My Wolf Cub

In June, Isaac bridged from being a Tiger Cub to being a Wolf Cub. And what a wolf he has become! He has either a hollow leg or a tapeworm. Not sure which...he just eats and eats and eats. Our first year in Scouts was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to this coming year. We were able to attend Cub Scout Day Camp at the end of July and Maxwell even got to tag along. Both boys had lots of fun and Isaac was able to earn his Marbles, Ultimate (frisbee), and Wildlife Conservation beltloops. In addition to the beltloops he also earned his BB Gun, Archery, and Wildlife Conservation pins. That's a lot of work (and play) done in one week's time! No wonder why I was so exhausted every night.

I get to be involved in planning this next year as an Assistant Den Leader with Adrienne, our fearless Den Leader. And once again, I am the "Popcorn Kernel" for our Pack. This means that I am in charge of the popcorn fundraiser that our Pack does in September. I even have the opportunity to wear "the Corn Cob" hat. Now that will be something. I'll see if I can get that posted later. Adrienne and I were able to increase sales by almost 50% from the year before. This will be a hard goal to beat this year. But when you clean up those Cub Scouts and have all them dressed in uniform it makes it too hard to turn them down at the grocery stores when they ask "Would you like to buy some popcorn and support Scouting?" Who can resist that?

Hopscotching Grandma

Charlotte's friend, Shelly, lives in neighboring Norco and owns a horse. In May, Charlotte was able to make arrangements for Grandma C to ride Shelly's horse, Hopscotch. Grandma was in Seventh Heaven. After an emotional moment of her recalling lots of memories from her horse-owning days, we were able to get her up on the horse. Okay, it actually took us two tries to get her on the horse. Not bad considering she is 81 years old and has had a hip and knee replaced. We almost shoved her over the horse on the first attempt! Thank goodness for stepstools and a very patient horse.

As soon as Grandma was settled, Hopscotch took off. Luckily she is a seasoned rider and, believe it or not, Hopscotch was able to tell that and decided to mind her and not do his own thing. It must have been that "I'm the boss" tone she used. I'd behave too if I were the horse.

The boys and I were allowed to ride as well and the boys had a blast. I'd like to be able to get them some riding lessons when they are just a bit older and bigger. I think that they would really enjoy that.

Scout-o-rama

I took the boys to the Scout-o-rama in Orange County. Our council doesn't put one of these on for some odd reason. Michelle gave a us a family ticket to see the event. Wow! Another great childhood memory for me. Besides being super HOT we had fun. I was able to get Isaac and Alex on this ride with their cousins Webster and Tristan. Olivia and Dominique decided not to ride...the older boys scared them. It was nice to see my brothers all dressed up in their leader uniforms. I haven't seen Martin since last year and Baron since February 2006. They seem to be doing well. After the boys went on this we started walking the grounds to see the booth exhibits. They had a lot of cooking demonstrations, hands-on activities and booths where the boys could work on beltloops and pins. Alex and Isaac were able to earn their Astronomy Beltloop. I think that just made Isaac's day.

Pinewood Derby

Isaac participated in his Pack's Pinewood Derby last month. This brought back lots of childhood memories for me from both of my brothers. Isaac designed his car to look like the Space Shuttle. His car did fairly well for being his first year doing this event. He came in 8th in the Pack out of 19 participants. I'm not sure who has more fun with this event...the boys or the dads. It's pretty funny to watch all of them. One of the leaders made a "Cam Car" outfitted with a tiny camera. The boys loved seeing the footage from the "driver's seat".

Cowboy Up for Jesus

I was able to be a volunteer for the Adult disAbilities Day Camp at my church. Wow! What a day! 12 hours of fun. The theme was "Cowboy Up for Jesus" and everything we did was fun. The campers were able to make crafts, learn about Peter, sing songs, play games and have 3 wonderful meals. I have never worked with disabled adults before and boy were they fun! The boys and I have been serving in the children's disAbilities ministry for the last year and they are a lot different to work with. Anyhow, I had a ton of fun and hope to be able to do more with the adults at their events coming up this year.

Treasure...Me Heartys

Tonight was Isaac's Feller Cake Bake fundraiser for Cub Scouts. This event is a "guys only" event. The scout has to find a guy to make a cake with...no help from moms. He and Dad made this fabulous treasure chest cake. It was made out of Devil's food cake, milk chocolate frosting, milk chocolate drops, root beer licorice vines, milk chocolate coins, and Hershey's Nuggets for the handles. It sold for $21. Yippee! In all, the Cub Scouts raised about $600 in cake sales. Other scouts' cakes were race tracks with cars, monster truck races, Yosemite mountain (very well done...sold for $55), a ladybug, a turtle, Spongebob, a popcorn container (another one very well done), and many others. We combined our bid with our friends, Darla and Kyle, to win the monster truck cake for $45. Wow! At least it's for a very good cause. I think Isaac had a lot of fun making this with his dad and really enjoyed the auction.

Easter at Dar's House

Happy Easter! Well after keeping Grandma C up til midnight last night, we went to Dar's house for Easter lunch. Everyone had to find the egg with their own name on it and then five more eggs. And the added bonus was that Dar hid two money-filled eggs, one gold with $10 and one silver with $5. I was the lucky gold egg finder. Unfortunately I had to give my money to the boys. I guess this is the life of a mom. Aireyelle found the silver one. Yay for the girls! Grandma found her own egg and the boys ended up helping her find the rest.

Jeff's brother, Jack, called in while we were there. It was raining in Eugene, Oregon. Kind of wish that happened here. It had to be at least 80 in Huntington Beach. The chocolates in the eggs started to melt. I also talked to Yvonne and she said that it was around 30 degrees when she woke up. She's hoping for our warm weather to drift her way. Lunch was great and for dessert we had Isaac's trial run of his Feller Cake for Scouts. It wasn't too bad. I'll be posting the final cake in a week or so when he enters it in the Feller Cake Bake.