Friday evening, the 27^th of February, my family decided not to go to a concert, but to stay home and relax a bit. My sister was gone at a church activity, so it was just the three, my mom, dad, and myself. We got a phone call from my grandma that said she was coming over. Soon she was at our door, and behind her my brother and sister-in-law and nephew.

It was a nice surprise to see them. Grandma got to hold the new baby for the first time. We got pictures. We then called my other brother (Matt) to bring his family over. So we ended up having a little family reunion. It was also the first time for Matt’s family to see baby Elijah. We got several family pictures of the grandparents (my parents) with their grandkids. It was a nice evening.

Wednesday through Saturday, February 18-20, was the Speech and Debate tournament in St. Louis.

We left Tuesday, late morning, so we could get there in good time and have the rest of the day to relax. Several others were there early too, so we all got together and went to the St. Louis Mills Mall. There we ate at their food court. We were having a good time taking pictures of each other, and of the surrounding stores, when a mall cop came and told us that we’re not allowed to take pictures in the mall. It’s in their security rules. So anyway we went to the Cabella’s store in the mall and got to look around. Later we got back to the hotel so we could get to bed early, because we had to get up at 5:30 am the next morning.

The Next morning we got up early and got ready for the tournament. We did one round of all our speeches, while the debaters did three rounds. I got to meet up with friends that I made from other tournaments, and make new friends. Abigail and I left a little early to go back to the hotel to swim with our friends. After swimming for an hour, everyone from our speech and debate squad went to the mall to eat at Jonny Rockets, a 50’s style diner. I had a double rocket burger, which I think was the biggest on the menu. I tasted great, but it wasn’t that big. We then split up into groups and shopped around the mall. We didn’t get back to the hotel until around 10 or later.

The second day we had to get up even earlier. We ate breakfast and left for the tournament. This time the day dragged on as we did two rounds of each of our speeches. I was on my feet for most of the day, rushing between speeches and timing debates. It was a very long day as we didn’t get back to the hotel until around 10pm. We played some games with our friends and got to bed at around 11pm.

The last day of the tournament went by rather smooth. The debaters had a round early and had to go first. So my family, along with some others, slept in, because we didn’t have to be there until later. At about 8am we packed all our belongings and checked out, and headed toward the tournament. I made it into finals with my Expository speech. I didn’t have my finals until later that afternoon. Afterwards we decided to head home and skip the award ceremony. We got back at about 7pm. It was a great tournament. I found out that I got 8^th place in my Expository.