Ethan – Page 8 – Andelin Adventures

Legos and the Zoo

A couple of years ago, the zoo had a special exhibit of dinosaurs. This year, they have a special exhibit of Lego animals! Ethan LOVES Legos and so we didn’t want to miss it. So we decided it was time to renew our pass to the zoo and go check it out. While we were there we decided to have Ethan earn the Cub Scout Hogle Zoo patch, and so he wore his uniform.

We also took a friend of Tyra’s along, and since it was a school day, we had all the kids bring their composition books and pencils so they could take notes of the different animals and things that they saw. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any monkeying around. 😛

Every time we pass the big elephant the kids just HAVE to sit on it’s trunk.

Ethan really liked the snake made of Legos.

It was really bright sitting on a shiny polar bear in the full sun. 🙂

Tyra was also working on a scout badge today. She is working on the Animal Habitats badge and so while we were in the building to observe the polar bear and the seals, we had her talk to one of the zoo employees about the Arctic habitat and why it is endangered. She got to find out why “global warming” is dangerous to the animals that live in the Arctic circle, and she learned about some ways we can help (such as not leaving our cars on when we aren’t driving).

Lydia saw the bears on the wall and wanted to “walk like a bear” too.

In the small animal building we had to wait while a couple the kids drew pictures of some of the animals.

Dinah’s drawing of an owl:

Dinah’s drawing of an armadillo:

Jeremy’s drawings:

When we finished searching the zoo for all of their Lego displays, we decided that it was time to go home. Tyra’s friend’s parents hadn’t expected us to be gone all day, which I kind of find funny, because who wants to spend an hour driving to the zoo and only spend an hour there, then spend another hour driving back? I mean, doing that you spend more time driving than you did at the zoo! But I think the kids had a good time, and they really thought the Lego animals were awesome. Hopefully they learned a little something too.

Boys Mowing

I decided that we need to push Ethan to be more independent about mowing the lawn this year. He is getting older and therefore bigger and is more capable of doing it on his own, than in the past when he was smaller. Kyle has trouble mowing the lawn because of his bad ankles and his allergies, and I really have a hard time doing everything for everyone all the time, so I was really anxious to have Ethan step up and learn to help with the yard work so I can be doing other things without worrying about my yard falling apart. Kyle and Ethan and I talked about lawn mowing as being worth extra money too. When I was young, about 10-11 years old, I mowed the lawn at our house in Fullerton and I got $2 for mowing the backyard and $3 for the front yard, because it was bigger owing to the fact that we were on a corner lot. Kyle and I decided that our front yard would be worth $3 and the backyard $5 since I believe they are both larger than what I had to mow as a kid. So Ethan got to mow! I had to start the lawn mower for him, he could pull the starter string, but not hard enough and fast enough to make it turn on.

This week Jeremy decided HE wanted to try mowing, so I said that I would let him mow the front. Ethan wasn’t too happy about this because that meant Jeremy earning the money instead of him, but really Jeremy needs those opportunities too, and if he WANTS to mow the lawn when it is in need of mowing, I’m NOT going to say no!

It was very hard for him to push the lawn mower, especially when he came to an uneven part of the ground, but he did it with minimal help from me. I had to help him turn it around and show him how to line it up so that he wasn’t skipping any grass, and I had to help him get the lawn mower out of a few ruts. He was very worn out when he was done, so I had Ethan do the backyard this time, and I don’t think Jeremy is ready to be mowing the lawn on his own regularly yet, but I think we will let him try every now and then and eventually it will get easier for him. 🙂

Raingutter Regata

Our pack held it’s FIRST Raingutter Regatta tonight! Actually I don’t think it’s the first one our pack has ever done, but it’s the first one our pack has done since the people that are in charge now, have been in charge, and it’s the first one that they’ve had since Ethan has been in scouts. I was really excited when I saw this on the plan of pack meetings for the year. As we got closer though, they were saying that there wasn’t enough money in the budget to buy Raingutter Regatta boats and they decided to just make boats out of sections of pool noodles instead, which was somewhat disappointing to me. These are cub scouts not preschool kids! Well as it turns out, someone donated enough Raingutter Regatta boats for the boys in the pack and so they got to use those, and the siblings of the cub scouts got to make their own pool noodle boats. 😉

Ethan received the Handyman activity badge and a compass point before the races began, and since there is a pirate theme for tonight’s back meeting, they made him “walk the plank” to receive his awards.

Ethan didn’t place anywhere near the top, but he had fun making and racing his boat and that it really all that matters. He probably won’t ever get another shot at participating in a Raingutter Regatta, considering he is in Webelos now and next year he will be in the 11 year old scouts group, which is part of boy scouts not cub scouts, but I’m glad he got the chance to do it at least once.

They finished off the evening by shooting handfuls of candy out of a candy cannon that one of the Wolf den leaders made. The kids REALLY enjoyed that.

Webelos Rank

Ethan earned his Webelos rank and he received it at pack meeting tonight! The leaders had a dialogue to present the awards, starting with any bobcats, then any wolf awards then bear awards, then the webelos, and lastly the arrow of light. Kyle was part of it as he is the Webelos leader and he got to borrow a costume from brother Hacking.

However, this dialogue only included awards for rank advancement, not arrows or activity badges or any of that. So Ethan was given his awards, by Brother Graham in a crazy wolf costume, but it wasn’t announced what was in his bag aside from the Webelos rank. So in addition to his Webelos rank he also received the Citizen, Engineer, Naturalist, Outdoorsman, and Traveler activity badges.

Bridging

As I was preparing for my Girl Scout troop’s bridging ceremony, I went to the shop to rent the bridge that they have there. I was told that another troop was using it and that it wasn’t due to be returned until Monday the 10th. That just wasn’t going to work. I told Kyle of my problem and he decided that for Cub Scouts this week he would have the boys build a bridge. Cub scouts are supposed to bridge from Cubs to Boy scouts too, and building one ourselves it would be available for both Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts. So Monday night Kyle took the van to Home Depot to get the lumber. Tuesday night he came home from work and cut the wood, and Wednesday the Webelos came over to help build it.

They got the main part of the bridge all built, but didn’t have time to finish the rails. Thursday I had a service unit meeting so nothing new happened on the bridge. Yesterday, Kyle came home from work and sanded the bridge down. This, morning he made another run to Home Depot to get some more supplies and he finished the rails.

It came to be time to go to Amy’s house for the end of year party, and Kyle took us all over there and then solicited the help of one of the other dads to help take the seats out of our van and then come back over to our house to get the bridge. I got to stay at Amy’s house and watch the kids play in the yard.

Ethan somehow got a hold of most of the squirters:

Then my Brownies got to bridge to Juniors:

I also got to welcome all of my new Daisies for next year. I am so sad that there isn’t a picture of them, but I gave them a certificate to welcome them to the troop, and they each got a daisy barrette that I made, where each petal was a different color (the colors of the petal awards that Daisy Girl Scouts earn), and I got to give them their first couple of patches. 🙂