Ode to an chair. Scout time

Last week I had to take my lazyboy recliner out to a curve. Last year, one month after the warranty expired, the springs broke and after applying some redneck ingenuity (bungie cords) I got another year out of it when the plywood frame cracked. So now I have the old black metal rocker that we got when Nate was born and I put an old roller desk I got at a company sale in the playroom. So sorry Dad - next time you come over you will be in the black metal rocker. Personally I like it better but I'm not sure if it will be a good sleeper.

The first day of cub scouts went well. We picked up four new wolf scouts and may pick up some more with the Fall Rally at Nate's school. So we may have to break up the wolf scouts (1st graders) into two groups as we already have a dozen scouts and only one den leader (moi). God the things I do for the kids.

Speaking of sacrifice Lexi had her first girl scout meeting last week and Chris is one of the two assistant leaders (they have one leader and two assistants). The dealing with groups of people has not gotten to her yet as that has been overpowered by the fact that all the meetings are late at night and Chris hates driving in the dark. But like I said it one of the things we do for the kids.

Popcorn and school

Well the kids have been enjoying school. Lexi got the same kindergarden teacher that Nate had (poor Mrs. Riggs ). Nate is having a great time in second grade as well. He got to go to the "big kid" section of the library last week to check out books but the problem is he is already reading some of Chris' mystery books so he ended up checking out two Hardy Boys books he already read.

The cub scouts popcorn"Show and Sell" is almost over with. We did WalMart and Kroger this weekend. Nate was a real trooper. I could tell he really did not want to be there today but he hung in there and sold popcorn. Next weekend we are doing one day at Lowes and then we are done. After that we will be doing "Take order" so expect an email from Nate in a couple of weeks :)

Six flags - sorry no pics

Nate had a free ticket to six flags as part of the reading challenge he took in first grade. I had planned to take a weekday off just before school started and we could all go up. But then we noticed that the tickets expired 8/9 so I took last Thursday off and we went up there. The kids loved it but Chris and I are definitely showing our age - I had blisters on my feet (odd considering I do multi-mile hikes with the cub scouts) and despite hitting every water ride in the park Chris almost got heat exhaustion. I did not take the camera so no pics here - sorry.

This weekend Nate's cub scout group went to a Paleontology dig that UTA is doing in Arlington. The kids had a real good time with that. I posted those pics on our photo site - enjoy!

June update

Well the first month of summer vacation was good for the kids. Almost drove Chris batty because there were no activities planned and they were home all day but we survived. Three of the four weekends Nate volunteered with his cub scout troop at a food bank helping to carry out food. I don't think he really grasped the significance of him helping out but regardless I am very proud of him volunteering.

July starts up swim lessons. Chris has a doctors appointment Monday so I get to take them to their first class – yay. I almost think Chris planned this. And August will be cub scout popcorn sales (which I got volunteered to run – yay). In case you have not caught on the yays are sarcastic.

We just finished up a trip to my parents. The kids had a great time. Friday we went to a drive through safari. Who would have thought that they had those in East Texas! Mostly it was deer (no surprise) but there were also buffalo, antelope, llamas, elk, camels and emus. There was also an alligator pond but we took a wrong turn and missed that part. The part the kids enjoyed the most was feeding the animals. Each person get a bag of animal feed to throw out to the animals – we were advised to throw not hand out the food because some of the animals liked the hands more than the food . Most of the animals would come up to the van as we threw out the food. The funnest part was when we drove up to a big pond with ducks. The ducks (and turtles!) came out of the water to get the food we threw out. Several large catfish came up close to the shore to try and get some food. I was able to throw some food out far enough to get into the water and the fish went right after it. In that part was some of the biggest squirrels I have ever seen. I swear they were bigger than small dogs.

After that we came home and after a small rest we went out to dinner at Dairy Queen. I took my laptop to take advantage of the free wifi they had there. Mom has dial-up (shudder) so I tried to take the opportunity to convince her that her next computer should be a cheap laptop that she could take to Dairy Queen and McDonalds and do her email and internet surfing there. Overall I think that worked but the (small) flaw in the plan is that if she has to get another computer it would almost have to be a laptop because I don't think they make computers with modems anymore (and mom is not one to spring money for a high speed connection when there is free wifi in a place she goes to several times a week – sigh).

be careful what you ask for

This week Nate and Lexi are in Twilight camp. Its a week long camp from 2:30-8:30 where all the cubscouts are broken up into smaller groups and each group does different activities throughout the day. For Lexi they have a tot lot where they play at the playground for the day.

Well the rule is that for each child you bring from your pack you need to have one person working the camp for one day. So for Nate and Lexi someone from our pack needed to work two days, and since I had plenty of vacation days left I volunteered for Wednesday and Thursday.

Now I made the mistake of putting a blurb in my out of office email message explaining that I was at camp to "say a prayer for me".

Well I have to say the first half of Wednesday was pure heaven. I was chaperone with a fifth grade group with three other adults (two of them police officers so we had the crowd control aspect covered). And all the activities planned for the day were archery and bb guns (so we just stood aside and watched).

But then the storm hit...

The whole day was cloudy and we were keeping track of the weather from one of the chaperone's iPhone when they told us at dinner that we would cut the dinner entertainment to try and get out before the storm hit. Then, when we were heading out for the first activity after dinner, they called us back because they posted a tornado warning. So we gathered up all the kids and called all the parents and as soon as the last child in our group was picked up we left.

Now where Wednesday was heaven (if you can take out the whole bad weather thing) Thursday was hell. Because of the weather the camp was held indoors. So now we had a bunch of kids locked indoors with nothing to do when their activity was done (cat herding must be easier than kid herding). But we survived another day.

Lexi has the flu - misses graduation

Poor Lexi caught the flu that has been going around. We know she has had it bad because she does not even want bread (she is a carb addict).

Because she has been running a fever all week she missed her last week of school and tonight she had to miss her graduation. So I went up to her school after I gave the kids their baths and picked up her papers and graduation cap and shirt.

It seems to be the same flu Nate had. Her fever is already going down and the cough started yesterday. If it gets too bad we may take her to the doctor next week but all they will do is give a stronger cough syrup.