Cub Scout Day Camp

Josh and Cole went to Cub Scout Day Camp last week. They were always super grouchy about having to get up and be there by 8am, and were also always hot and super grouchy in the afternoon when I picked them up. But. I think they still had a good time. Maybe. Mostly. Well, Josh did. I don't know that Cole will ever be an avid scout.

I was able to help out on the first day. We had 12 boys in our den, which made us the biggest at the camp, but the leaders decided that wasn't enough and added 4 more from another troop. What the what? So I helped herd 16 boys around camp, which was as busy and hard as you suspect. Literally like herding cats. Someone was also lagging behind or lost or needed to go to the bathroom.

But it wasn't all bad. These are basically good kids. And they really enjoyed most of the activities - especially those in which they got to shoot things.

Running around in a field is always super fun.

As is playing GaGa ball. (Think modified dodge ball in a cage.)

They even behaved for the most part when they had to sit through nature lectures. (Even I thought the lectures were not that great...)

The end of the day while waiting to be picked up was always the hottest part of the day. Poor Cole doesn't do well in the direct heat. Super. Grouch.

The last day of camp ended with the closing campfire and skits. It was fun to watch the skits.

It was not fun sitting next to Cole during the skits. He whined and complained and was pretty much DONE with camp. Fortunately, it only lasted an hour. (About 5 hours in Colie time.)

This year our Boy Scouts had their camp at the same place as the Cub Scouts. They were part of the staff, so they helped run the camp and teach the younger boys. I think it was awesome, and Spencer seemed to really enjoy himself.  In fact, Spencer was in high demand throughout the camp because he was known to be willing to help and work hard, responsible, and dependable. It made a momma proud. I think he really blossomed during the camp. (However, he wasn't too sad to leave a day early; I think he got really worn out! We brought him home because we needed a babysitter for a date we had planned months ago. Hey, if they don't want us to take their scouts home early, the scout leaders should let us know more than a month in advance how long scout camp will be!)

July Miscellaneous Merriment

July has been calmer than June, mainly because baseball ended. But we've still managed to fill our days with all sorts of activities, like going to the library, swimming, running errands, etc. etc. We spent one afternoon at McDonald's while the van got worked on. The kids were impressed with the mound of fries we bought. (And would have eaten more had I bought them!)

We've been getting a ton of rain lately. Which is weird, because July and August usually seem pretty dry around here. Here's a tree at the edge of our neighborhood that didn't survive a particularly fierce storm.

And here's the little creek that's just north of our neighborhood. Crazy. Also, annoying, because the storms always come in the middle of the night and seem to hover right above our house, with flashes of lightening and the loudest thunder ever. It's hard to sleep for what feels like hours.

Our friends the Souths came to visit for a Saturday. We enjoyed chatting and catching up, and our kids had fun playing. Trying to get all of them to sit still and behave for a picture proved to be a lesson in futility.

We dropped Spencer off at Scout Camp early in the morning last Monday. I took the rest of the kids to Cracker Barrel for breakfast as a treat. Cole was super grouchy because when he gets hungry he gets CRANKY. And Tess and I traded meals because she didn't like hers. And Josh ordered a huge breakfast and ate about a third of it. But no one cried or screamed or caused embarrassment, so success!

My tomatoes are taking forever to ripen, but my flowers are coming along nicely.

Quick Chicago Trip

Our weather has been really wet and stormy lately. So much so that it feels like I'm constantly checking the weather to see if we need to change plans. A couple of weeks ago I decided we needed to have a quick trip to Chicago, just for fun. But as the date got closer the weather forecast got worse. Lance and I basically decided we'd just stay home and play games and such. But yesterday morning I looked at the forecast one last time and it looked great - so we decided to go.

Spencer has been going to a school STEM camp this week, and Lance only took a half day off, so we didn't leave town until around 12:30. I-65 is under construction most of the way between here and Chicago, which made the going even slower than normal. (I mean, when is it not under construction? But this is worse than normal.) We eventually made it to Chicago, but GPS doesn't work so great downtown because of all the buildings, so after 5 times around a busy block right downtown we finally found our parking garage. (Shout out to the SpotHero app - you can get parking that is soooo much cheaper than normal in big cities!)

Our first stop was Millennium Park and it's big fountain area. We gave the kids explicit instructions not to get too wet since I didn't bring extra clothes or even a towel. I figured they were all old enough to handle this.

I figured wrong. Within 5 minutes, and right after I told her to stop running, Tess totally face planted it in the water. It's a good thing I was standing right next to her and pulled her right up or she would have gotten even more wet. (She has a bad habit of just freezing during situations like this, no matter the consequences.) Her front half was soaked.

Then Cole came over to us, completely soaked, but not through any accident. That punk. Fortunately, it was a pretty warm day, so they both eventually dried off.

The kids asked how long we could stay. I told them they could decide how long - we were just here to have fun! And that's how we spent pretty much the rest of the day, letting the kids take the lead. And they loved it.

We made the obligatory stop to the Cloud Gate and took the obligatory pics.

Cole sure loves this sculpture - he was pretty excited to see it again!

I wonder how often (if ever) The Bean gets cleaned and polished?

Spencer was pretty impressed with the concert stage. He's really getting into music and performance and things like that. I think it'd be pretty cool to see a concert there!

Then we went over to Maggie Daley park, which was pretty amazing. It had so many neat playgrounds and water features.

It was pretty warm when the sun was out, but when a cloud came by it was perfect weather, especially with the nice breeze.

This fountain was extra cool because it was a spiral.

I think this was the kids' favorite area - so many cool things to climb and play on!

Lots of cool slides, too.

Then we hoofed it over to the Willis Tower. It's great that my kids are getting big enough to walk this much. BUT. It's like herding cats walking downtown. How no one got lost or run over, I'll never know. Guardian angels are a real thing. And Tess? She is SO SLOW. Seriously. And I don't think it's her age or size. It's just here. Time will tell. (But it drove me batty!)

We bit the bullet and spent the money on going to the top of the Willis Tower. I'm so glad we did - the kids' reaction when we stepped out of the elevator and they saw how high up we were was awesome!

Lance and I like going to the top of tall buildings - I suspect we'll be doing a lot of it on our Europe trip. (Okay, not as high as this. Lots of tall towers and such.)

Our little engineer, Cole, really liked it all. He also really liked the short movie we watched about the building of the tower. He wished there had been more about actually building it.

When I was at BYU they added a big new section to the library - underground. Which meant for a good year a huge hole was dug out of the ground. There was fencing all around the giant pit, and every day you could find engineering students at that fence, watching all that was going on in that hole completely fascinating. I suspect Cole would be one of those students staring at a hole in the ground.

Walking out into that ledge, with the glass underneath you, was pretty cool. Cole was a little scared, but he was brave and did it!

 

Cole kept a careful eye on the glass the whole time.

Lance still can't give a good reason as to why he posed like this. And because the sun was in my eyes I couldn't tell that's what he looked like.

After the tower we went out for Chicago stuffed pizza. It took a really long time to bake, so we had fries and onion rings and mozzarella sticks while we waited.

It was delish. Spencer was especially impressed.

I really, really like Chicago. As I told Lance, I would love to just live downtown for a full year. Just for one year, because I really like having a house and and yard and a garden. But still, I'd love to live downtown, without a car, for a year. There's so many cool things to do and see! I think it'd be fun and eye-opening.

But not if I had to walk around shepherding Tess every day. ;)