Locked until Saturday.

I liked it but I really don't like the Washingtons. It was good though but I really only rated it four stars because Grady was in it. It had a good moral. It wasn't humorous as I expected.

I liked this episode but I only gave it three stars because of a few problems I had with the characters:

Marvin:

He was so annoying! Hitting someone on the head with drumsticks? Ouch.
He was vey selfish! How many people would say 'I don't want to give away MY really cool bike so I think I'll just persuade my friend to give away HIS! I mean come on, that isn't really fair.

Grady:

Anger problems! Yes, throw a pair of very hard wooden sticks out of a moving vehical, very clever! Also I didn't hear him saying thanks to Marvin at the end. 'Hey Marvin. I know you just gave away to me a very expensive bike that you were really excited about getting. I didn't cry when I found out it was you. Wheeeeee! This bike is awesome! *rub it in, rub rub*
EDIT: Excuse me he actually does slide in a 'thanks' at the end.

Trent:

Yes even Trent had some attitude problems. He was so unencouraging to Marvin at the beginnig. Also it sounds like he's not Marvins friend anymore (where he says ' You and your bike can have a happy life together') because of a bike?

Anyway enough depressing negativeness.

Good things about this episode were:

The pizza making copier! Reference to previous AIO episode!

Thats all I can think about now...

Oh and the good morale!

I love this ep! Whit is so...so...Whitty! Yeah, that's it! He's so whitty in this ep! I love how he's behind the counter and how he gives advice. And I also really like Marvin in this ep. He's starting to sound more and more like Xavier. Grady and Trent weren't the very best though, sadly. They sounded pretty grumpy. However, I liked Samantha in this one, as she seemed to be, well, natural.

Haystack

VERY GOOD! I slept late so I missed the first like, 2 minutes so all I caught was something about headaches and drumsticks beating on Grady's head and throwing something out of a moving car and Grady buying Marvin new drumsticks. Ya, so that part confused me. Other than that, it was good. I LOVE Samantha! She is SO adorable--well, I've never SEEN her, but her voice is adorable! And very natural..."Mommy can just write a check for it!" Ah, the innocence of little children....

The acting and directing of this one could have been a little better but I really liked the writing.

I thought they did a great job of coming up with both sides of how God works common miracles, and how following God's will or God's call on your life impacts a lot of people not just you.

*seconds the post above*

*waits for someone to complain about yet another reference to Whit's Flop*

I really enjoyed the moral of this episode. I, for one, think that there can never be too many episodes about prayer. It's so important! I really liked the focus on God talking back to people.

Marvin: "Doesn't God tell Peter not to give his horse to a Gentile, or something like that?"
Whit: "I don't remember that passage."
Marvin: "Maybe that was the movie version."

I loved those lines! They were just so random! I laughed right out loud.

4/5

Totally agree.

Haystack

I really enjoyed this episode.
I gave it 5 stars. I actually thought the part with Marvin wondering if God was really speaking to him was realistic.

Grady throwing Marvin's drum sticks out the bus window reminds me of the time one of my classmates threw another classmate's sock out the window on the way back from a bay field trip. The sock was soaked with bay water and pretty dingy, and I couldn't stop laughing. However, my teacher, like the bus driver, was pretty stern…

Like others, I enjoyed the moral, but the episode seemed somewhat disjointed. Marvin drumming on Grady's head seemed a little too zany. I also wouldn't have had Grady buy a lottery ticket. Where did he get it!?

The lessons about prayer and how God works were good. As Karin noted, Marvin's struggle was realistic. Grady's struggle was realistic, too, even if elementary, for example saying that God didn't really answer the prayer because Marvin gave him the bike. He's young, though. I guess it was good to add that in there after all. Also, I enjoyed the part when the trash truck took away Marvin's old bike in front of Grady's house.

3/5

5 out of 5. The lesson!! My mind was making up a Sunday School class based on that episode while I was listening! It's SO important for kids (and for us older ones as well) to understand what prayer REALLY is, and how God speaks to us. This episode illustrates that well, and I really think I'll use it for Sunday School sometime if I can.

At first, I was a bit uneasy about this episode, but Whit's point about listening to God and not just talking to him won me over. Definitely a 5. Although I'm still not to sure about Grady, I enjoyed his interaction with Trent and Marvin. And I loved Samantha in this episode! I agree, she sounded very natural. Overall, a great episode.

Probably Rodney.

I was doing several things at once while listening to this ep, so I'll probably have to listen to it again before I can rate it, but from what I heard, I enjoyed it.

I'd stated a few weeks ago how I really wished the current kids would interact with each other more, so it great to have Marvin, Trent, and Grady in an episode together. Although I always thought of Marvin as being in middle school and Grady in grade school, so it seemed odd to have them on the bus together.

I again liked Whit's part in this episode. There's been some good writing for him lately.

I can't remember exactly how it ended, but I think I liked it.

One thing that stuck out as being out of place was the lottery ticket. Grady is what? 9, maybe now 10 years old? There is no way that someone would sell him a lottery ticket. And if the McKay's are so poor, where would he get the money to buy one? That was probably the main thing that bothered me.

Anyway, like I said, I'll have to listen to it again before I can give complete thoughts or a rating, but I say it was a nice episode for AIO's 600th.

Well since Odyssey is suppose to be a small town they may have the grade school kids and middle school kids on the same bus, just a thought.

Anways, I really think this is a great moral for kids to learn how to listen to God and I think it was very realistic and humorous when Marvin would ask for a sign from God. I liked Whit giving out advice to Marvin and Grady and they finally snuck in a little bit of the pizza making copy machine!

Grady appeared to be a very bad mood to throw something out of a moving bus! Which I thought to be a little unrealistic, but I did like Samantha's small role as well.

4/5 mostly because of the moral not that I didn't enjoy the episode

Well I think that normally Grady would have been fine with Marvin drumming on his seat, and I think that normally he wouldn't have thrown drumsticks out the window, but his bike just got run over and I think that he was in a bad mood. Then, getting kicked off the bus and having to walk put him in a even worse mood so, he was a little rude after that; although of course he shouldn't have, I might, in his position, do the same thing.

I have a feeling that the lottery ticket was more of a plant for a later storyline plot.

How so?