Tag: Heather

Heather’s birthday was on a Tuesday this year–a Tuesday on which her orchestra planned an all-evening event plus concert. Since her day was going to be nonstop from wake up to bedtime with only a brief break after school we celebrated on the prior Saturday.

Her birthday adventure was, echoing the game show in the movie, a KPop Demon Hunters game show!

To start, and in between each event, she needed to answer trivia questions. She got 13 out of 14 correct.

Her first set of questions:

1. What is the name of the magical barrier maintained by HUNTR/X?
The Honmoon

2. What are the names of the HUNTR/X singers?
Rumi, Mira, and Zoey

3. What is the name of HUNTR/X’s manager?
Bobby

4. Where do Mira and Zoey regularly go that Rumi refuses to join them?
The bathhouse

My Little Soda Pop

After the warm-up trivia questions she had her first event. The Saja Boys debut single is Soda Pop. In this game she was presented with 10 jars of soda pop and she needed to identify the 5 pairs of matching flavors.

The 5 flavors were: Coke, Vanilla Coke, Orange-cream Coke, Cherry Coke, and Root Beer (other flavors would have been more fun, but colors would kind of give it away). Corinne helped by taking notes.

She got 3 of the 5 pairs correct on her first try. With careful consideration she found the mismatch.

With the sodas identified we moved on to the next round of trivia.

5. What is the demon ruler’s name?
Gwi-Ma

6. What are the names of the Saja Boys?
Jinu, Romance, Mystery, Abby, and Baby

7. Who trained HUNTR/X?
Celine

8. How many eyes does the bird have?
Six

Takedown

When the Saja Boys debuted, HUNTR/X realized they’re demons and decided to write a dis track called Takedown. Heather’s next event was to take down various foods hanging from the ceiling without using her hands.

She had to eat two Ritz crackers, a mini chocolate donut, and a full-size glazed donut. She needed to try to complete this before Derpy (played by Corinne) could eat two mini chocolate donuts.

Corinne understood the proper tactic immediately by getting the whole donut in her mouth and pulling it off the string. Heather, instead, attempted to nibble the Ritz crackers from the edges. Derpy won.

And another round of trivia, getting harder.

9. Who does HUNTR/X get the healing tonic from?
Healing Han

10. What was the name of Celine’s musical group?
Sunlight Sisters

11. Which of Rumi’s arms gets exposed to Jinu during their battle in the bathhouse?
Right

Golden

HUNTR/X plans to seal the Honmoon with their new single, Golden. But, oh no, the Saja Boys have interfered and corrupted the gold. Heather needed to identify which nugget was the real gold based on density (rather obviously not real gold, just various things wrapped in a gold-colored wrapper).

She immediately set to work measuring the weights and volumes then calculating the densities. Was successfully identified the correct nugget.

The nuggets were: a ball of aluminum foil, a ping pong ball (so mainly air), steel washers, pennies (mainly zinc), and a lead weight.

The final round of trivia:

12. What is the bird’s name?
Sussie

13. What is the cat’s name?
Derpy

14. What does “Saja” mean in English?
Lion

Face it and Fix it

Her final game was inspired by the lyrics of Free and What it Sounds Like. In Free, Rumi sings, “we can’t fix it if we never face it” and in What it Sounds Like, she sings, “I broke into a million pieces.” In this event Heather needed to face something broken and fix it. The broken thing was pictures of her face and to fix it she needed to use…only her face!

She was a lot faster at it than I expected. I probably would have made them a little harder had I known how effective she’d be.

That completed our game show and our contestant won fabulous prizes in the form of wrapped presents!

This year Heather joined the ranks of the cell phone owners. One of the very few kids in her grade left to do so.

For dinner we went to the Cheesecake Factory and then back home for cake. Heather asked for a cheesecake with brownie crust which I made. I’m pretty happy with out it turned out.

Spooky Strings Concert

On her actual birthday her orchestra put on a Spooky Strings concert with Mendenhall Middle School.

Or download here:

Heather had a birthday / Halloween party this year to start off her celebration. I ran a minigame competition with a “Top Banana” trophy as the prize. They competed in 5 events: jigsaw puzzling (complete a small puzzle), dice stacking (stack dice on a tongue depressor held in your teeth), cup shuffling (alternating hands, remove the top cup of a stack and put it on the bottom until the first cup is back on top), Ping Pong carry (using a tiny, sample spoon carry Ping Pong balls across the yard), and the toilet-paper spray (use a spray bottle to spray a hanging strip of toilet paper that has a clothes pin on the bottom until the strip breaks and the clothes pin falls).

Then there was pizza, treats, and the general silliness of middle-school kids. Then back outside for “ghost pictures” (double-exposures using a flash).

Once our spooky pictures were complete it was back inside for birthday/Halloween trifle and filling up 3D-printed pumpkins with candy to take home. A good time seems to have been had by all.

The Birthday Adventure

On her birthday it was school and homework, but once finally complete it was time for a Warrior Cats Birthday Adventure (Heather’s costume this year was Firestar from the book series).

In the stories, cats train to become warriors who hunt for food and defend their clans. After an apprenticeship they must complete an assessment and if successful they have a formal ceremony.

Heather received a letter inviting her to take her Warrior Assessment which would challenge the five essential skills of a warrior: Smell, Sight, Tracking, Hearing, and Touch.

Her first trial (scent) required matching each scent-marked name to the appropriate cat. The cats were under glasses to help isolate their scents. I found a simple cat model online, modified it to have an empty space inside with holes through the back and then filled them with smelly things: cinnamon, vinegar, liquid smoke, cologne, and lavender oil. It worked pretty well, though oddly, the vinegar had no smell when she played the game just a few hours after prepping them.

Correctly identifying the cats revealed the code to the cryptex needed to begin the second trial (sight). I used the same cat model, but scaled it down to about an inch tall and printed cats in four colors. She had to find all ten hidden around the house and the number of cats in each color provided the combination to the lock for the third trial (tracking).

The trial of tracking required following a prey’s path through the backyard without getting lost until she caught up with the prey and obtained the code to the fourth trial. This involved a string run all over the backyard in one continuous length with false leads crossing it and confusing the issue. Although she made a mistake early on, she made a countering mistake shortly after and ended up with the right mouse while skipping about half the path. The prey was a 3D-printed mouse I grabbed from online and modified to put text on the incorrect ones (“Try Again”, etc.) and the code to the next trial on the correct one.

The fourth trial was hearing. I had recorded the cats meowing as well as myself and Jess and created an audio file for each of us. She had to listen to each file and identify which creature was meowing. Heather found this quite amusing and aced it without issue. The correct identification of the meowers provided the code to the fifth and final trial.

Warriors are sworn to protect their clans and this can require sacrifice. To honor those sacrifices Heather needed to identify four veteran warriors who had been permanently injured serving the clan using only touch. I used the same cat model from before, but modified one to remove the tail, one to remove an ear, one to remove a foot, and one to have a deep scar down the side. I placed each one in a paper bag and she needed to reach in and determine which cat was which. The order of the cats provided the code to the final chest.

The treasure chest contained a letter of congratulations and direction to present herself to the clan leader for the official induction ceremony where she would set aside her apprentice name of Heatherpaw and receive her warrior name, Heatherstorm.

Once the ceremony was complete it was time to celebrate with gifts! She had a blast. Grinning so big she could hardly read the letters and notes out loud.

Then it was off to dinner at Chili’s and home again for cake–pumpkin chocolate-chip cake with cream cheese frosting.