Knight's Summit

Knights of Freedom is a club, like scouts, where there are a ton of groups and each group meets together every other week to learn about famous men in history like Christopher Columbus, Davy Crockett and a ton of other people. In Knights of Freedom we also learn about the knightly virtues and once every year all of the groups come together for two days and we get swords and shields. We learn 5 knightly virtues. Things like learning to work as a team, earn a weapon, prove yourself in battle, go on a quest and other stuff. At the end we fought a lot of bad guys. My favorite thing about the summit was the big battle at the end.

Mock Trial by Whitney

Our mock trial team went to the Matheson courthouse and participated in our first of two mock trial competitions. We have preparing since January and we did pretty well. We won the verdict (not guilty) but lost the competition by five points out of 360. I was a witness, the defendant. I was being tried for sending threatening emails to a class-mate over the chatroom but the judges decided that I was not guilty. I feel it was the best performance that we have had in a long while and hope that we can win our next competition (this Saturday.) In truth my life has been insanely busy and pressured and even though I enjoy mock trial I am eager to have it over with and get some writing time back in my life. :)

Knight's Summit 2010

The Knight's Summit of 2010 was the best one ever! The two day simulation taught the boys (age 8-12) the virtues of Knighthood, they went on a quest, participated in the Queen's tournament, had the final battle and the ending feast. Daniel had a blast and was so worn out at the end of the two days he could hardly walk.

This picture doesn't even begin to show the 150 boys and 75 villains (dad's, big brothers and uncles) that participated in the final battle to return the kingdom to the rightful King and Queen. (And it's not just because my thumb is in the way! I'm still getting the hang of my new iPhone.)

Pioneer Trek

Yes, this is all still the same week! We arrived home from CA, attended the recital, gutted the car and packed for our family Pioneer Trek. We got up at 4:00 am the next morning (Thursday) and left for our Pioneering adventure at Martin's cove in Wyoming. Everything is more fun with cousins!


Grandma and Aunt Emily made it all possible! They bought all the food and pre-cooked all our amazing meals. The pioneers never ate this good!

The hand carts weighed 180 lbs, BEFORE we put all our gear in them!

Add some dirt, scruff and sunburn and my hubby only gets more handsome!

Daniel taking an after lunch snooze in an empty hand cart. The toddlers got to ride in covered wagons when they got too tired to walk. Whitney and her best friend Natalie, who we adopted and brought along, spent most of the trek pulling the kiddie wagons.

Aunt Em made everyone's day with smores around the camp fire!

Steve says he would never want to hit the trail without his mom along. She was so fun, a hearty pioneer and made all these beautiful pioneer dresses for us!

All the youth gathered around our campfire to hear Steve's comedy skits. He's so funny! The youth in the camp really enjoyed each other.

Our pioneer Family!

Square dancing, pioneer stories, camp fires, the pony express, amazing wind that threatened to blow us away, neat families, mosquitoes, great food, 12 1/2 miles of trail, and gorgeous country made our trek an amazing experience. It also gave us a glimpse into the sacrifices our pioneer ancestors made for us to have religious freedom. We came away with a new appreciation and perspective for their faith and sacrifices.

Space Camp

(Note by Mom: Steve was invited to a 3 hour space simulation with a group of homeschool friends. The following is his report.)

Last Tuesday, (funny I always start with that sentence) I went into deep space. No joke! Liftoff was at the Christa Mcaulliffe space center. It was a totally awesome space simulator. We got there, entered the briefing room and received our mission. A wormhole had opened on the other side of our galaxy and yesterday a strange ship had come out of it. The U.S.S. ranger, a nearby ship, reported that the ship was totally mutilated. Soon afterward all communications were cut off. It was our job to go investigate. (by the way this is in the future. Think Star Trek.) Among the crew were security officer Weston, damage control officer Brooklyn, first officer Preston and captain Alexander. After receiving our uniforms we were beamed to the bridge of the U.S.S. Voyager. (It looked exactly like the Enterprise.) It contained about 13 decks and 300 people. (Don’t get confused, there were only 12 people actually in the simulation, and the actual simulator was only 2 decks, each the size of a large room. We were in the bridge, which is pretty much command central. Everybody else was either not real or were just staff talking over the radio.) After reaching the wormhole, we came in contact with the ranger. They gave us more info, and left. Then we scanned the ship for life forms and found one still alive! We beamed it aboard and found it was an 11 year old girl. Just then another ship came out of the wormhole. We made contact and it turned out to be more aliens of the same race, claiming to be pretty much the police force of another galaxy. They claimed that the girl was really 43 years old and a thief, murderer and slaver with a record as long as your arm. They demanded we turn her over to them, before the wormhole closed, and they were trapped in our universe forever. Well, we didn’t like that idea, and when we refused, they nearly atomized us with an incredible super weapon! Well a crazy chase ensued including 2 decks being evacuated, 1 alien boarding, I accidentally phazed myself, another ship being obliterated (thank goodness they had escape pods), the captain and ambassador being kidnapped, nearly trying to send officer Brooklyn instead of the girl, various torpedoes being fired, and coming so close to blowing up that we could smell smoke! Eventually we beamed the girl to the other ship, and the simulation ended. We then found ourselves in the debriefing room were we discovered that she really was a criminal. In her own universe, she was tried and found guilty. We were then awarded for our bravery and an interplanetary holiday was made in our honor. Just kidding. It was LOADS of fun! I can’t wait for my next mission! I’m also going to be more careful where I point my phazer.

Knights' Summit

the final battle

the victory parade after the final battle

don't I look great?!?

the authentic musicians at the feast

The Knights of Freedom Summit was a great time. We learned about 5 Knightly Virtues at different camps. They were team work, proving yourself in battle, going on a quest, etc. At the end of the 2 days we had a huge battle with all of the adults (who played villains) against the kids. The first day you got a shield and the second day you got a sword. There were different colored camps, brown, green, purple, yellow, red and we were the oranges. We all made up a cheer, and our cheer was "Orange, orange, we are strong. We fight for freedom, we fight the wrong. Huzzah, Huzzah, Huzzah!" We did a tournament thing with all the knights. Every team had a tournament to find their team champion, and I was the team champion from the oranges. But the kid from the brown team beat me and everyone else so he was the Queen's champion.

Daniel

For the knights summit I volunteered as an elitist (bad guy). you probably think this was easy, march in, yell "ha ha, were the bad guys" and start smacking swords with the kids. Not in the least. I had to wake up at 6:00 each morning, help set up, and be in costume and character before the kids started arriving. I was an elitist (A.K.A. a rich and powerful noble who looks down his nose at every one else) and had to make the kids dislike us while not hurting any boys feelings. This did not succeed however, as all the kids loved us and thought we were cool. It was our role to escalate from quietly resenting the King and Queen , to openly rebelling against them. After a failed attempt to kidnap the Queen, (all in the script) we ran away and joined the gelds (the real bad guys) in the final battle. After surrendering we left and joined the feast afterward. With not much down time, and a lot of heat, it was certainly hard, but a lot of fun!

Steve

Con-Con Pictures

I tried loading these pictures several times last Friday, but they just wouldn’t take. It was probably user error, since it was 1:00 am, following a week of helping at the school with simulations week and an afternoon and evening of Lagoon. Yep, most definitely user error. I fell asleep waiting for them to load (the fifth try) and woke up at 2:00 am. Disoriented, I just published the article, sans pictures. So finally, I bring you Simulation Week photos!

Liberty Girls Retreat

At the liberty girls retreat we did some dancing and made rag-rugs and cooked stone soup and quilted. And we got liberty girl tee-shirts there and all the liberty girl groups in Utah where there. I loved it! We also made book marks. All of he activities where things they did in the great depression.


Rag rug making

Quilting

Square Dancing

Simulations Week by Whitney

(Note by Mom: American Youth Leadership Institute joined forces with Whitney's high school for Simulations Week. The youth had 8 different simulations to choose from. The music simulation composed, performed and recorded beautiful music for the rest of us. The art simulation created an amazing mural on a wall at the high school that promoted peace. Their was a legislature simulation, a mock trial intensive and a city council simulation, among others. Steve L. picked the Olympics simulation, where the year was 2025 and their group was in charge of promoting peace through the Olympic games. Their job was to invent new sports and play them for the Olympics held at the high school. It was truly an amazing opportunity filled with lots of unique learning.)

This week I had the opportunity to attend the Constitutional Convention simulation (The Con Con.) This is a week long simulation, where you are given a scenario where the country has been almost destroyed and you have to wright a new constitution for it. This year we were dealing with the aftermath of WWIII.

We got to the school building at 6:30 every morning because my Mom had the keys to the building and she was in charge of all the meals for the simulation.

It was an amazing "hands on" lesson on how the constitution works and it's different functions. The simulation ended at 2:45 every day, but there was a different activity that went on after. Things kike game night, a concert, a talent show, and a formal banquet.

The banquet was cool. You got all dressed up, and a boy escorts you to your table. You get etiquette lessons before and everyone's served by waiters.

In the actual meetings you are a delegate from a state. Emotions ran high a lot of the time, but it was amazing. I can't wait until next year.

Knights' Summit by Daniel

(Note by Mom: Knights of Freedom is a club for boys, similar to Janey's Liberty Girls. They read books about famous American Men who are worthy of emulating. They meet twice a month and do lots of fun activities. Once a year there is a two day summit where a hundred boys from Knights clubs from all over Utah, come together and learn the virtues of knighthood and have simulated battles to save their kingdom. The event is so much fun! It takes dozens of people months of work to pull off, and they do it with style. Steve (Dad) got to spend the day on Saturday with the boys and was a villain in the Final Battle. I think the greatest thing about the summit, is realizing how many families have come together, donating their time and talents to make such a memorable experience for their boys.)

The Knight’s summit was really fun. We played lots of games and made our shields and they gave us swords. We went for two days and at the end of two days we had a big battle against the Green Knight.

To become a knight we had to do lots of tasks, like learn the knightly virtues, make our weapons, and go on a quest. I was knighted Daniel the Knight of Honor. I really liked the summit and I had fun. I wish they did it more than once a year!