Ethan – Page 13 – Andelin Adventures

Ethan Gets His Wolf

Ethan had a pack meeting tonight and we knew they were going to be presenting him with a whole bunch of stuff. He had actually finished his Wolf at the end of July, but they forgot about giving it to him at the August pack meeting, and we have been doing scout stuff through the summer months like crazy. So the cub master called him up and presented him with all the progress towards ranks beads, and his wolf, and he had Ethan pin me (which I was prepared for this time 😛 ).

He also explained arrow points and presented Ethan with one gold and four silver arrow points. Then, since Ethan had also earned several belt loops, the cub master started telling the boys about belt loops. Then as he presented each one to Ethan he read off what they were for and all the kids sounded so excited about the different subjects: archery, bb gun shooting, video games (at this all the boys got REALLY excited and seemed to jump out of their chairs), photography, and wildlife conservation.

I think people were rather impressed with how many things Ethan had earned and I don’t think they realized that he has been working on all these things since he started in January. He just hadn’t been awarded anything before this because at one pack meeting he had several of the wolf requirements started, but none finished, so they couldn’t give him any of the beads. Then there was July where there was no pack meeting because the boys went to a day camp instead, and he had finished ALL of the wolf trail by the end of July. Then in August they forgot to give him his beads and wolf….So he’s been working on all of this stuff for a really long time and it was just time to get all caught up on giving him the stuff he had earned. 🙂

Photography by Ethan

One of the cub scout belt loops is for photography. And one of the requirements for earning it is to take at least 10 pictures. So I figured since we were at the zoo, and Ethan like dinosaurs that I could let him take some of the pictures so that he could work towards earning the photography belt loop. So here are some of the pictures from our zoo trip taken by Ethan:

School starts

Well summer vacation is over and today is the first day of the 2011-2012 school year!!! Kyle took the day off so he could help walk the kids to school, and be here when they got back from their first day. I got up early to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast, unfortunately they took too long to rise and weren’t ready before we had to leave to take Ethan and Tyra to school. Kyle made the kids protein shakes for breakfast while we were waiting for the cinnamon rolls and that ended up being their entire breakfast. Oh well they got to eat the cinnamon rolls as a snack later.

Ethan’s teacher this year is Mrs Quist, and Tyra has Mrs Gustafson. Here they are all ready for their first day back:

Here’s Tyra by her classroom door:

Ethan had been really excited for school to start back up, but as soon as the bell rang, and he had to line up, reality set in and he started being rather sulky:

While the kids were at school, we came home and played for a bit. The little kids ate their cinnamon rolls and Kyle started taking pictures of them since they were being so cute:

Then we went to Costco to get some staples that we had been running low on, and since we had a bit of time after that before the kids got out of school, we decided to stop by the ward garden and check it out.

Remember that picture that I posted back in July when the corn was only a few inches high? Now it’s taller than Jeremy! Check that out. We got to harvest some potatoes and green beans then it was time to get home and go get the big kids from school.

Look at that! He went in sulking and came out with a smile. 🙂 I knew he would have a good day. (Actually I didn’t KNOW I just REALLY hoped he would).

Tyra came out of school with her backpack on her front and this new one on her back. I guess Costco provided new backpacks with some supplies in them for all the kids in 1st through 5th grades. Ethan got one too but his new one was on his back under his old backpack. All in all it was a good day, and the kids seem to like their new classes.

Father’s and Son’s Campout

Rebecca is exciting about camping. It’s never been an interest of mine, due to having to live out on the dirt, not take showers, and of course, deal with uneven ground and my bad ankles. However, she convinced us to go to the annual ward Father and Son camp out, which happened at the Cherry Campground of Hobble Creek, near Springville. I don’t know why the ward chose that area, but I was glad they did, once we arrived. It was very woodsy and close to the creek, and there were plenty of trees for shade. Considering the weather was overly hot through the past week, it was a welcome coolness.

I got off work a little early on Friday, as Rebecca met me at work and I loaded the boys and our camping equipment up in my car, and then we set off for Springville (after a quick stop at McDonalds for food). I was surprised with how far the campgrounds were into the mountains, as the directions said to simply go to a stop sign, turn right, and continue on to the camp. It was miles past there to the grounds, then miles more to the Cherry Camp.

We arrived and found other members from our ward, then set up the tent. Ethan and Jeremy tried to help (Ethan read the directions, both tried to set up the poles) and eventually we had our tent up.

The boys went exploring up the hillside where everyone else was going, and I just hung around the camp.

The boys found much pleasure in climbing up the hill and sliding down (notice all the dirty back sides?).

After a while, the boys decided they wanted to pee, so we made our way to the restrooms. I was surprised that they were more of a glorified outhouse (brick building with a hole in the ground, and a hollow toilet seat over it). Jeremy refused to use it at first, and we stayed outside whilst Ethan used the room. I showed Jeremy the posters on the walls of the bear and snake warnings.

He wasn’t too happy about them, and wanted to pack up and leave.

We stayed, though. Next time, we’ll probably bring campfire foods (marshmallows, hot dogs, etc) and just roast them, instead of doing McDonalds. They continued to play, and there wasn’t much structure to the evenings’ events. After a small fireside-like message, people started going to their tents to sleep. We ended up trying to watch a movie on my tablet, but the volume wasn’t good, so instead, we played with glow bracelets until we were all too tired.

It was hard having to sleep with a slight feeling like I had to pee. In the morning, we woke up early and all went to the bathroom, then made our way back to the camp to help make breakfast. There was more than enough food (supplied by the ward) and we had pancakes, sausage, hash browns, eggs, and juice to choose from. After everyone had their fill and we cleaned up, and the boys played some more, and we started tearing down tents and picking up random bits of trash, then went home.

No bears or snakes were seen, though.

Family Adventure

Thanksgiving Point is doing their $2 Tuesdays special again this August, and Kyle decided he would take a Tuesday off from work so we could all go. But I was feeling like we should do something else. Something we hadn’t done before. Last time we went to Farm Country and the Museum of Ancient life at Thanksgiving Point, Chloe was just a couple months old, and now Lydia is just a few months old. Personally, I’m thinking that maybe we should go back next year or something when Lydia is a bit older too. I still wanted to go do something with my family since Kyle had the day off. 🙂

I had a dentist appointment first thing this morning, which meant that my face was hurting all day. 🙁 But we decided to load all the kids up in the car and see if we could go somewhere to look for birds, so we could work on some of the bird electives in Ethan’s scout book. So Kyle decided to drive into Provo Canyon, and we stopped to take a short easy hike to the base of Bridal Veil Falls.

The falls were beautiful. And the roaring sound of the water, in the river rushing by, was loud.

It was crazy to see that people had climbed all the way up to stand at the top of the falls. And there was another group partway up. Personally I’m content to stand and the bottom and just look at the pretty waterfall. 🙂

We actually only saw two birds while we were there. We heard some chirping in the trees, but didn’t see any of them.

Kyle decided he wanted to take the kids to drive around the BYU campus. Some of them just weren’t understanding that BYU is a school for adults. It was rather funny and frustrating (hey remember that my face was hurting) trying to explain it so they could understand.

Then we were on our way back into Orem, going nowhere in particular and Kyle remembered spur of the moment that he had a gift card for Red Lobster. So we went there for dinner. 🙂 Funny that we go to this nice fancy restaurant and most of the kids ordered mac & cheese. But most of them actually finished their food too, so I guess I can’t really complain about that. 🙂 After dinner we decided to go over to the mall to get some dessert: See’s BABY! Kyle ran into the mall by himself to go to See’s to get us some chocolate, and he decided to go to the candy barrel and get rock candy for the kids dessert. While we sat in the parking lot waiting for him, I saw some birds so I pointed them out to Ethan and we started looking for others.

We saw sparrows, and seagulls while we were waiting for Kyle. Then I remembered that there was a pond by Blue Host (where Kyle used to work) and ducks were frequently in that pond. So we decided to head back down to Provo to go see what ducks and what other birds we could see down there. We saw some black ducks in the pond and some geese. I’m not sure what kinds of ducks and geese they are, but that’s ok. Then we saw some black birds and as we were heading back to the freeway I spotted a small flock of quail in a parking lot. So Kyle slowed down and we pulled over so the kids could see them too, and there was a HUGE flock of them on the grass on the side of the building.

It’s been a bit of an adventure. We didn’t have anything planned really and we really did drive back and forth going all over town to see what we got to see today, but that’s ok. It was all spontaneous and we got to spend the day together going on a drive to wherever we felt we wanted to go. 🙂