Andelin Adventures – Page 74 – A blog about Kyle and Rebecca's family

Girl Scouts Cabin Trip #2

This weekend our troop had our second trip to the cabin to take up the other half of the troop. This trip was to be for all the brownies, and one of our juniors since her sister is a brownie and we didn’t want to make them come to the cabin twice. Amy said that she intended to take Eliza up again since it was their family’s cabin, and then I asked if Tyra and I could tag along as well considering I am the leader of the whole troop, and Amy is just to be over juniors next year and Michelle is to just be over the brownies. Well we hadn’t heard any sort of RSVP from a few of the girls and found out the week of that three of them weren’t going to be able to attend. Two because of other plans for the weekend, and one because she broke her elbow and that needed to be taken care of instead. So the trip to the cabin ended up being Amy, Michelle and I and our daughters. As fun as our big troop is, it was kind of nice and quiet being such a small group. Michelle’s brownie daughter had already earned the brownie badges that we were planning on doing at the cabin, as we had basically planned on doing them for the other girls but since none of them came, all of those activities got wiped off the plans. Amy had been planning on doing a couple of different junior badges with Michelle’s junior daughter than we did at the first cabin trip, and so we worked on those, and we helped her earn some of the things that we did at the first cabin trip. One of the badges that we worked on this time that we didn’t last time was the Independence badge. For this one the girls got to create a design with some buttons to sew onto a shirt.

A couple of the girls had issues, like sewing the front of the shirt to the back, but I guess that is why we do activities like this, right? So they can learn of the possibility of mistakes like that and figure out how to prevent them in the future. 🙂 A little later Amy took the girls out to show them some things under the hood of a car. They got to learn where the oil is and how to check it, and where the windshield wiper fluid is and other basic stuff like that.

Once we did what we could with the badges the rest of the time was spent with the girls playing around, and Amy and Michelle and I played a few games of Rummikub.

After dinner we talked about taking the girls on a night hike, since that was one of the things needed for a junior badge that we did last time, which Michelle’s older daughter missed. We told the girls to go get their water and their shoes and other supplies, as we were getting ready to go out, and they all proceeded to go up to the loft to get their stuff. Then we heard Tyra scream and say, “A BEAR!!!” Michelle flipped out and said that we weren’t going to be taking her girls outside, and Amy and I were just thinking “there is no way she saw a bear!” The girls had been quite noisy all day, and any animals which heard their noises would have steered clear of our location. After questioning Tyra about what this bear looked like, how big was it, where did you see it, and which way was it going, Amy and I went out to see if we could find any sign of any wild animal. We went to the back of the cabin and we didn’t see anything. No tracks, no trampled bushes, no sign that any animal had passed by. Tyra said that it was small so we are thinking that maybe it was a badger or something else like that, something that could have gone under the bushes. So we finished up the night, not by taking the girls out on a night hike, but by having our dessert, and sending the girls to the loft for bed. However the girls were having a really hard time falling asleep. They were really freaked out about the possibility of a bear. They kept talking about bears, and thinking that they saw a bear looking in through the window at them. NOBODY slept well that is for sure. In the morning we got up and had breakfast, and then we cleaned up and headed home. I’m sure everybody was thinking of getting home and taking a nap!

Update 1 Aug:Amy and I went to a service unit meeting tonight, and on our way there we were talking and Amy said that her uncle called her, and asked if we had heard anything about a bear while we were up at the cabin the last time. She told him the story of how Tyra thought she saw a bear and how freaked out the girls were over that. Then he told her that a bear was actually just caught, up in the same area as where their family cabin is. Now we are thinking that maybe Tyra did see a bear….but we aren’t going to tell the girls 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.

Independence Day 2013

There was to be no “dead end of fire” at the end of our street this year, as the family that usually hosts it is in the middle of moving. So the neighborhood decided that we would do “Independence Day on Independence Way,” which is the street behind ours. Due to Kyle’s sudden unemployment, we didn’t purchase any fireworks to contribute to the show this year. But my dad bought some so we didn’t go empty handed. So after eating the yummy shish kabobs and corn on the cob that I had barbecued we loaded the little ones into the strollers and we walked down the street and around the corner to the next street. Almost as soon as we got there Jeff asked if we brought any chairs to sit in, which we didn’t, so he and Kyle went back to the house to get the two chairs that we have. The rest of us waited for things to get started.

The festivities were already underway when we arrived, with kids running around with sparklers, and one of our neighbors DJing music for the evening. He ended up playing all the way through, past the last firework. Once dusk came on, the fireworks began with an announcement that nobody under the age of 18 would be allowed in the street to light any of the fireworks. I think that upset some of the older pyro boys in the neighborhood, but it made the parents feel better. 🙂

I didn’t take any pictures of the fireworks this year. They never look as good in a picture as they do in reality, but I love the look on Lydia’s face that I captured in this picture as she looked at the pretties in the sky:

Oh the wonder and the excitement that are in that look.

Once the fireworks were done, we headed back to the house to finish the night with the almond praline chocolate swirl ice cream that I made earlier this morning.

A Trip to the Aquarium

With grandpa and grandma coming into town, we had talked about spending the day at the zoo, but after some conversation, decided to go check out the aquarium instead. We had never taken the kids there, and it would be something different, whereas we have been to the zoo many times over the last several years.

The aquarium was dark in most areas, which makes sense when you think about how dark it must be in the depths of the oceans. And the kids loved checking out all the different kinds of fishes and other sea life.

There was a touch pool, where the kids could reach in and touch urchins and starfish, or they could wait until the ray swam up to them and touch their wings as they went by. Lydia thought it was the coolest thing….until you tried to help her put her hand in the water. 😛

The other kids loved it though and we spent quite a bit of time hanging out at the touch pool.

Dinah was most adventurous as always:

Grandpa took Adam out of his stroller so he could see everything too.

Jeremy has lately shown an interest in hermit crabs. We were at the pet store a few weeks ago to get supplies for our rescue kitty, and he found the hermit crabs, and I showed him the different fun shells that you can buy for the hermit crabs to grow into. So he was really excited to find a huge hermit crab here at the aquarium.

Ethan found the jaws of a shark and thought it would be funny to pose as though he were being eaten. I have to say that the lighting in the picture gives it an odd effect.

Then the kids found some coral and played peek a boo with us adults.

There was a big playroom that was set up to look like a ship, and Lydia loved pretending she was steering.

Lydia also really liked seeing the penguins. Grandpa held her up so that she could even watch them jump in and out of the water.

Then we got to walk around and check out some water snakes and other creatures like that, which was thrilling to Ethan but not so much to me. But before we were out of that area, Adam was all tuckered out.

Then grandpa let each of the kids pick out something from the shop (Ethan picked a 7 foot long snake stuffed animal), and Kyle and I let each of the kids pick out a smashed penny before we left.

All Good Things…

Today felt surreal and completely unexpected. I went to the gym and had a good workout, but was unable to use the showers as they were in use, so I drove to work and showered there. When I came out, my manager was sitting in the fitness room waiting for his turn. He had spent the last two weeks in Europe, visiting with customers and providing training, and he looked exhausted, so I greeted him and went out to my desk and started the usual tasks. His manager Dave came in, and they went into one of the conference rooms, presumably to have a discussion about how his training trip went.

I walked by the office and they invited me in, still continuing their discussion, and then asked me to close the door. That always makes me nervous, but then they explained the company was still having issues making their sales numbers, and they needed to let me go. For a glimmer of a moment, I thought they were kidding, but I could tell by their expressions they were not. I asked if this was affecting anyone else, and they grimly nodded that it was, but couldn’t provide details to me yet. They said today would be my last day, and I could leave whenever I felt like it.

Since I had work to finish, that got assigned to me on Friday, I said I would complete this, so I returned to my desk and started working on it. I looked around, wondering how much this would impact the team or even the company, when I started noticing emails come in, with random team members giving their final goodbyes. It turned much more serious, affecting between a third and half of the company.

I don’t hold a grudge against Mark or Dave. They have been excellent people, and I’ve appreciated their honesty through the process. I was more concerned with how to tell Rebecca about it, so I didn’t say anything until I drove home after lunch, walking in early, and she came running out thinking one of the kids had opened the door. When she saw it was me, and asked why I was home, I bluntly announced I was fired, then backtracked a little to explain they actually cut a massive amount of the company, so it was nothing personal.

So, on the bright side, with her parents coming into town tomorrow, staying through Friday, I get to spend time with my family. 🙂