Labor Day Weekend 2009

Every once in awhile, when we're not working on rank requirements that have to do with compasses, crossing rivers, CPR, knowing the native plants of California, or knowing what a bowline knot is for (and then tying it), the Boy Scouts go and do something FUN.

Saturday Kevin and I got up at the crack of o-dark-hundred and went to Angels Stadium with his troop. We were there with quite a few other Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops of various ages, along with all the other parents that had driving duty.

We were there cheering on the runners for the Disneyland Half Marathon, and the nine-mile mark was them running through Angel Stadium. There were all sorts of athletes, from the professionals we saw at 7:30am; to the wheelchair runners; the large amounts of folks sporting any and all manner of Disney-related costumes - Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Snow White, and Minnie Mouse (both girls AND guys wore this!!); the folks walking the route and stopping to take pictures and video of it all; down to the last straggling walker at 10am. We cheered especially hard for her. Elvis even made an appearance.

It was most fun when we went down to the wall and gave high fives to the runners - they were very appreciative. And sweaty.

BTW, Kevin just made his First Class rank, and knew how to do all those fun things (and more) listed above. And now, so do I.

The rest of the weekend included a pool party in Temecula; dodging drunk drivers on the road; and a beach day. . .

Summer Flowers

When they bloom, they bloom purty...

More Summer Stuff

Kevin came back from a weekend camping in Ojai last month, and brought me this lovely snapshot. It's rare - I never let him take the camera, unless he is working on his photography merit badge. Rather pretty place, we ought to try it sometime.
We spent the Fourth over at a friend's house, watching the kids play in the pool while we sat around grazing for the afternoon. It was neat to watch from a distance the illegal fireworks being lit on our street.

Matt spent this last week at Cub Scout day camp over in Los Alamitos Joint Forces base. It's a big patch of dry, hot, gopher-holed dirt. They brought a fire truck in one day and turned the hose on the kids - they loved it. I think the grass shown here is the only patch on the place.

The boys also got to shoot bb guns, bows & arrows, do leather crafts, check out rocks, check the oil and tire pressure on a car, do some cooking, pet a K-9 dog, and a myriad of other things. They had a great time, and are ready to go back again. I think it will take me a year to clean out the dirt from his clothes and shoes.

End of Year Fun

June's been kinda crazy around here, especially since there were three school graduations going on in the family. Sam graduated high school, Kevin promoted from the 8th grade, and Jacob promoted from 6th grade.

Matt's third grade class celebrated the end of the school year with a giant softball-baseball-mass-of-kids against the parents game one Friday. Picture a parent hitting the ball in the air, and 20 to 30 kids dog piling over each other to get to the ball first (with another 20 or so shyly standing around). Some of those kids were pretty darn good, though - you could tell which ones were in Little League and Bobby Sox. We now officially have only one kid left in that school.

Jacob's promotion came soon enough (or not soon enough, if you ask him), and he is now officially in junior high. Little does he know what that means - kids being mean because they are trying to fit in with the other "cool" kids, acne, and dressing out for P.E. Going from being the big fish in a little sea to a little fish in a bigger sea is also something you can't quite explain - not that my moody, hormone driven 12 year old would listen to me these days. We've already pegged him to be the one that we have to watch, especially since he now has the "freedom" to ride his bike halfway across town to school on his own each day.

Kevin officially promoted to high school as well, but the school district determined there was no money to hold ceremonies for the junior high kids. Don't know how much it really costs to set chairs up in the quad, but obviously it would break the non-existent school budget. So my only picture of him at this time is at Jacob's ceremony - and I had to twist his arm to actually attend that morning.

Matt actually had a "graduation" of his own, that of finishing the Bear rank in Cub Scouts, making him an official Webelos cub scout now. We had a ceremony for all the boys - here is the group of rowdiness I had to contend with this past year. Don't let those little sly grins fool you, they are all up to something at one time or another.

We celebrated the endings and beginnings with a day/evening at the beach. The kids all spent the afternoon (the first sunny one all month) in the water, and then we had dinner and a bonfire. It was incredibly windy, and while it subsided down a couple notches at sundown, it never completely stopped. We were all windburned, sunburned, and smoky by the end of the night.

Kevin (here doing his blind person imitation) invited Thomas and Stephanie along . . .

. . . while Sammy invited his friends Kevin Stark, Ricardo, and Norma out for the day. Lots of food, fun, water, smiles, wind and sand marked the day.

Next promotion/graduation dates =
June 2011; June 2012; June 2013; June 2014; June 2015; June 2018

One Down, 3 to Go

Last week I made the trek out to Harlingen, TX to make my first and last visit to Sam's school. The airline ticket was bought two months ago, but he kept us biting our nails until the last minute on whether he would pass one last class.

The day started out with an early morning awards ceremony parade, on the grounds in front of the Iwo Jima memorial. Each company had a contingency participate, and we were told this was a traditional parade review format. Sam's here in the band (much smaller than he was used to!)

After a uniform change, which necessitated a trip back to the hotel for his belt that he forgot ("I'm done with school, I can turn my brain off now...") - it was time for the graduation ceremony. Since the weather was pushing 92, with like 85% humidity, it was held indoors. It seemed fairly short to me, probably cause we got all the awards out of the way earlier.

After all was said and done, we headed back for one last change of clothes before heading to the airport. Sam misplaced his I.D., and quickly learned that the TSA doesn't like that, especially now that you're an adult. He quickly remembered where he stashed it after I told him I would see him on the other side!

But all is good now, we are back in the land of dry heat and voluntary PT, diploma in hand.