Jacob and Jasmine win 3rd place at NCFCA's Colorado Nat. Open!

Jacob and Jasmine win 3rd place...missed finals by 1 ballot!  (Split 2-3) against Paul-Walkenhaur!

Jacob wins 8th place speaker award!

Jacob and Jasmine also pre-qualified for the Nationals competition in Virginia this June! Hurray!

 

Jacob borrows Nathan's guitar to play a litte music too. Jasmine is enjoying the break since they broke straight to Octafinals and didn't have to debate Double Octs on Friday night.

Laura and Ben did not break but since they have already won to finals in previous tournaments this year, we still think they did an awesome job!

Laura made it to semi-finals in Persuasive speaking--Yeah Laura! (on right..sorry for the blurry pix!) The next picture of her is better.

 Pictured here are Nathan Exley, Grace Larimer, and Kristy Reid..friends from Region 4 who wrote great speeches! Marshal did too, but my picture came out pretty bad.

Ben made it to semi-finals in apologetics too!  Jacob Philip and Daniel Rosenberger, also from Logos, made it to semi-finals in Duo interp. Jacob Philip, from our Logos club got 12th place in Lincoln-Douglas Debate and even more exciting...2nd place LD speaker award!  It was a great day for Logos and for our region!  You can read all about it at the NCFCA website   Also click here for the  Speech Events!
The kids had a great time visiting with their friends from Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico.   Pictured here areMarshall Yaklin, Nathan Exley (guitarist), Pete Ehrett in the background and Jasmine Noman and Laura Strack, (avid worship music lovers!).

 Laura visits with friends, including Sarah Dana and Paul Exley after a long day of debating.

Jacob and Jasmine wait for the debate to begin!

Jasmine doesn't look one bit worried. She's cool as a cucumber. Watch out for her cross X!

Jacob, the second neg. speaker, greets the judges before the semi-final round with Paul/Walkenhaur.

 Jasmine, the first neg. speaker, greets the judges next.

Region Four friends, including Laura, Chrissy, Patience, Ben, Nathan, Ty, Pete, Mr. Ehrett and many others, crowd in to the room to watch the fun and take a few notes. This will be a debate to remember! 

Peggy and I, were present of course.  Peggy even abandoned the 'tab room',  where she is usually working quietly away, to watch Jasmine. 

Laura is nearby and I for one was glad...she's my 'buddy'. :o)

 

Here's a Video of Jacob giving a "Negative Speech" against their case.

Here's a video of Jasmine giving the first 'negative speech'.

Howdy From Leadville Colorado!

Jacob, Jasmine, and Laura go Skiing between tournaments in Leadville, CO.





 Jacob and I have been on the road for a week now.

Here are some pictures on our way to go ski in Leadville, Colorado with Peggy Noman and her daughter, Jasmine (Jacob's debate partner.) and Laura Strack her good friend.

 

  Jacob and I are having a wonderful time on this special road trip for him with the two debate tournaments and a ski trip sandwiched in the middle.....butt I look forward to getting home again soon!

I couldn't ski because I just couldn't breathe.  I pretty much struggled with alititude sickness the whole time.

As long as I sat in the lodge and watched the skiers I was fine, but as soon as I started lugging bags around and hiking up and down the stairs and out to the car, I thought my heart would pound out of my chest.

Here is a picture of Jacob, Jasmine, and Laura skiing at Ski Cooper in Leadville. It was cold but they had a great time.


At night, it was hard to breathe well. Thank goodness, Peggy thought to tell me to start drinking gatorade and water more.  It really did help some. 

We we left for Denver and the second debate tournament on Wednesday. The first day of debate got cancelled due to snow closing the campus.

Peggy did a great job driving down the mountains which had a lot of snow and ice. It was a steep grade down hill for miles!  Instead of two hours it took about four plus stops. 



 We stayed with a family in Denver and drove Peggy's van while the girls and Peggy stayed at a nearby hotel. Our hostess' home was about 20 minutes away.  They were a very nice family and we enjoyed visiting with them.  I'm so grateful we managed to avoid hotels at both tournaments!

We went to several nice places to eat and saw lots and lots and lots of snow! We drove in it, climbed through it and Jacob skiied in it.

Even at the tournament, there was lots of snow and the Texan kids couldn't resist a snow ball fight or two. In fact I saw a few mini-snowmen... probably made by a few 'snow deprived' Houstonians.  That looked a little odd on the grounds of the University of Denver where the tournament took place. Ha!

Anyway, it's been a great trip...but it will be good to be home!

 PS.  I learned a great photography tip that I wanted to share with you, just in case your are headed out on a trip any time soon.  I discovered that if I zoom in as close as the camera will allow and then take all those pictures of the beautiful panoramic scenes whizzing past the car, I get much more 'picturesque' scenes.

I took all of these photos while my friend Peggy drove through the mountains from New Mexico to Colorado. They just turned out so much better zoomed in!

Then you don't have to crop them later and the resolution is much better.

Jasmine and Jacob win 2nd Place at NCFCA's Chile Qualifier in New Mexico!

Jacob and Jasmine place 2^nd at Chile Qualifier in New Mexico! and Jacob won 2nd speaker position! Jasmine also won 11th speaker team policy speaker position. Peggy and I are so proud of them! Their good friends, Ben and Laura won third place. It was very exciting for all of us.  Just thought you'd like to see some pictures from the Speech and Debate Tournament we just attended in Farmington, New Mexico.

Jasmine and Jacob win 3rd Place at DFW tournament

Jacob & Jasmine win 3rd Place and Jacob wins 1st Place Speaker Award!

 

I wish I had pictures from the tournament in Dallas to post, but Jacob is with Rebekah at the Reynolds' home getting ready for tomorrow's Mock Trial competition and he has the camera with all the pictures.

Ah well, for now you will have to settle for the trophies and a picture of us from last year.  I was home about five days and then had to leave to take Jacob to the DFW qualifier tournament.  He and Jasmine had a perfect record all the way up until finals. Of 58 teams, they were the only ones to have a perfect preliminary record of 6 wins and 0 losses!  They were the top rated team of the tournament! 

They didn't lose any rounds or judges in the outrounds...not even one until the semi-finals.  They will have to work on a few things in their case, but considering that Jasmine had a 104 fever the last day, I think they did fantastic!  I can't wait to post the sweet pictures of them with their trophies and of our whole club who all did really wonderful!

Even though they won 3rd place as a debate team out of 58 teams (which is great of course) it was a really special treat that Jacob won FIRST PLACE Speaker Award for Team Policy!! Since this was a Texas State Championship tournament, he automatically received a free invitation to the Texas Home School Coalition Banquet to whom former president George W. Bush has been invited.  They believe he will attend.  Jacob is thrilled.  He was given a standing ovation for his win and I was just about to burst!  Usually the 1st place speaker is one of the members of the winning team.  

Of course, he is already busily working at home to prepare for the next tournament.  He and his good friend, Cody Stevens, are working on a duo and he and Jasmine will be working very hard to make their case even better.  We finally got home on Tuesday night (my birthday), but that's for another post.  It's great to be home!