We hit the pause button on our sightseeing and business traveling this week because it was time to head to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for the DestinNation Imagination GLOBAL FINALS!!!

The what-e-a-what? Now’s my chance to tell you about one of our favorite things EVER!  (And perhaps expose a little bit of the geeky side of our family).

DestiNation Imagination (AKA: DI) is a super-fun, amazing, and incredibly enriching competition of creativity and innovation.  Competitors range in age from elementary to university students. Basically, kids form teams of 2-7 members and choose one of five challenges to work on each year.  Challenges involve fine arts, engineering, technology, humanitarianism, performing art, lots of creativity, and team work.  Each challenge has a different emphasis, but they usually involve a variety of these components.

It’s extremely hard and it’s extremely fun!  This year we had two teams that both took first place in Montana and earned their way to Global Finals!

So what’s Global Finals like?  I would describe it as “Spring Break for kids” except everyone keeps their shirt on…and stays sober.  Seriously, it is a non-stop kid and teen party zone of 17,000 people from all over the world for six straight days.  The adults are DRAGGING by day three but it is so much fun!  (With adequate caffeine consumption I was able to rock it out ‘Uptown Funk’ style the recommended average of five times a day, so there’s that to be thankful for.  Click here to watch my funky video).

The event is sponsored by groups like NASA and Disney so you can imagine the fun.  We filled our time with bounce houses, swimming, all you can eat pizza parties, laser shows, and very cool celebrations like the Duct Tape Ball (the highlight of the week in our book).

By the way, if you couldn’t get that link to work…. Thanks for playing along. 😉

We parked the RV for a week of dorm life and met up with two families from Bozeman who happen to be the other two thirds of our teams. To say the kids were excited to see friends from home would be an understatement. There was much rejoicing, fanfare, and jubilee.

Oh, and we can’t forget about the actual competition!  Our Elementary team “The Curious Lightning Bolts” really knocked it out of the park considering that they are on the extremely young age for their division.  They placed 21st out of 82 teams from around the globe.  They competed in a challenge called “Brand Aid” where they had to implement a community service project and then present what they did in a skit form that included a brand with an original logo and jingle.  They also had to incorporate some kind of puzzle into their performance.  Wow- they did a fantastic job showcasing their project!  They collected 17,000 stickers for kids in Uganda who have to have painful jiggers removed from their feet.  These kids spoke at churches and schools, sent letters, and used social media to get the word out.  Their skit was adorable and they even wrote a poem to add in for extra pizzazz!

Our middle school team, The Blue Belles, is so fun to watch!  They chose a challenge called “The Improve Games” this year.  They had to perform three two minute sketches that combined different improve games, settings, and situations that were randomly drawn and given to them on the stage.  For example, their first sketch had to be “storytelling one word at a time” meaning they had to take turns saying only one word to formulate a story. (Yikes!) The situation was “you lost your turn”, someone had to perform “fire breathing” (for pretend of course) and the setting was “in a toaster”.  They always had one minute to plan and two minutes to perform before moving onto the next sketch. These girls are SO funny!  They also placed in the top 30 in their category which was a great accomplishment!

It was bitter-sweet to finish out our season of DI, but the kids are already brainstorming about next year. This was our second time at Global Finals, so they are determined to work hard and make it an annual excursion.  I can’t say I’d be surprised if they do!

A little tribute to Global Finals 2015!

Our Duct Tape Ball crew. Project Runway- watch out!!

There isn’t anything these kids CAN’T make out of duct tape!

Play time with NASA

We love finding all sorts of amazing hand-made costumes!

The Curious Lightening Bolts out to change the world!

Yes, the official mascots of the world’s larges creativity competition are

a cube and a sphere named Box and Ball.  I still haven’t figured that one out!  

Talented- I know.

Improve in action!

Designing robot ideas with National Geographic

Pin trading is HUGE at Global Finals!  The kids (and adults) get so into it.  I have grown to LOVE this hobby.  It encourages the kids to interact with others from all over the world and overcome language barriers to work out their deals.  The pins naturally develop their own economy that even the young ones can understand.  

                                                 It also teaches them how to:

                                                1. Ask for what they want  

                                               2. Learn that it’s OK to hear ‘no’  

                                              3. Learn that it’s OK to say ‘no’ even if you’re saying it to an adult.

High Fives from this mama to whomever created this program! 

Thanks for a rockin’ week DestiNation Imagination!