All of my siblings, and I run Cross Country (for the Homeschool Union Tommies). My oldest sister Brett does not run but is the team photographer. Colter is too old to run Cross Country anymore but sometimes he still comes to meets to cheer us on!
We go to a lot of different meets, including two different Christian Homeschool Cross Country Championships! One is in Springfield, Missouri, and the other is in Nashville, Tennessee. None of the girls on our team run in the Tennessee Nationals, just the boys.
But all of us run in Missouri Nationals. Normally our whole family will go on meets like this one, but because we were understaffed that Saturday in 2017 Mom Brett and Colter had to stay home to cover the stores.
Dad drove Emery, Fletcher, Greyden, Hewitt, Jade and I all the way to Springfield Missouri (about 8 hours). We also had some friends in our car, (their names were Mrs. Malone and Sianna) they made the drive go much much faster!
While we were in the car we played mafia and apples to apples. We played mafia for about 5.5 hours out of the 8! For the first half to an hour, we all did our own things (Emery Greyden Hewitt and Jade all told a story in the back. While Sianna did school work and I crocheted hats that we sell in our sweet shop, Fletcher was in shotgun talking to dad). Then we all decided to play mafia, and we played for a while! For those of you who don’t know what mafia is it is a game where you have a deck of cards and you pull out (for us) 6 cards.
One of these is the Ace of any suit, Queen of any suit, Jack of any suit, and as many other cards (not face cards) as there are people. The narrator will shuffle those few cards and give everyone one (the narrator does not get a card).
The narrator will say “Everyone go to sleep” (everyone will bow their heads and close their eyes) then the Narrator will say “Mafia wake up” (if you had the Ace card then you are the mafia) the mafia will open their eyes and the narrator will say “who do you want to kill” then the mafia will point to someone to kill, then the narrator will say “mafia go to sleep” the mafia will then close their eyes again and bow their head.
The narrator will then say “Nurse wake up” (if you had the queen then you are the nurse) the nurse will open their eyes and the narrator will say “who do you want to save” then the nurse will point to someone to save, then the narrator will say “nurse go to sleep” the nurse will then close their eyes again and bow their head.
The narrator will then say “Detective wake up” (if you had the jack then you are the detective) the detective will open their eyes and the narrator will say “who do you want to investigate” then the detective will point to someone to investigate, then the narrator will either shake their head yes (if the person they pointed to is the mafia) or the narrator will shake their head no (if the person they pointed to is not the mafia) then the narrator will say “detective go to sleep” the detective will then close their eyes again and bow their head.
Then the narrator will say “everyone wake up” where everyone will open their eyes. The narrator will then give a story about how the person (who the mafia pointed at) died. Let’s say that I was the nurse, Greyden was the mafia, and Fletcher was the narrator. When Fletcher said “mafia wake up” the mafia pointed to someone to kill, then when Fletcher said “Nurse wake up” the nurse pointed at someone to save, if both the mafia and the nurse pointed at the same person, then the narrator when he said “everyone wake up” the narrator will then give a story about how the person was dying but they were heroically saved. Or something along those lines.
Then accusations will begin. Let’s say I accuse Emery of being the mafia, Greyden seconds it, Emery now gets to give his defense of why he is not the mafia, we will either believe him or not, if we believe him we will let him live, if we don’t believe him then we will vote to kill him, if it is over the majority Emery would die, if it wasn’t then he wouldn’t die.
If he was the mafia and we killed him the game would end and the townspeople would win. If he was not the mafia than the game would keep going, you can accuse as many people as you want, but can only kill one every round, and you can not accuse “Emery” and decide not to kill him and accuse everyone else and then accuse him again.
If you were the detective and you found out who the mafia was through the narrator when the narrator woke you up, then you would say “through the firm (whoever you had pointed at) is the mafia” then people would either believe you or not (most people believe you), the easiest way to figure this out is if you accuse that person, hear their defense and then see if you think they are the mafia. So we played mafia for like five and a half hours (lots of different games).
We also play with a baker, priest, and a travel agent. The baker just wakes up when they are told and bakes a cake for someone (pointing their finger at whomever they want to bake a cake for. They can not bake a cake for themselves).
The priest wakes up when they are told and offers someone sanctuary (they can not offer themselves sanctuary), which means they can not be killed by the townspeople through accusing, even if they’re the mafia!! So if they give sanctuary to the mafia and the detective had found out who the mafia was that time, then they could not even kill the mafia!
The travel agent will wake up when they are called and send someone out of town (they cannot send themselves out of town), meaning they can hear everything that is happening and see but they can not talk, they are not there, they can’t even shake their heads.
If you do play with the priest, baker and travel agent, then when the narrator says “everyone wake up” everyone will open their eyes and lift there head. The narrator will then give the story about how the person (who the mafia pointed at) died. Again let’s say that I was the nurse, Greyden was the mafia, and Fletcher was the narrator. When Fletcher said “mafia wake up” the mafia pointed to someone to kill, then when Fletcher said “Nurse wake up” the nurse pointed at someone to save, if both the mafia and the nurse pointed at the same person, then the narrator when he said “everyone wake up” the narrator will then give a story about how the person was dying but they were heroically saved. Or something along those lines. They will also say who was put in sanctuary, who was baked a cake and who was sent out of town.
We got to the hotel we were going to stay at and there were a few people from our team there. When everyone was there we each got into our cars again and drove to the course, we ran like a warm-up on the course, talking and laughing with our friends. Then we went to our cars and my best 2 friends Elise and Merci were able to sit in our car with Jade and me! Some of my brothers drove back to the hotel in other peoples cars.
Once at the hotel again we had a pizza party (there’s nothing like pizza with your friends!) and we played lots of spoons and Egyptian ratscrew! Then later that night we went to bed. When we woke up in the morning we ate very light food so that it would digest in our body’s before our race. We ran very hard in 30-degree weather. I had on a hat and gloves, shorts (no leggings under them) and my uniform which is a thick strap tank (no shirt under that either).
I got tenth place out of the 20 girls that ran in my race, Jade got eighth place, and my friend December got fifteenth. Then they split it up into different age divisions, so I got third place, Jade got second, and December got fourth! Emery got sixth, Fletcher got eighth, and Greyden got ninth. I think Hewitt got 1 place in boys, but I’m not sure.
This picture is all of my siblings, and our medals.
