Scouting Connor

Connor loves Cub Scouts. Last month he earned is Wolf Badge, with 2 months to spare before his 9th birthday. Very proud of him! Here is his getting his badge and then pinning me with the Wolf pin.


Last month he also enjoyed his first-ever Pinewood Derby. He designed his car himself, did a majority of the work on it, painted it and named it The Angry Bird; it didn't fly as well as expected, but he still loved the experience.


Brian has some fun video equipment and has learned some video editing skills for work, and he put them to good use in making this fun video about Connor's first Pinewood Derby. Enjoy!

The month that was October

I dislike when blogging becomes a chore. Which is what it feels like right now. Because there is so much to catch up on from the past month. But since I'm OCD about documenting things, here we have one big October dump post.

And I know that just made you want to jump right in and read, yes? Just like when someone stands up to give a talk or speech or lesson and gives you all the background on what happened when they got the assignment, and then proceeds to apologize for the talk they are about to give and asks you to "bear with them." I seriously dislike that.

But for the sake of remembering the past month...

In October, we:

- Made some fun, festive fall treats, including orange sweet rolls for our conference viewing, candy corn malts (which didn't look as neatly layered as Mel's, but still managed to make the children's eyes go all buggy just the same, which was exactly the effect for which I was hoping), and chocolate pumpkin cookie ice cream sandwiches with vanilla bean ice cream, rolled in mini chocolate chips. Yes, it is everything you might imagine and more.

- We watched a couple of boys engage in fun new activities. Lucas completed his first season of soccer, which was great fun for everyone. I'm totally serious! Lucas loved playing. Isabel and Connor made some other sibling friends to hang with each week. Brian, Mason and I enjoyed relaxing and watching. It was a beautiful fall, and the evenings were just fantastic. I imagine fall soccer in general is much more pleasant that spring soccer, weather-wise. And Connor participated in his first Cub Scout derby, a space derby. Connor loves Scouts. LOVES it. He didn't win, but had a great time making his rocket with some help from his dad, and had fun racing it.

- We had some fun outings. The kids get off a random Friday in mid-October, so we all went to Fort Collins for the day. We showed the kids where the Fort Collins temple is (most likely) going to be built, then had a fun park outing and picnic.

And we attended a local fall fest. We didn't make it to a big pumpkin patch event this year, but this sufficed. Plus, I won a $500 gift card from the festival to a local dance theater, so now Isabel is taking a tumbling class.

- We had our first snowstorm. Sadly, since most of the leaves had not yet fallen, they became a trap for heavy wet snow and so many poor trees lost branches. But it sure was pretty. And it sure was gone within a few sunny warm days, just in time for trick or treating, hooray! Mason obviously had no recollection of the white stuff, which was evidenced by his confusion when I asked if he wanted to go outside (which is always met with great excitement and joy) and then started piling warm clothes on him and then plopped him out in a snowbank. Great confusion ensued. Until he started eating it and there was joy all over again.

And this brings us to our remaining October birthdays, and Halloween. Up next.

Connor's newest adventures

With turning 8, Connor has started Cub Scouts! He's really excited about it. I think it will be good for him. We just won't talk about the pain and frustration that comes with sewing patches on his shirt, namely the sleeve. Moving on...

He is awfully cute in his shirt-

His first meeting was pack meeting last week. He already earned his Bobcat Award. He had to pin the bobcat pin on me, and then everyone did a cheer for him and his award.

In addition to running track this summer, he is also taking private swim lessons. He loves the water and is pretty fearless, just needs to get the basics figured out and he'll be great. I thought lessons at the rec center last year were pretty pointless, so we're ramping it up. His teacher is our friend and Primary president, who also lives about 2 minutes from us. She's fantabulous. Throw in a kiddie pool for the other kiddos to play in during the lesson, and ding ding ding, we have ourselves a winner.