Our Family – Page 48 – Andelin Adventures

Kyle’s Birthday

Kyle had a birthday today! But before we could celebrate his birthday as a family, we had to go to pack meeting. Pack meeting tonight was an obstacle course set up around the church for the kids to race through. When that was over, they announced that they had something special planned for Kyle for his birthday. I actually heard one of the leaders talking about it, and was told that I might want to take Kyle’s phone from him so it wouldn’t get damaged. Kyle was, of course, concerned when I asked him to give me his phone. He knew I had mine and that I can’t use his because I don’t know his password, but he gave it to me anyway. Then they let all the boys throw water balloons at him!

Kyle tried to get some of the kids back by opening up the spray bottle and throwing water back, but I think he was fighting a losing battle. At least he was a good sport about it. 😉

After pack meeting we got to go home for cake and presents. Kyle requested a watermelon cake. The kids have been asking for this a lot too. I’ve made banana cake, carrot cake, strawberry cake, strawberry lemonade cake, chocolate cake, pumpkin cake, apricot delight cake, pina colada cake….I guess to them there is nothing I can’t do. I kept telling the kids that you can’t make a watermelon cake. Watermelon is too watery, and the flavor isn’t strong enough to be present after you add all the flour and sugar and other stuff. Finally I googled it, and found a watermelon cake, that was a new concept for me. I had been thinking CAKE! Flour, sugar, butter, eggs….that kind of cake. The cakes I found when searching for watermelon cake, was just a hunk of watermelon served just like cake. So that is what Kyle said he wanted, and that is what I made for him. 🙂

As for presents, I had one to give him. Actually I feel kind of lame about it, but he doesn’t really need anything, and doesn’t want a whole lot right now. We have a lot of stuff, and I didn’t want to just buy him more STUFF, so I went practical. I gave him a package of new socks. I’ve been throwing away his socks as I find them all holey in the laundry, and he has nearly run out of socks. For awhile he just thought I wasn’t doing enough laundry to keep on top of getting enough socks through, but it just boiled down to me throwing away worn socks and he was just running out of them. 😉

Bedroom transformations

Last month, Kyle and I bought a new set of bedroom furniture. Our first set of bedroom furniture! So our room has been undergoing some transformations. We moved our bed to the family room in the basement. My dresser went to the girls room, and Kyle’s dresser went to the boys room to be used for Lydia and Adam’s things since their clothes are all still in buckets because I have had nowhere else to put them. The desk went downstairs to the office, and the recliner and my treadmill went to the living room for the time being. The boys got to help move the dresser into their room:

Adam really enjoyed sitting in the drawers while they were out of the dresser:

Once we got our room cleared out, we proceeded to clean the carpet. I ended up going over it so many times I lost count. I cleaned it with soap and hot water, then I went over it some more with vinegar and hot water, and then we used some pet stain cleaner, and cleaned it some more….Unfortunately even with all of that, turning on a black light in the room while it was dark revealed that all the places Chewy has peed over the last 10 years did not wash out. Kyle and I were both really disgusted by this and started to wonder if maybe it was just time to replace the carpet. I really wish we had the money to replace all the carpet on the main floor, but we don’t. I don’t think the kids would be kind to new carpet anyway. So we decided to get a quote for replacing the carpet just in our room. Kyle called the same guy that we got the carpet for the basement from, since we were just going to get the same carpet and he would be able to access his records to look up what it was to order more. We ended up deciding to just go for it. Kyle wanted to rip out the yucky carpet on our own, because that would save us about $50. We also decided that since we were going to have new carpet and new furniture, that we should go get some paint so we could paint over all the scribbles the kids have graced our walls with. So a couple of days ago we bought some paint and supplies, and came home to rip out the carpet to get ready for the new carpet to arrive.

Kyle finished the painting last night, and the new carpet arrived this morning!

Obviously, since my room is nice and clean and all brand new feeling, the kids really wanted to hang out in there! Now to finish awaiting the arrival of the furniture…

Getting Wet

We bought a new kiddie pool this summer, and decided to get it out this afternoon. Adam found the hose while the pool was filling up and he had a GREAT time attacking everyone else with the water! Of course not everyone was so excited to be hosed off like that.

We did eventually turn the hose off and Adam had to content himself with getting into the pool and splashing everyone that way. 😉

The Biggest Scout Expo Ever!

I love scout expos. Ever since we attended our very first scout expo a few years ago, we have made an effort to attend any scout expos that we have heard of since. A few months ago we heard about this council wide scout expo, that would also include the Great Salt Lake council, and we made sure to put it on the calendar. We have been looking forward to it since then. It is the BIGGEST scout expo that we have ever been to! We also heard that there would be a Girl Scouts booth, so we made sure the girls wore their uniforms too. 😉

The very first booth we stopped at the kids got to learn about a game called King’s Court. They got to sit down and play a game, and we even got to bring home instructions, and papers to color to make our own boards.

While some of the other kids were finishing up their games, Dinah went to the booth next door and tried to walk in some humongous snow shoes:

At another booth there was this HUGE catapult that some boy scouts built. They were putting candy in the bucket and letting kids launch it, then they got to retrieve it. The only problem is that they were launching lolly pops, and the lolly pops crumbled upon impact with the floor. They should have been launching twizzlers or tootsie rolls or something else soft that won’t crack.

While we were waiting for Ethan to work on merit badge stuff at an electricity booth, Lydia found bean bag toss at the next booth. There was nobody there and the leaders manning the booth were quite bored, until Lydia went over there and dominated it.

At another booth we found this sort of hockey game that looked like a neat project to make.

There were also some carts that the kids could go for short rides in. The scouts working the booth pushed the girls around in the carts, but the leader in charge let Ethan and Jeremy push each other around.

We did not get to everything before the expo was over and people started packing up their booths. There were also a couple of rock climbing walls and a zip line that the kids wanted to try out, but by the time we got to them they were already closed or not allowing anyone else to get in the line. I really liked seeing the support from all the different packs and troops that chose to participate in the expo. It really made me excited to see a scout expo so large! And I think the kids had a good time too. 🙂

Girl Scout Rockets

A couple of weeks ago at our girl scout meeting, the girls got to paint and learn about rockets. Today the weather was just right so we got to launch them.

The girls had a “blast” launching their rockets and running to catch them. Tyra’s went up so high on her second launch that the wind caught it and took it over the fence. We had to send her with a buddy to go retrieve her rocket. 😉