Hello fellow readers. This was our last expedition of soar semester! On this expedition we stayed in a hotel in Washington D.C.! While we were in D.C. we went to the Capitol building, the Air and Space museum, the Natural History museum, the zoo, we went to the Supreme Court, the Holocaust museum, the international spy museum, and the library of congress.

Our first stop was at the natural history museum. The building was incredibly big! When we went in there were about 50 exhibits to choose from. We decided to go the ocean life part first. I was absolutely bouncing off the walls, and I was talking so fast, a professional rapper wouldn’t be able to understand what the heck I was saying! In the rooms there huge models and replicas of huge fish and sea animals. As well as really big and bright robotic jellyfish with computer eyes that would follow to where you moved. There was also a preserved giant squid that was about 14 feet long!

 Then we went to the evolution and early life exhibit. There were a lot of skull models and skeleton recreations of the early human descendants.  My favorite part about it was the videos about evolution.

Then we went to the mammal section and it appeared to me that there had been more animals put into the exhibit since the last time I came to this museum. My favorite part about that was the small mammal section.

Then the best part of the day was when we went to the Tornado Alley I-max movie. It was in 3-D!!!!!

On the next day we went to the Air and Space museum. Personally, I think that museum was the best one out of all of the other museums we went to during that trip. While we were there we saw all of the planes and rockets as well as a couple satellites hanging from the roof and parked on the ground. We went to an I-max there as well but this one was about the Hubble space telescope and the pictures taken by it and how hard it was for us to repair it. The photos were the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Then we headed back to Balsam on the 10-hour car ride and I had quite a lot of IPod experience during it.

This was a blast being here and I cannot wait to come back after break. Enjoy the pictures and peace out!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Washington DC expedition (By: Anna)

We just returned from our Washington DC expedition. It was our last expedition of the semester! WOOHOO! It was super cool, and really fun! I will be telling about some of the awesome things we did this expedition, and some highlights that made everyone's day(:
First we went backpacking on the Appalachian Trail. It was super cool, and so much fun! There was a shelter, and a picnic table there. Graffiti filled the walls of the shelter, and it made for a nice bedtime story(: We met a few in hikers too. The first night we met Avalanche. He was super-duper awesome! The second night we met Jetpack Rachel, Caboose, Gramcracker, and Tip & Dip. It was defiantly amazing. 
After we hiked the At, we moved on to Washington DC to a campground for about four days. It was really fun. We met a few people there too, however, I do not know the names of them. ): We went to the Washington Monument, and ate lunch on a road outside of it. A few builders were fixing the monument because it cracked during the earth quake in Virginia. We also went to the World War II monument and spent some time with Kilroy. Kilroy was a man with a big nose looking over a wall. Kilroy was "supposedly" a spy that Hitler was afraid of. Kilroy was WWII graffiti drawn by soldiers. They would mark where they went so others would know whether or not it's a safe place or not. After all of that, we went to tour the Capital building. It was gorgeous! Perhaps the best Architecture I have ever seen!
Finally, we earned our way into a hotel, with much hard work and positive communication we did it! HOORAY! We went to the Holocaust Museum, and saw some devastating stuff. However, we defiantly learned some pretty cool stuff. We had a great time riding the metro too! It was so much fun!

Josh’s 4th expedition: Washington D.C.

In Washington D.C, we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. While we were there, we ate lunch, we saw The Hope Diamond. We saw a lot of gems and minerals. We saw a lot of stuff in glass boxes like Holden Caulfield did in the Catcher in The Rye.

My favorite two places would be the Air and Space Museum, also a Smithsonian, and the spy museum.

At the Air and Space museum, I got dog tags, and got to see lots of planes and whatnot. There was also some kind of gun that was broken from World War II, I think, that had all sorts of rocks in the barrel. There were a bunch of anti- aircraft guns that were mounted to planes back in the day. Upstairs where there was the anti- aircraft guns and things, there were huge bullet rounds. There was one that was like two inches in diameter. Some were tracers, and one was an exploding tracer. Tracer go boom! At the Air and Space Museum, we saw Hubble 3-d about the Hubble Space Telescope. It was my second time watching it. It’s better when it’s actually in 3-D.

At the International Spy Museum, there was lots of stuff. It showed us how to pick locks. It had a bug in one part of the building and in another part of the building there was headphones that you could listen to it from. I also got a switchblade in the gift shop. Don’t tell mom.

After the International  Spy Museum, I was in front of the Smithsonian of Art, and I had I had a parcore epic fail when I tried to jump a pole in front of the art Smithsonian.  The first time I did it I succeeded. The second time I failed epically and this is why I got the black eye.

I had a great time in Washington D.C.

Niko"s last blog!

Blog 11/21/11 Monday

It’s great here at SOAR except for the fact that we only have 5 out of 7 kids left. The other kids Garrett and Natalie got expelled and sent to a harsh scout camp of some sort we think. They were two very important members of the group though they weren’t that helpful to the group as a whole.

      That’s still sad though.  But I’m still here having fun. We went to Washington DC and toured the Capitol, the Newseum, the Air and Space museum, the Natural History museum and the Holocaust museum. We also went to the Washington monument and the World War II and Martin Luther King Jr. memorials. I learned so much here that it’s hard to remember it all!!!!!      

Peter Stluka Expedition 4

We just got back from Washington DC. I had a lot of fun there. We went to lots of museums and   memorials, like the Holocaust Museum, the Spy Museum, the Eastern Market, the Newseum, the Capitol building, the Air and Space Museum, the World War Two Memorial, and the MLK Memorial. My favorites were the Air and Space Museum and the World War Two Memorial. The Air and Space Museum was one of my favorites because  it had airplanes.  The World War II Memorial was one of my favorites because there was some very funny graffiti.

Anyway, I got a new elephant named Sherpa that I love, and a big box of hand warmers and puzzles.  I've had a lot of fun here but I'm  ready to go home.

josh's view of expedition 3

Wednesday of the first week of the expedition we did ground school. Ground school is where we learned how to tie all sorts of climbing knots like the figure 8 follow through, the Butterfly and the Prussic. We also learned how to repel with a figure 8. Not the knot. Try not to think that the knot is the same because it’s not. That’s kind of a tongue twister isn’t it? We did it all with AT 2.

Thursday, we went top roping and repelling. When I was repelling I failed and fell upside down on the rope. My feet were pointing towards the sky and my head was towards the ground.

The next two days we did school in the Forrest Discovery Center.  It was a heated building and there were cool examples of taxidermy.  Taxidermy is basically where people stuff dead animals and put some chemical on the fur and put in fake eyes.

Saturday, Peter, Anna, Natalie and I went to the highest point in West Virginia to eat chicken nuggets.  It was called Spruce Knob, and there was snow up there.

Sunday we did community service at the Discovery Center, and we also accepted Nikocopuff ( Niko) into the group at that time.  During community service we raked and pulled weeds to repay the use of the warm class room.

Monday I went roping with Eric, Katy, Niko and Will, plus Natalie who just slept on the rocks… ALL DAY LONG.

Tuesday I summited with Niko, Anna, Peter, Garrett, Katy and Moira.

Those were just most of the good and fun things we did on expedition.

Will Calland's Third Expedition

Greetings fellow readers and followers! 

On this expedition we had a blast of scary and exhilarating fun. Our trip included: riding in a car for very close to 8 hours to West Virginia, going through a haunted house, a haunted corn maze, and my favorite of all, a haunted hayride. Also we went climbing to the summit of Seneca Rocks and we also had ground school with big Joe. We did community service at the Seneca discovery center.

First, we had to endure an eight-hour car ride to West Virginia. Luckily, I had my iPod and was able to drown my life in the lovable world of music. Then, we got to do a snack buy and everyone stocked up on candy and soda. Candy+soda+ADD/ADHD kids= A LOT OF HYPER CRAZINESS!!!!!!! Woooohoooo!!!

Second, we had ground school with big Joe. Joe is really big and really intimidating as well, but funny nonetheless. He used to be a ranger in the army, and now he is one of the directors of Soar. His height and size scare the living crap out of me. You never ever disagree with that monster of muscle.

Third, we went climbing to the summit of Seneca Rocks. It is one of the most beautiful rock formations I have ever seen in my entire life!

Fourth, We did community service at the Seneca discovery center. While we were there, we had a complete spazz-off among the kids and we were all looking at the beautiful river and at Seneca.

Fifth, The weather was brutally cold and wet. At our final campsite we woke up on our second night there to the surprise of freezing cold weather and a minor blizzard/ice fiasco. My water bottles were all frozen and I was having a very hard time trying to get my gloves on. We were all begging to be leaving in the car, but noooooooo. We had to wait and die slowly.

Last, we went through a haunted house, a haunted corn maze, and my favorite of all, a haunted hayride. It was really scary on the hayride but everything else was really boring. On the hayride all the ADHD kids were trying to cheer up the scared people on the hayride and it really did work. I was saying, “I eat you like a cheeseburger fresh out of McDonalds!” and a lot of other things Anna was trying to scare the guys trying to scare us and she did not feel scared what so ever.

Any way here are some photos. ENJOY!