Camp Update

Jacob made it back from Boy Scout Camp yesterday.  He was seriously tired,  kinda filthy from not showering for 10 days (apparently, the pool and lake are good enough) and he'd lost some weight (10 pounds to be exact) but he looked great and seemed to stand a little taller.  Not like he got taller but like he was more confident.  He seemed as relieved to be home as we were to have him home.  Jacob and Mike shared story after story about camp...most revolved around the fact that the other troops were annoyed with how spirit filled our troop was.

A good deal of the kids in our troop woke up Sunday morning with orange paint all over their faces.  Some of the kids in the Mic-O-Say tribe (the honor society for our district) thought it would be fun to paint the faces of some of the younger scouts while they were sleeping.  Jacob wasn't amused.  Sounds pretty funny to me. 

Overall, Jacob had a great time and walked out of camp as a Tenderfoot.  Yeah, I didn't know what that was either.  It's the second rank in Boy Scouts.  The ranks go:  New Scout, Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, Eagle.  Mike only made it to Second Class so once Jacob hits that milestone, he will have tied him.  If (Jacob says, "when," since he says he's going to get his Eagle) he hits First Class, he'll have gone farther.  Nice.  I hope he does get his Eagle.   

I got the pleasure of washing everything.  We encountered 4 spiders and countless ticks as we washed everything...in blazing hot water.  My poor washer was very tired by the end of the day. 

Speaking of ticks, I was joking around with Mike about a tick check last night as he was heading up to bed.  He said he was fine and I headed outside to watch the incoming thunderstorm with Jacob.  A second later, Mike opens the door and says he does have a tick.  Can I help pull it off?  Sure.  I head inside and grab some alcohol.  After further inspection, we discovered three more ticks that had latched on.  One on his back, one on his stomach, one on his hip and one on his leg.  The one on his leg had been there for a while and actually backed itself out when we put alcohol on it.  The others were more stubborn and had to be pulled out.  Gross.  I hate ticks. 

Next up to camp is Daniel.  I'm breaking out the DEET.

Finally Photos!!!

I'm finally able to post photos!!! It only took me two days. Oh well. Here they are!

This makes me nervous.  The campsite (think unit from Girl Scout Camp) Storm Shelter.  Yeah. 

Jacob by his tent on the "younger boys'" side of camp. 


Jacob and his homesick tent mate, Shane.  I don't know if you can tell he'd been crying. 


Inside their tent.  What a mess!

The Ico.  This is the gas station/general store/ice cream parlor.  The line was for ice cream, which seemed to make an elderly gentleman with a gas can agitated since that one pump was right by the line.  

The Toad Suck.  I don't know if it was even open since the lot was pretty deserted. 

The kids at Osceola Cheese. What a great place!

Family Day at Boy Scout Camp

Sunday was Family Day at camp. It was a long drive down and back, but it was awesome to see Jacob again. We drove through a bunch of teeny, tiny towns in Missouri, which was fun. The little town outside of the camp is called Iconium. It had a cemetery, a gas station (one pump)/grocery store/ice cream parlor, a "restaurant" (hot dogs and root beer floats), a fire station and two houses. The sign outside of town said, "Iconium Population abuot 16." Yep. "About" was misspelled.

Jacob seems to be doing well. He is homesick, but not like his tent mate, Shane. That poor kid was crying when his parents arrived. He also holed himself up in the car for a while. Shane was pleading his case to his dad, who kept telling him that it was going to be fine and that he really doesn't want to go home, to which Shane would say, "you keep saying that but it's not true!" Poor kid. Out of all the kids there, I really thought it would be Jacob that would be demanding to be taken home.

In typical camp fashion, the only dirty laundry I took home with me was one shirt and the pair of underwear he'd been wearing since Thursday night that I made him take off. Note to self, you do not need to pack 8 shirts, 6 pairs of shorts, 12 pairs of socks and 11 pairs of underwear that you packed for Jacob's 10 day camping trip. At least they've been swimming everyday. I seriously wanted to rip the Class A uniform he was wearing off of him. I think that thing's going to be walking all by itself by the end of camp.

We were able to take Jacob into "town" (Osceola...pop. 800) to the cheese store. That was so much fun. What was even better was that I scored some cheese curds and a 12-pack of peach Nehi. Next time, I think we'll skip the Nehi and get more cheese curds.

I wish I could post pictures but Blogger's being stupid lately. I'll try again tomorrow.

Off to Camp

Jacob left for Boy Scout camp this morning. He was so excited about going, especially since he was going alone with his friends. The first 5 or so days, he'll be there alone and then Mike will come down on Wednesday and stay until the end. It was sad to watch them load up the bus and then head out, but I know he'll have fun. Here are photos from this morning.

Jacob and Jack hang out while waiting for the bus.
A photo of all of the first year Scouts that are heading out to camp for the first time.
All of the boys from Jacob's school. Jack, Shane, Dean, Jacob and Andrew.
Waiting to get on the bus. Jacob and all of his friends lined up quickly and an Eagle Scout came over to tell them that, as first year Scouts, they'd be the LAST to get on the bus. It was pretty funny.
Still waiting.
Jacob was the very LAST Scout to board the bus. He didn't care, though. He got a seat next to his friend, Shane, in the very front. They were very happy.
And the bus heads out. It was everything we could do to NOT hop into our cars and follow.
We will be heading down on Sunday for Family Day. I can't wait to see the camp!

Photo Post

Here's what we've been up to this month...in pictures!

Jacob playing 2nd base
Jacob batting

Hannah's music program

Daniel's pack graduation cookout
Bears becoming Webelos I
Getting the new neckerchief
Playing spoons at the Daisy campout
S'mores!
Hungry Daisys!
Getting ready for a hike
Brownie Bridging. Make new friends but keep the old...
Hannah crosses the bridge and earns her Brownie pins

Hannah's troop leader made this cake. Isn't it adorable? She even gave the girls patches for their smocks!
We still have 5th Grade Farewell and the last day of school this week, so I'm sure I'll be posting more photos!

When Is Summer????

It's been a long month. That's not to say it hasn't been good, but it's been long. Spring Break has come and gone, which is sad. Bobbi and Ed were here for the week and we did a lot of things that we never do on our own.

We visited the World War I monument and museum...the only one of it's kind in the country. We all enjoyed that one. The only problem was that there were so many challenges to my fear of heights.

Of course, the kids wanted to go up to the top of this. Okay. I've been up in the Arch. How bad could this be? Ummm...it's open at the top. AAAAAAAAACCCCCCKKKKK!!!!!! But, I went up and even looked over the side. However, I did think I was going to be sick the entire time and the kids told me I was a buzzkill. Oh well.
















Here's the view of downtown Kansas City from the top.















Oh, and when you walk in, there's this.
















Pretty, right? Each poppy represents 1,000 soldiers that lost their lives in the war. Of course, that's covered with Plexiglas and you have to walk over it to get to the actual museum. And, it's fairly high up. Like a story up. *sigh* Is it sad that Hannah held my hand as I walked, eyes closed, over it? Oh well.

We also went to Kaleidoscope (a children's craft type thing by Hallmark) and Crown Center. It was neat to see the Hallmark Visitor's Center...we got to see them actually make a card. Jacob really liked that.

Interestingly, it snowed 10 inches at the end of the weekend. This weather never ceases to amaze me.

Jacob has started baseball and he loves it. His coach says that Jacob's already the most improved player on the team. His first outdoor practice (they've just been doing batting practice) is tomorrow. I guess it's a good sign that Jacob keeps asking to go to the batting cages. The last time he played, he wanted nothing to do with any of it.

Hannah started soccer again tonight. She just loves soccer. Half of her team from the fall left but there are still 12 girls playing. I have a feeling they'll be back in the fall. I think many of them are playing softball.

Daniel bought himself a pair of roller blades with his birthday money and I swear that's the best $30 I've ever seen anyone spend. That boy is constantly on them. He took them with us to Hannah's soccer practice tonight and skated around the playground for the entire hour. He's getting really good. He and many of his friends play street hockey after school, so he's been begging for a hockey stick. The trouble is, I can't find one. And I'm not spending a fortune on one at the hockey store at the ice rink. Someone suggested Toys R Us...eventually I'll get there.

Jacob crossed over to Boy Scouts last week. I cried the entire meeting. They had some boys from the Order of the Arrow come and help with the Arrow of Light ceremony, which was awesome.
Jacob with his Arrow of Light Award
Our former pack leader asks Jacob which Boy Scout troop he'd like to join
Crossing over
His new troop is there to welcome him. They outfitted them with their new neckerchiefs.

We also celebrated Hannah's 7th birthday on Sunday. I don't know where the time has gone. How is it that she's already 7? I think I'm being punked. I haven't uploaded the photos yet but I will soon.

Also, Happy Passover to all of my Jewish friends and family.

Monday

I'd had all these plans for today but my friend, Teresa introduced me to My Town on Facebook and all those plans went out the window. Stupid Facebook games.

My big win, however, was that I finally got the kids' bathtub unclogged. It's so nice to see water finally swirl down the drain and actually disappear. Yay me. I think Wednesday is toilet day. I need to replace the innards of the toilet in the master bath. It's just worn out and just runs and runs. I finally had to turn the water to it off. It's just laziness that I haven't fixed it before now. If I could just figure out how to get the cover off the light in our bedroom, I could actually have real light in there. *sigh*

We started plotting out our summer and plugging in definite dates. Daniel's Webelos camp is in July and Jacob has Boy Scout camp for 10 days in June. He's so excited...I'm getting seriously upset. It makes me sad. He becomes an official Boy Scout later this month. Where has the time gone?

I ordered a few plants from Spring Hill Nursery the other night. Of course, they won't be delivered until it's time to plant them but I'm excited. I ordered a coneflower grab-bag for the back garden. I'm really excited for that garden. This is the 4th summer for that garden and things have spread out so nicely. The black-eyed susans are the best part of the whole thing. They cover the whole middle. I've never been able to get daisies to grow so they died off a few years ago. The coneflowers have done well and they do well with very little watering. I can't wait to see how my roses do this year. I always get compliments on them. I just hope my Russian sages come back. I accidentally hit them with some Roundup last year and they all but died.

I'm also excited for the strawberry plants I ordered. I can't seem to grow a vegetable to save my life so I thought I'd try some fruit. My tomato planters from last year will grow petunias or something this year. Why can't I grow veggies?!?

We finally got the date for Daniel's second opinion...in July. We're on the list to get in earlier, so hopefully we will.

Two more days until Spring Break. :)

And The Winner Is...

We had the Blue and Gold Banquet tonight. We had a good time. We sat with good friends and we found out, pretty early on, that we won the centerpiece contest. Yay for the three-peat! I think we should just retire now...give the other 10 dens a shot! :) Here are photos...

Hannah and Katie
Jacob, Daniel and Michael
Den 6 centerpiece
Den 7 Centerpiece
Jacob's den at their last Blue and Gold together
Daniel won a Cheesecake Factory gift card
Den 7...moving on to Boy Scouts. Every one of these boys earned their Arrow of Light
Den 6 minus 2 boys.
Den 6 with their work.