Ben's Crossing Over

One of the perks of turning 11 is moving up from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.  To celebrate, we had crab for dinner, Ben's favorite!  Actually, it wasn't really a planned celebration, it just so happened that Brad's business partner, Mark, brought him six crab that day.  But a spontaneous celebration is sometimes even better than a planned one!

Ben also earned his arrow of light, and since I was the one who painted the arrows, I got to award them to the boys.

Four boys turned 11 in October and they all got to cross over together.

Ben, Greysen, Blake, and Hiram:

Their Webelos leaders, Dennis and Whitney Manning, have been so amazing!  They said they will really miss all the boys.  Dennis leading Ben along the ceremonial path to Boy Scouts:

Being welcomed by the Scout Master, who also happens to be his Grandpa!

Explaining some of the responsibilities of Scouting to the new Scouts:

Awarding pins to the moms:

Proud Grandpa!  Hopefully he will be Scout Master for a few more years, at least until Ben gets his Eagle!

Our Last Pinewood Derby

After five previous Pinewood Derbies, spanning the years 2001 to 2012 (with a gap between 2004 to 2010) and not even coming close to producing a winner, Brad and Ben decided this year they would go with STYLE!

Thus, the Mystery Machine was born!

I think Ben still secretly harbored visions of victory...

seeing his car lined up with all the others...

but after his first race against The Lightsaber, The Batmobile, and The Alien Invasion,

watching his Mystery Machine groove down the track, he realized STYLE is the way to go!

The Mystery Machine definitely had a distinct shimmy and totally captured the essence of grooviness.

On a side note, I was asked to make awards for the Den winners.  I came up with these beauties, thanks to Pinterest!  Can you tell they're supposed to be race cars?  

Rain Gutter Regatta

Our Cub Scout Pack had their first Rain Gutter Regatta this month.  Ben was able to construct his boat almost entirely by himself, which is a big difference from the Pinewood Derby, where it takes a lot of adult help.  He decided on a Captain America theme, which was great since we had the paint from Jillian's Halloween costume. 

Ben and his boat

 The Rain Gutter Regatta is all about who has the most hot air!  It was double elimination, with separate brackets for the Wolves, Bears, and Webelos.  Then the winners from each den competed for Ultimate Champion.

Here's one of Ben's first races...he's apparently got a lot of hot air, because he won 1st place for the Webelos.

Waiting to race.

Here he's competing for 2nd place over-all with the winner of the Wolves.

Getting his medal for 2nd place!

Cub Scout Day Camp

Cub Scout Day Camp is four days full of:

Wood shop...

BB Guns...

Cooking...

Obstacle Courses...

Archery...

Crafts...

Games...

FUN!!!

Cub Scout Field Trip #5--Gymnastics Room

This may have been our most brilliant idea yet!  May's Cub Scout theme is Health and Fitness.  For our first activity of the month, we took the boys up to the high school track to complete some physical fitness challenges such as the softball toss, the long jump, sit-ups, push-ups, and 50 yard dash.  Potentially fun, but in reality, extremely exhausting. (For the leaders, not the boys!)

To start things off, the boys' lacrosse team was practicing on the field, so we tried to stay on the far back side out of their way.  There's a big net that stretches across the back of the field, protecting innocent passers-by from stray balls.  Stray balls happen to collect near the bottom of this net, so what did our boys want to do?  Pick up all the balls and throw them at each other, of course.  These balls are hard, and it hurts when you get hit with one.  They were running around like the crazy 9 year-olds they are, trying to tag each other with lacrosse balls, paying no attention to their frazzled den leaders who were trying to keep them in some kind of order so we could actually accomplish something.  The lacrosse coach came over and none too kindly reminded us that we might get hit by a stray ball, so it would be better to move away from the field.  In other words, "Get those boys out of here! They're distracting my team!"

So we moved away to the grassy area to do the softball toss.  The boys really enjoyed this.  So much so that they didn't want to do anything else.  They were supposed to have two tries, but kept begging for just one more.  We could have spent the rest of the time tossing the softball, which is great, but they're supposed to be accomplishing certain achievements, so we had to pry them away to do the next thing. Since the lacrosse team was still on the field, which is surrounded by the track, we decided to do the 50 yard dash in the grass field behind the baseball field, which is a bit of a walk from the track.  We've already discovered that walking anywhere with these boys is like herding squirrels.  By the time we got them all in some semblance of a line to start the race, it was time to head back to the church, which is another walk through a playground with a huge slide.  Squirrels, I tell you.  They see the nut (the slide) and scatter, racing frantically towards it, trying to beat the other squirrels to the prize. When one squirrel reaches it and they realize they can't all go down at the same time, they spot another nut (the monkey bars) and dash towards that, and quickly disperse from there, leaving two out-of-breath den leaders in their wake.

So, when it came time to figure out the field trip this month, I had a flash of inspiration.  The boys' gymnastic coach is in our ward, so I called him up and asked if it might be possible for the boys to visit the gymnastics room and have a mini-gymnastics class. "Sure!" he said, and for a small fee ($5.00 for each boy) he arranged a coach for an hour to teach the boys the basics. All I had to do was stand there and take pictures! The boys loved it!

Check out that handstand!

And that tuck-jump!

And those ring-skills!

Skinning the cat

Bouncing on the tumble-track

Falling into the mat (not quite sure if this is a required element...)

"I believe I can fly!"

Working towards an Iron Cross!

More ring-skills

And the best part was that afterwards, they were the ones who were exhausted, not me!

Cub Scout Field Trip #4--Art Walk

I had a brilliant idea for this month's Cub Scout field trip...an Art Walk!  One of their requirements is to go to an art gallery or museum, and the thought of taking seven crazy nine-year-old boys into an enclosed space with expensive art made me hyperventilate, so I thought, "Winslow has some cool outdoor art, we should keep them outside and let them explore it."  Sounds like a wonderful idea, doesn't it?  Ha!  It was like trying to take a herd of squirrels on a walk.

This is the "Rainbringer" totem pole at the round-about on Madison and High School Roads.   I want to know why don't we have a "Sunbringer" totem pole instead?  This was our second stop.  Our first stop at the glass mural outside Ordway was so out of control that I totally forgot I had a camera with me.  At least here there was the threat of cars zipping around the round-about to keep them in line.

This is the pool in the library garden.  Of course all they wanted to do was try to fish the coins out of the pond.  

Here's the cute little otter statue, also in the library garden.  You can see how much they loved it.

From the library, we walked down Madison Avenue.  All the way down the street, the boys picked dandelions and chanted, "Mama had a baby and her head popped off!" while popping the tops off the flowers.  I don't even know how many times Whitley and I told them to quit it.  

A little farther down the road are these really cool driftwood sculptures.  A block before we got there, I stopped the boys and told them that these sculptures are for sale and they were NOT allowed to go near them.  Fortunately they listened, because this horse is selling for $2,000.

I didn't get close enough to the dragon to see it's price...but it sure is cool!

Next stop, City Hall.  Finn managed to squeeze himself under these "blackberry vines," and proceeded to mimic an alien attack...I didn't think it was appropriate to encourage him by taking a picture.

More sculptures at City Hall.  The boys weren't quite sure what to make of them, but at least they didn't climb all over them.

This water pump was the definite favorite.  They spent about 20 minutes taking turns figuring out the foot pump...you have to step on it just right to get the water flow steady enough to take a drink, otherwise you get sprayed!

Finn mastered it and kindly helped the other boys take a drink.  I know he was tempted to stomp on the pedal and soak everyone, but thankfully he controlled himself.  

Daniel, Hiram, and Smith tried to pick up the giant fork outside Fork and Spoon. 

We ended our walk at Blackbird Bakery, where we just had to buy some cookies...more as a reward for Whitley and I surviving the walk than for rewarding the boys!  They love to be together and have so much energy, and I'm so glad we didn't take them inside anywhere!