Rank Camp Day Two

Maddie was ready for another day of Rank Camp today - I dropped her off early again, and she was ready to go with a full day.  Mom had her lunch packed and she was off and running.  And jumping.  And sparring.  And all those other things related to her training.  I swing by to pick her up, and she's busy playing dodgeball.  They were doing Nerf gun games this week too, and she's apparently a pretty good trick shot.  She nailed a few people with headshots today, not expecting to do so.  Actually, no one was expecting that, so it was a fun surprise.

So one story of the day is a sudden "let's go somewhere before the end of summer" decision.  We're going back north again, up to Tennessee.  We're going pretty soon, because this series at KidPak is fairly quiet and easy to do for preparations.  We have season passes to Dollywood, and Maddie's excited about going back up there for their summer celebration.  I think it should be fun, although it might be hot and/or rainy. No worries though - we'll plan a lot of indoor things.  We're already looking into the dinner shows and other events, but not too much - it'll hopefully feature a lot of relaxing!

Speaking of which, tonight we made our side trip to town, doing a bit of "rednecking," which basically means, "Let's go to town, drop off a squirrel and pick us up some ice cream at the gas station."  We have these points built up for ice cream, so the three of us enjoy a stop by there for some cooling off.  Mom enjoys the butter pecan flavor, while Maddie will do just about any flavor but their chocolate mint (I agree - that flavor is just minty and that's about it).  We load the ice cream up with chocolate chips and even gummy worms, and then we're off back home again!

Tonight Maddie saw a movie she's never seen before, and I'm not sure how this slipped by, but she's never seen the original movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."  This has some pretty iconic moments, and of course we were all looking for the famous "Condescending Wonka" face, which we found right at the Invention Room.  Again, we generally like the Tim Burton movie better, which was unexpected given that this movie was so imbedded into our lives.  But the newer version seems to be more faithful to the actual story that we read earlier, and we genuinely enjoyed it.  One thing we couldn't wait for Maddie to see was the infamous boat ride, this weird paddleboat journey into terror that feels like someone maybe took a few too many hallucinogenic drugs while writing this.  Or filming this.  Whatever the case may be, it's hilarious to watch amidst this children's movie.  At least now that we're older - I'm not sure if younger kids should watch it.  Which I suppose is why Maddie was just watching it now.  It's not a bad movie, of course.  The songs and soundtrack are great, and the costumes and actors are just right.  It's a fun movie!

We got to bed early tonight after reading a bit - we're starting the book "Leia," which is a book that Maddie has read before, one about Princess Leia.  It's a longer book, but we're diving into a Star Wars series, and this should be fun to read while we're in the midst of that.  We said our prayers afterward, and yes, we have to get to bed early - it's Rank Camp day three tomorrow!