Trevor's Arrow of Light

When Trevor turned 11 years old he entered a new phase of scouting. A special pack meeting was held to honor his accomplishments as a cub scout and celebrate his passage into 11-year old scouts. 11-year old scouts are no longer cub scouts. They are Boy Scouts.

Trevor was awarded his Arrow of Light award at this pack meeting. The Arrow of Light award is the highest award available to Cub Scouts. It requires the Scout to have earned the Webelos Scout badge and eight activity badges. The Arrow of Light award is the only Cub Scout award that can be worn on a Boy Scout uniform.

Along with his arrow of light patch, Trevor was presented with an actual Arrow of Light, made by his dad.

Trevor and his best buddy, Jacob, were both awarded on the same night. After they finished the Arrow of Light ceremony they made the symbolic journey through the tunnel to the new world of Boy Scouts. They were greeted by their new scout leaders on the other side. It was a special moment. A HUGE moment to be more specific. This award was the last one Trevor would receive as a cub scout!

This upcoming year will be full of "lasts and firsts" for our Trevor boy. He is growing up so quickly. We are excited to see him mature and grow, but wish we could hold on to those younger moments just a little bit longer. Since Trevor was a baby, people have been offering the advice, "Enjoy them while they're young. They grow so fast." It is only now that I am finally realizing the brutal truth in that statement that I heard over and over as a young mother.

For now, we will look forward to many more years of scouting in Boy Scouts! Trevor will learn and grow so much in the coming years. We are proud of him for making so many good choices and working so hard to earn this highest award in Cub Scouts.

Congratulations Trevor!!

Rockin' with the cub scouts

This year was my first time participating in the camp itself. The program directors were our good friends from church and they asked me to do the "Rockin' Cubs Music" station. I knew it would be a big time commitment when I agreed to do this project, but the full realization of how much time did not come until after the first day.

I was responsible for teaching three different music classes (each individualized for wolves, bears, or webelos) to help the cub scouts earn their beltloops and all of the other music requirements in their rank. That translates to teaching 300+ boys over the course of 16 one hour classes. That does not include prep time, the lunch hour, or set up and clean up. Whew! Yes, it was a busy busy week!

It was a lot of time, yes, but it was also very fun. I threw a TON of information at those boys during their time with me. Here's some of the stuff we covered:

1. They learned about records, cassette tapes, cds, and mp3 players (the Elvis record album I had on display was a hit!)

2. They listened to several different kinds of music. I had to make it interesting for these boys so of course, I chose their favorites - Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, We will Rock You, Taylor Swift, etc.

3. The boys each made their own musical instrument - a kazoo.

4. They had a great time playing their kazoos and being noisy noisy boys. The other stations set up near us did not appreciate our volume, but what do you expect when it's called "Rockin' Cubs"? Of course we were going to ROCK OUT! And that's exactly what we did.

It was fun to meet so many boys just like my own. I also very much enjoyed teaching my own boys and watching them interact with their teams. I earned a new respect for the people that put on the exhibition that is Cub Scout Day Camp.

Cub scout SPORTS day camp

Cub Scout Day camp happened the week after school got out. It is always a highlight for our boys - they LOVE day camp! We were fortunate that camp was located so close to home this year. It was just down the street at our kids' elementary school. This location was fabulous for us and saved us an hour of travel time compared to years past.

The theme for this year's camp was "All American - Sports". The boys enjoyed some awesome opening and closing ceremonies patterned after the Olympics. All of the teams paraded around the amphitheater to light the eternal flame (pictured below) and proudly waved their team flags.

The boys were divided into "teams" as they made their way from station to station. At each station they earned a pin to collect and display on their bright yellow hats. These pins were a hit! Trevor and Logan were so stoked to show off their collections at the end of each day (now those hats have a place of importance pinned up on the walls in the boys' room).

Logan's team was quite enamored with the Lakers (seeing as the last few NBA basketball championship games were being played this week). They (the basketball team) would become the champions - there was no doubt of this. So, naturally, Logan and his boys decided to name themselves the Lakers as well. Here are some great shots of Logan and some teammates on the last day of camp during the final Olympic Games.

Sammy & Logan doing the wheelbarrow races, and Logan with his other buddy Carter

"2,4,6,8,
Who do we appreciate?!
Lakers! Lakers!
GOOOO Lakers!"



Trevor's team named themselves the "Fireballs". Their team cheer was quite awesome - they yelled it loud and proud as they made their way through the camp each day:

"We. Are. The. FIREBALLS!
Yes, we are the best!
We are the Fireballs! - What?!
Yes, we are the best!
We are the Fireballs! - You know!"

I loved watching this team strut their stuff around camp. They are the big boys on campus this year. The old men. The seniors. They are the oldest and the coolest and they knew it. They had the most confident air about them - even as they did their girly cheerleader cheer they didn't care what anyone thought about them. They knew they were awesome and that was all that mattered.

Sadly, this year was Trevor's last. He'll be a big bad 11 year old scout next summer - no more day camp for him.

Trevor and Logan had a blast with the sports theme this year. They played flag football, kickball, swimming, archery, played on the water slides, bounced in the bounce house, crafted catapults from wood, played marbles (with Sis. Davey!), Rocked out to music (with mom! Watch for another blog post on that), raised the flag, earned tons of "dingle dangles", enjoyed buying items from the snack shack each day. and performed skits in front of the entire crowd. These boys did it all this week and enjoyed every minute of it.

Special thanks to Michelle and Nadine for herding our kids around every day all day in the heat. You guys are the best!

Be back soon

We are at Cub Scout Day Camp this week.

"WE WILL - WE WILL ROCK YOU, SOCK YOU, PICK YOU UP AND DROP YOU!" How many times have I heard that one this week? One thousand times to many.

We are having a ball out there - cub scouts rock!

Pinewood Derby 2010

Trevor and Logan had a great time getting ready for this year's Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby. They love coming up with their own designs and creating their own cars.

Trevor went for a truck style body this year. With blue and gold cub scout color stripes. His car won all but one race. Way to go Trevor!

Logan was excited about his car design from the get go. He was so determined that his car would be a yellow school bus. How did he do? Pretty good, right?! We are convinced that his car was a favorite out there. Everyone thought his design was awesome.

The first race is Trevor's truck. The second is Logan's bus.


Special thanks to mommy for the paint job, to daddy for all of the last minute alterations, and to the leaders who ensured that every child had a great race!

Cub Scout Day Camp 2009

Trevor and Logan got to go to this year's Cub Scout Day Camp out at the Sportsman's Club. It was a great week of all their favorite boy activities. They left every day at 3:00 and didn't get home until after 9PM. Let's just say that they were TIRED after a week of playing so hard.

They both earned at least 7 awards and had so much fun doing it. There was boating, fishing, archery, map reading, flag raising, and countless other scout requirements for them to participate in. One of the Cub Scout Day Camp traditions states that the boys will wear the same shirt to camp every day. They should also NOT WASH the shirt until after camp is over. (It's some manly man type of challenge - you know, to see who can be the most stanktified - actual term - by the end of the week = the true scouter.) They were some stinky stinky boys - that's for sure!

The family was invited out on the last day to watch some final activities and eat dinner with their boys. It was so fun to see hundreds and hundreds of boys all the same age just enjoying themselves to pieces.

Here is Trevor, pulling Jake in the wagon, getting ready for their first Monkey Island relay race. These boys watched all the groups go before them and had their strategy down before the race began. And guess what?! They won EVERY RACE! They were the two smart cookies out there.


Logan also had a great time with this challenge. His idea of fun was not to win the race, but to see just how wet they could get. Garon was his partner and they definitely got soaked. Check out the water drips coming off Logan's face!

This rocket activity was one of the most anticipated of the week. They built and decorated their rockets earlier in the week with the plan to blast them off on this final night. Here's Logan's group all together waiting for their turn at the launcher.

Trevor was all serious business when it came for his turn to launch. Check out his concentration.

Here are all the rockets waiting to launch at the same time. And can you guess the 2 ingredients used to propel them into the sky?

Water and air pressure. That's it.

This video is very washed out, but you can see the power of the launch. It got a great response from the crowd every time.


It was a great week. Special thanks to all the leaders that gave so much time to make it such a great experience for our boys! They loved every minute!

The United CAKE of America

We got to make a cake for Trevor's Blue and Gold cub scout dinner this week. It was supposed to be an American theme so we decided to make this most beautiful delectable fruity-licious cake! We were all so please with it's gorgeousness. Here's the breakdown:

Jello cake (white cake with red jello)
cool whip
fresh strawberries and blueberries


Here's a little song just for you, cake:

Oh beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain.
For purple mountain magesties
Above the fruited CAKE!

PineWood Derby 2009

Pinewood Derby is one of the boy's most favorite times of the year. They love getting crafty with mom and dad - and then getting to compete in a big race! Here's the breakdown of our family car-making: Trevor and Logan choose a design, Jennifer draws the car profile on the block, Jeremy cuts the form, Trevor and Logan sand it down, Jennifer paints the design, Jeremy assembles and makes sure the weights are just right. We all get to have fun working together. That may be my favorite part of the whole ordeal.

Here's Trevor's car... black with lightning bolts.

Logan also wanted lightning bolts, but with a red background. Logan doesn't officially become a scout until May, but siblings are welcome to compete at this Pinewood Derby.

Here's the track we use every year. Sister Moon and Sister Edwardson were great about setting everything up for the boys. They had a "PitStop" complete with glue guns, extra weights and coins. It was perfect for when the kids needed a quick repair to their cars.

These boys were so excited they could hardly contain themselves!!

Here's Trevor with Brother Moon - he runs the whole show and the boys love him.
Thanks for another fun year - good work Trevor!

Trev's first Rain Gutter Regatta

Trevor competed in his first ever RAIN GUTTER REGATTA! He was excited to participate in this event after having such great success at the pine wood derby earlier this year. He had a blast making and designing his very own boat. He named it the Silver Bullet - after the ride at Knott's Berry Farm with the same name - not after the beer commercials (we hope).

It was a breezy summer evening and the wind was working in the boys' favor. It wasn't until the last of his races that he realized he didn't have to blow so hard to make his boat move forward. He won a few and lost a few, but was happy to be in the final race (he lost this last one, but still thought he was pretty hot stuff).

He also came home with a handful of awards he'd earned at the Cub Scout Day Camp last month. It was a good night for the self esteem of a young boy. We love Cub Scouts!

A Night at the Races

Trevor had his first ever Pinewood Derby last night. That's his car on the left.

He has been so excited about the big race for a few days now that he hasn't spoken of much else. We spent some time this weekend working on the car.

We made Trev narrow his designs (found on the web) down to a car that was doable. I cut the car, Trevor sanded it and Jennifer painted it. For being our first car, it turned out pretty good. Jennifer painted some flames on the side per Trevor's request.

Trevor came up with a name for the car- "The Flamer", and unfortunately the name stuck and stayed despite his parents gentle suggestions that he might want to change it. I had concerns that Trev was going to be yelling, "Go Flamer, Go Flamer!" at the race. Thankfully that didn't happen. Check out the flamer doing it's thing below.

As it turned out the car did pretty good. Trevor won all his races , although they still gave him second place. Email me and I will tell you our secrets, unless we will have to race you, in which case we can talk money- that's right I'm willing to throw it all for the right price. Anyway, Trev was pretty excited to say the least, although you couldn't tell by his goofy picture below.


Grandpa Louie gave him a cigar box to store his car in. When he got home from the race, Trev placed the car in the box carefully treating it as a special jewel.

There were some real fun other cars at the race, one carved like the golden snitch from Harry Potter and another that looked like a ice cream bar.

Jennifer's parents and brother Samuel also came out to enjoy the fun.

We now have one year to prepare for the next race, with our title on the line you know we'll be bringing it!

The Flamer in Action

Heart of the Bear

Trevor earned his first Cub Scout award! He is officially a Bobcat. He had to learn the scout oath, motto, handshake and law in order to receive this first merit badge.

The pack meeting ceremony was very cool. They’d been learning about Indians, Indian crafts and their symbol writing. So the pack meeting was decorated in an Indian theme. Sister Moon totally outdid herself. She made a “campfire” for the boys to sit around during the meeting. A real teepee was set up in the background. There were signs set up for each rank advancement. And the best was the costume Brother Moon wore. He looked like a real Indian chief with his leather shirt, pants, stick, hat and boots.

Trevor, as the youngest member of the troop, was the first to receive his award. He was first given his Indian name, “Heart of the Bear” and then got his markings on his cheeks. They presented him with his own leather headband and his Bobcat patch. His face does not show his pride or enthusiasm, but he was thrilled!

Pack 33. (From L to R) Trevor, Sister Fletcher, Jacob, Ethan, Cordell, Brother Moon, Grant, Alex and Seth.

The night ended with some “authentic Indian food” for the refreshments. They really served all these foods:
Deer
Elk
Fish
Granola
Berries
They also brought some rice krispy snacks for those of us that were too chicken to try the Indian food – whew!

Grandpa Louie, Grandma Elizabeth and Auntie Mica came to cheer him on. It was a good night. We are so proud of our good boy. He is so happy while he makes such good choices. What more could a parent ask for?