special tea that is only grown in that area of the world (Paraguay, Southern Brazil, Northern Argentina). In this photo you can see a variety of the special drinking cups made of various materials: wood, leather, bone, gourd.

 

Sara won a mate, a bamboo straw, instead of the typical metal bombilla because that is all I have, and a package of yerba.

Wednesday, and most other days, the most watched winter Olympic sport in our home this time was...curling!



We also follow closely the regular webcam updates of the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, Alaska. Chef-son's second competition ended Thursday. This was a single-block, two-man, two and half day event.

"Chasing the Wind" (Photo courtesy of Ice Alaska.)

  
And what is this little creature that scurried about on our deck?



Early this morning, Mike left with several cycling club buddies, for two weeks of intensive biking in Georgia and Florida. All part of training for an upcoming event in the Pyrenees.
After dropping him off, I decided to stop by the DIL's on the way home and visit with my consuegros who are spending the weekend with their daughter.



Sweet couple, don't you think?

12 comments:

  1. The ice sculptures are amazing! Really beautiful!

    Didn't watch curling, but saw the newscaster give it a try and realized it was harder than it looks. I've been watching Apolo Ohno and some of the downhill skiing events.

    What's Garfield doing drinking an Argentinian beverage? Trying to escape the winter, maybe?

    You got a pic of the possum! Nice. We've had a fox and racoon out back, but they don't wait long enough for me to grab the camera.

    Thanks for sharing your week!

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  2. Possum?

    Good photos of your week. Looking forward to hearing how Stephan placed in the 2nd competition.

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  3. Possum?

    Good photos of your week. Looking forward to hearing how Stephan placed in the 2nd competition.

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  4. Rita, I really can't believe what they can do with ice....that is amazing! congrats to your son!!!

    I am sooooo excited to get the mate!!!

    we were riveted to the short track speed skating this year!!!

    opossum.....yuck!!!

    I had a friend come by this week and she fell in LOVE with my butter bell. I visited mikes etsy site and it looks like he only has a brown one. May I give her mikes email and can she special order one in another color?

    great week!!!

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  5. Oh my goodness those ice sculptures are incredible! What a gift they have to create something that beautiful!

    I watched some curling during the 2006 Olympics and really liked it, so I've watched a LOT more this Olympics. I watch 4 hours of it one day while I did some baking. There is so much more strategy than I realized. But, I really like all the winter Olympic sports...which is funny considering how I feel about Winter in general. LOL

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  6. The sculptures are beautiful! Such a talented family you have!!
    We watched curling here too...it's one of my pics this week.
    Do you have big plans while Mike is training?
    Have a great week!

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  7. Those ice sculptures are amazing..where I grew up they used to have an ice festival every Jan and it was so much fun to go and see all of the sculptures! He has talent!

    We are fans of curling at our house too!! HARD!!! Have a great week!

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  8. Stephan did a great job on the ice sculptures... just amazing how he does that!

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  9. i have heard of yerba mate before....but had no idea what it really was. thanks for the lesson! and congrats to Sara.

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  10. My husband is fascinated with curling - so we watched a lot of that, & a lot of other stuff too. We thoroughly enjoyed the Olympics this year.

    Love the ice sculptures. That one looks like a unicorn with the horn going the wrong way - not sure what it's supposed to be...

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  11. Good for Sara! I didn't even try. I didn't know Garfield ever consumed anything other than lasagna. ;)

    As for this week's questions:
    1) A unicorn???
    2) An opossum.

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