The boys did their test today for their yellow bands. There were only four kids testing for yellow (the first level) -- the other kids were mostly older and trying for the higher levels. The boys did great! There were ten obstacles, and they had to pass eight of them to earn the band. It was a competition-type scenario -- one person at a time, one chance (except for the warped wall, where they get three tries), and everyone watching. Some of the challenges were completely new to them, so we thought they had a good chance, but it definitely wasn't a sure thing!The first girl to go failed on the first obstacle (the quintuple steps), and didn't continue on. (It's possible she somehow hurt herself, but I think she was just disappointed. The kids were allowed to try all the challenges even if they'd failed previous ones.) James and Matthew zoomed through that one.
The next one was getting up to the first rung on the warped wall. Matthew did it (on the first try, if I remember correctly), but James just wasn't quite tall enough (although it was pretty fun to have the entire gym chanting "beat that wall!" for him.) 
The other ones included climbing the cargo net, doing the "kids' body prop" on two cylinders, a balance beam, a rope swing, and the kids' cliff hanger. Both of them passed all of them except the cliff hanger (and James could have done it if he'd just gotten his hand a little farther along -- he didn't realize he had to do that). But they both passed and got their yellow bands! Very exciting! We are very proud of them!(The other little girl testing with them looked younger -- maybe five? -- and she did really well for her age, but only cleared seven obstacles.)
These pictures are mostly from the practice beforehand. Early on in the practice, Mattie's shoe came off on the Sonic Curve, and he fell and hit his back and head on the wood. Ouch! He got right back in there, though, and had a good time the rest of the practice. 
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