Twilight Camp

I love Cub Scouts! I think it is one of the best things in the world for little boys...and for little girls too, but then there is that gender thing that gets in the way.

Last week was Cub Scout Twilight Camp, which is actually the same thing as Day Camp except it functions in the evening instead of during the day. Morgan got to go, and WOW at the things I learned about this kid! Another WOW for the ways he grew and changed! Let me tell you people, especially sisters, your boys don't need to ever miss out on this experience! LET THEM GO even if you have to pick up cans from the side of the road to pay for it. This is an experience for them like going on a mission is for a 19 year old. It is so worth it!

Do you see this child having a blast? Well guess what he did! He earned the second highest score shooting that BB gun of all the 70 boys who attended! Who knew he had it in him? See, I always thought Morgan was this spazoid kit who couldn't sit still long enough to even go to the bathroom. Then last Sunday, I subbed for his teacher at church and saw this shy boy sit and not speak for nearly an hour. I was stunned by that, but figured it was just him being on his best behavior in front of me. NOPE! Well it was, but it turns out that Morgan is actually a shy kid about a lot of things! He was so quiet during this whole past week that I had to keep my eyes on him just to be sure he was actually out there with me! And all that time we thought he wasn't paying any attention -- HE WAS! He shot on an NRA target. That means he had 5 shots. Highest he could score was 50 points. The target looks like this:
The circles are points. The center is 10 points, then 9 points, then 8 points and then 7 points. Anything outside that outer ring is 0 points. You get 5 shots and you have to score at least 35 points to be recognized by the NRA Junior Shooting Team. Morgan scored 43 points. Is he awesome or what??

Look at this kid!

Doesn't he look great? I'm so proud of him! And he learned so much too. See?

He went to camp as a nervous little spazoid with shy tendencies and came home with life experiences and REAL friends! He has this new confidence now too, and will sing for me! Imagine THAT! I'm stunned! Oh and check out intensely he can listen to someone and learn from them! This is probably the most shocking thing for me.

He doesn't even know I'm standing there.

The kids are divided into "dens" just like in cub scout meetings, and each den gives themselves a name and makes up a cheer. My boys named themselves the "Helping Hands" and their cheer goes: "We're the Helping Hands--The Mighty Mighty Hands--We help the earth by picking up cans" and they would chant this at the top of their lungs. Even Morgan did it! Each den cheered all evening long and at the end of the day, they competed for "the spirit stick". My boys got fixated on that spirit stick as if it was the only thing in the world that mattered. When they didn't win it the first night, they were disappointed. (Manti's group won it) The second night they tried harder and lost again. This REALLY disappointed them. The third night they were so dejected when they lost. The fourth night their hearts were ripped out and the last night they didn't see a reason to compete at all...... but they did it and gave it their very last breath. Look what happened!

Now that is a bunch of joyful noise! OH! We built the tallest box tower too! Check it out!

Yes citizens, there is definitely joy in Mudville.

Go to Cub Scout camp with your boys. You'll have as much fun as they do, and your heartstrings will get all yanked and tied in knots seeing your son grow and shine.

(Let me just add one more thing....videos!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyzFjlj5Sqs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=illUkZq-fDU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bhRjWlmCLM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CtDqL9yISo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sZ9wqGMiVU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CscS7IfKn6c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_gO3M2nf5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbY4arYtwnc

Playing

I like the way this background looks, but it doesn't work as nicely on my laptop as it does on my work computer. It's the screen resolution that causes that.

I'll get the hang of it sooner or later. Till i do,...let me just apologize ahead of time for making you work harder to read my blogs :) My groove is somewhere closeby,...I'll find it eventually.

Testifying of Plantain

...no...not the banana kind...plantain, the weed....its in YOUR yard too! It's everywhere! It's that little weed thing you used to pull the stem out of, wrap it around the seed head top and pop it off at your sister or brother. Remember that one?


That's plantain. Ok, to the story.


Tommy and I have a friend we've known a long time. He was even in our wedding party, so yeah,...long time. He has 4 horses and a mule that he loves -- and he has a toddler whom he also loves. The toddler got preference this week. Tim took him to the zoo....the one in SAN FRANCISCO! (Lucky kid!) So in the meantime, the horses need to be cared for. Manti and Mesa adore horses. Tim lives near us. This is a workable situation for all involved.


So we do the neighborly thing and learn the schedule these beasts are on and yesterday we show up at the barn to feed them and show them attention.

Manti and Mesa get the horses fed and are shovelling out the potty bizness from the stalls while Jared and Morgan watch. Jared decides he needs to water a tree and before he can get himself straightened back out, a bee flies up inside his t-shirt and stings him. He takes off like a wounded animal, screaming and slapping at his side and I take off after him hoping his outburst doesn't disturb those gigantic horses and crazy mule my two teens are walking around. I got hold of Jared and looked around me desperate to find some sort of weed that would help him at least to refocus till I could get him home and doctor his booboo.


Well I didn't see any of that kind in the top picture,...but I did see this broadleaf variety. So I picked a big fat leaf, dusted it off real quick and took a bite out of it. I chewed on it for a couple seconds and then pasted it onto Jared's side. I got him to hold it on with his hand for a few minutes while we walked back up the hill to the driveway where our car was. When we got there, Tim's mother was outside with one of her dogs. (She recently had some major surgery, so she can't care for the horses herself and didn't go on vacation with Tim.) We stopped and talked to her a minute. As we did, I noticed Jared (who is now shirtless) running around with no plantain poultice on his side. The sting spot had swelled up real fat and red with a bright red center where the little hole was glaring. I grabbed him by the hand and walked out into the yard a little ways till I found some more plantain. This time I got some like the one at the top of this page. I picked 3 leaves, chewed one and pasted it onto his side again and made him hold it there. He might have kept it on for a full 2 minutes before wiping it off. So I chewed another one, pasted it on and told him to HOLD IT THERE! He left that one for about 2 minutes before wiping it off too. We went through all the leaves I had picked in just a few minutes.

We left for home just after that, which takes 5 minutes by car. We got into the house and of course Jared had no poultice on him anywhere. Fortunately, I had made some plantain salve a few months ago. So I got out the jar of dark green ointment and smeared it on him and immediately covered it with a Handy Manny bandaid. Jared kept telling me he didn't know WHY he needed that,....his booboo was gone.

Today I'm at work, and Tommy had a doctors appointment. All the kids went with him (makes sense since Tommy can't drive yet) and on the way home, they stopped here to see me. I asked Jared to show me his bee sting. He has a red splotchy area, but there is NO whelp and there is NO hole in the middle. It's just a red splotch. He had forgotten about it till I asked! So no itch, no pain, no heat,.....

Plantain is amazing stuff!

I got tempted

I did it. I succumbed. I thought I never would, but I did. I hang my head in shame.

I have now joined Facebook.

Let's observe a moment of silence.

.........................................................

See, Tommy was looking for something or somebody (totally normal behavior for him) online, and in doing so, he came across this person who was my bestest friend when we lived in Idaho. She and I are TOTAL opposites,...even still...but I sure did love her! Every once in a while, something connected to her floats by me and I will miss her a lot. So seeing her picture over Tommy's shoulder just shook my heart up and I wanted to find her again. I didn't know he had JOINED FACEBOOK to find her! I've been saying I would never do that because Facebook is just DUMB..... but Tonya was too big a temptation and I had to do it.

And to make matters worse, I came across Barry and Marcia on there, and Wanda and John.... I got to see my kids playing around way more than they do in MySpace these days (which is the only reason I joined MySpace)...and to top that off, right away I had some folks ask to connect to me and that just shocked me. I guess I just assume everybody in the world hates me and I just put up with it. So yeah... SHOCKER!

I don't know if I lost my mind that day or not..time will tell.

July 4th Parade

It has been about 20 years since I marched in a parade. I'm SURE it's been that long since I marched the old parade route from Dairy Queen to Kmart. I had forgotten how much I love it...until this past weekend. What made it so great this time is that I made it without huffing and puffing, and all of my kids were in it with me. Even little Jared got all the way to the end!

I am a Boy Scout,....SERIOUSLY! I am an advisor for a Venturing Crew that is co-ed. So that requires a female advisor. You'll see Mesa is a Boy Scout too...official and everything! I'm so proud :) Look at our crew...well, part of our crew anyway. We had another member in the high school band in line behind us...another one was home sick,.... etc. So not ALL of our members could join us. We still look good, don't we?

Morgan isn't officially a Cub Scout yet, but he got invited to join Pack 33 in the parade, which made his day TOTALLY!

Our crew focuses on Native American history and traditions (we should be able to assist any troop with earning the "Indian Lore" merit badge). So that's partly why you see Manti in regalia. See me and Jared in the very back? Jared was smart....he was collecting candy from the road where the kids ahead of us were throwing it. His pocket was SLAM FULL!

Here is our family. Wish Tommy had been there too!