Kids Archives - Jason's Blog

Or… “Ryan’s 16th Birthday”

Well that was fun. Ryan and a few of his friends headed to Morgantown last week to get Taken. Not literally “taken,” but instead, participate in Morgantown’s premier escape room experience.

The four of us had participated in an escape room in Ocean City, Maryland over the summer. It was a fun experience, but it was definitely a work in progress in O.C. I’m sure over time, the O.C. escape room will be terrific. But this one in Morgantown was the full package.

The general idea behind an escape room is to solve a series of logic puzzles, have keen observation and great teamwork. You must use all of these abilities to escape a room or series of rooms within a certain time limit. In the games that we’ve played, we’ve had one hour to escape. In this case, the kids had just 54 seconds to spare… Nothing like cutting it close guys!

Click here to learn more about the Xscape room in Morgantown, or click here to learn more about the Taken adventure that is offered there.

Allison McIntyre – Life Will Stretch You

This past week my daughter Allison had the honor of being recognized at the United States Capitol for winning first place in her district at the 2014 Congressional Art Competition. Her work, along with several others from all over the nation, is on display in the hallways of the US Capitol Building. On June 26 we attended a presentation and reception where Allison met Congressman David McKinley, representative of West Virginia’s first district.

On behalf of my family, I would like to thank Representative McKinley for taking the time to talk to us and converse with Allison about her work and passion for the arts, and for taking a genunie interest in our visit. We often picture congressman and senators as distant suits who are too busy to speak with constituants, but his conversation was genuine and included statements like “What do you think?” and “What would you do?” It felt sincere and I was pleasantly surprised. I would like to thank members of Representative McKinley’s office, including his staff and interns for their assistance in guiding us around the Capitol and for pointing out some places to visit (and eat) while in Washington. I’d also like to thank the competition’s sponsers, Southwest Airlines, the Savannah College of Art and Design, and Adobe along with the Adobe Education Team, who can be followed on twitter as well. Join Adobe’s conversation on twitter about keeping the arts in education and turning STEM to STEAM with #CreateEdu

For more information about the Congressional Art Competition, visit the House website or the Congressional Institute’s website. The House website currently displays artwork from 2013 competition, but the Congressional Institute’s website has been updated with the 2014 artwork.