Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

Today was our Cub Scout pack’s Blue & Gold dinner.
I know, most packs do theirs in February. Not us… and no, I don’t know why.
Most packs also move their boys up a rank in May or June - not us.  Ours is at the last meeting in August, right before school starts and all the roundups start happening again. Again, I’m not sure why.

Brendon got his Tiger badge tonight, a few beads, and 2 activity discs!
Kelsey got his Bear badge, all 4 of his progress beads at once, a gold arrow and 4 silver arrows, and his Whittlin’ Chip card!
Woohoo!!
Mike and I both got certificates for being leaders, and both boys got to finally pin me. :)  (For some reason when Kelsey got his Bobcat badge they didn’t call me up to get pinned, and when Brendon got his Bobcat badge I was home with a sick baby.)
They also both got a bunch of other patches, and since I’m not even caught up from the last batch of patches they got, I’m gonna be sewing for weeks. (I hand-sew them on, Mom has my sewing machine. Hrmm. Maybe I’ll just ask Mom to sew ‘em, LOL)

This is for Jeanine, Mike’s sister - she’ll get a chuckle out of this:
 
I know, he doesn’t have all of his patches sewn on; he just hasn’t gotten around to it. I think he’s going to end up velcroing them on. 

I couldn’t resist posting this one either. See why I love my Dad so much?

He’s such a goof.
Don’t you love the girl sitting behind him on her cellphone at the pack’s most important dinner with all of our dignitaries and such there? Argh.

Brendon turns 7 on Wednesday (ack) and so the Monday after that, he’ll be moving into the Wolf den. The leaders of the Tiger and Wolf den are husband and wife, and they don’t mind if he moves up sooner than our super-late August ceremony.  Brendon can’t wait to get started; he’s already pulled all of Kel’s old Wolf outfit stuff (hat, kerchief, slide) out and has it sitting ready in his room. Kelsey, however, has to wait until it’s officially official, because the Webelo leaders are sticklers for that kind of thing.  It doesn’t matter, we’ll still get him his Web I book and start working from that this summer.

I made 3 dozen deviled eggs for the dinner and was so frazzled by the time it was over (4 hours after we got there) that I forgot to bring the leftovers home with us. We did get a nice big cake in the shape of a volcano from the cake raffle, though.  It even has a cup in it for making a dry ice eruption (which was done at the dinner to many Oohs and Aaahs), but alas, I have no dry ice, and I’m sure the boys would just rather eat it, anyway.

My boys did good!

PS - Oh, I forgot to mention. All morning Brendon was saying he didn’t feel well, but he didn’t have a fever and was in a good mood so we didn’t keep him home. (It was gonna be a BIG day for him!) Well, he was right. He ended up vomiting on the floor  at the dinner. Luckily, things hadn’t gotten started yet and there weren’t that many people there. We quickly cleaned it up (he somehow completely missed himself) and he immediately felt better. Alex and Kelsey have both been sick this past week, so I guess it was just his turn. The other moms were telling me there’s been a stomach virus going around the schools, so I’m thinking they caught it from the kid across the street that they play with.  I just hope it’s over, I hate it when the boys are sick.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!

On the door of a big white delivery truck:
“Wartsila Lips, Inc.”
That’s one product I don’t think I’d want to put onto my lips. There were no graphics of any kind on any part of the truck; just the company name and address on the door. So I have NO idea what was in that truck, and I’m too tired to be curious and Google the company name.

Speaking of the Big G, Google has used its Correction: A cool company called Int2e has used Google Maps technology to start mapping the World of Warcraft. Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat. They’re planning on mapping other MMORPGs, too. I wonder if they’ll do Runescape, or if they’ll skip it because there’s no virtual-to-real-world currency exchange? (Man oh man, if I could cash in my Runscape gold… hooyah, baby!)

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!

Earlier this year, when I found out how much vacation time hubby had accrued, I wistfully sighed about how nice it would be to take that time and go camping out west, visiting all of the neat sites and learning so much.

Hubby said we wouldn’t have the money to do it. Gas prices and campground fees would just be too much.

Later that week, I mentioned the idea to my Dad; just a “wouldn’t that be cool?” kind of thing. When he left about 20 minutes later, he said “You know, if we go camping, I’ll have to trade in the Avalanche on a Suburban or a Tahoe.” He was hooked.

We’ve traded a few emails back and forth about how we’d go about it. Take our van, rent a van, trade in his Avalanche on something bigger, full-tent camping, tow his 30-foot camper camping, full winnebago-style driving and camping. (Hey, two birds -and 10 oil fields- with one stone!)

I had been talking a bit to the kids about it here and there. Kelsey, being the budding paleontologist, immediately seized upon the idea as a great opportunity for visiting dig sites and looking for fossils all across the western states. He especially wants to go to the spot in South Dakota where they found Sue the T-Rex. He’d also like to see some real mesas and view the caves (I think that’s in New Mexico? Can’t remember).

Talking to Dad tonight, I found out he’s been doing more than just mulling this around in his head… he’s been actively planning the trip. He’s already got steady emails coming to him from the South Dakota tourist bureau, has plans for us to see Mt. Rushmore and Sue the T-Rex, and he wants to go to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon and walk out on their new all-glass skywalk.

The floor is made of glass, the sides are made of glass, and this thing is suspended 4,000 feet in the air. Yeesh. And get this - my father is afraid of heights! Talk about facing your fears head-on!

He even said in an email to me that going during the summer would be way too hot, but since the boys are homeschooled we could just go in the early fall when all the kids are back at school and have the spots more to ourselves. Yay Dad! (Maybe the gas prices will drop a bit after Labor Day, too. Man I hope so.)

Over the next few months we’ll be plotting out our route, finding things along the way we’d like to stop and see, and trying to decide if we’re going to go for two weeks, three weeks, or a full month. I’ll be scarfing up all kinds of car activities, audiobooks, and the like. A fellow Works-For-Me-Wednesday blogger had a great idea of getting a postcard from every stop and putting it in a brag book, rather than buying an expensive, useless, and clutterful souvenir. I’m all for that. Being homeschoolers, we’ll also of course have all kinds of learning things with us about the places we’ll be going. I’ll have to gather that together and print it up, too. I’ve already got a book requested through the library that’s a “dinosaur atlas”; a map book with all the spots of dinosaur finds marked on it. I’ll need to get one on just good general fossil digging spots, too.

So keep your fingers crossed for us. We’d really love to do this. Dad has had all the back surgeries he can have and his crushed discs aren’t getting any better - they’re quickly getting worse. His legs are in two states nowadays - numb or agony. Mom told me he wants to do it this year because he doesn’t think he’ll still be walking next year. He’s only 59. My Dad has always been the gentle giant - he’s six feet, four and a half inches tall, and usually about 240 pounds. Big man. To think that he’s sitting over there making plans with the thought that next year he’ll be in a wheelchair just kills me. Thinking of the weight that must be on his heart and mind kills me. I don’t care what we have to do - if he wants to do this, I’m doing it.

And of course I’ll be taking my camera and moblogging all the way.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!