Camp Tracy

Ryan and I went to Camp Tracy (cub scout day camp) together this week. This was my third year going as a leader, and our second year going together. The boys went two days, but I only took one day off of work to go. The first day, the theme was Superhero Academy. The theme the second day was Jurassic Journey. We had some other moms go the second day.

We have seven boys that came - two Bears and five Wolves. Here they are at a couple of full-group activities...They had a "Batmobile" go-cart kind of thing that one boy would sit in and three would push. They had it a couple of years ago, and the boys always enjoy it...There was a hilarious game where the boys divided into teams of four. Three of the boys would try to plug holes in large tubes while the other boy filled it up with water with a pitcher. They would rotate doing the different jobs. It was hilarious, and the boys got drenched!

There was a cool A-frame contraption lashed together with ropes coming out of the top that the boys had to make "walk." One boy would stand on it, and the rest would work together in pulling it just right to make it move, one leg at a time. It was fun to watch them learn to communicate with each other the best way to make it work.

Ryan's favorite activity every year is the BB-gun shooting. There are two belt loops that the cub scouts can only earn at Camp Tracy, BB-gun shooting and Archery. Ryan is always very good at both of them. Every time he'd hit a target (and usually make it clang), he'd turn around and grin at me.

We had a lot of fun at Camp Tracy. This was the last year that Ryan and I will go together. Next year he'll be going to the Webelos camp.

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

I've been so pleased with my garden this year! It has helped to have Copper's smell around so the deer don't come near. I think this is the first year I've eaten more from my garden than the deer have!

Here's Ryan's huge cabbage that he started from a seed at school...

My red and yellow pepper plants...

My tomatoes (see, there are already some there at the bottom)...

And my peas...

And here's the whole cute little garden (surrounded by all of my columbine)...Those of you in Utah know we've had rain almost every day so far in June. It's been great for the garden! This rainbow appeared tonight in the perfect spot for photos.

Don't you love the gold at the end of my rainbow?

Happy Father's Day!

We had a wonderful and happy Father's Day. As with most of the holidays in our family, it stretched out over a couple of days.

On Saturday, we had a BBQ at Rara & Papa's house. We had fun playing with Claire & Alice, and Papa LOVED being surrounded by his grandkids.Marc and Frances were asked to be the speakers in their Sacrament Meeting program on Sunday. After our own meetings, we all went to Marc & Frances' ward. We took turns holding the girls as Marc & Frances gave their talks. They both did such a great job! We're very proud of them.

After the meeting, we went to Marc & Frances' house for dinner. Dinner was great, and we had a good time visiting together and playing with the girls.We love Papa and Marc very much. We're so proud of them for the great guys they are and the wonderful examples they are to us, especially Ryan. We hope they had a wonderful Father's Day!

There's a Stingray in the House!

Ryan just finished his first session of swimming lessons this summer, and passed the Stingray level. He has been learning all of the different strokes and kicks, and has done very well. Due to scout camp, we aren't doing the next session, but he will start the next level (we can't remember what they call it) in the next session.

Here are a few pictures of the Stingray of the family...

With his cute teacher, Jess (his favorite so far, he says)...

Every Kid Wants to Be a Professional Athlete…

But mine just might do it!

Papa took Ryan to the Rotary Club's “Coats for Kids” Car Show on Bountiful Main Street on Friday night. It has been going for 11 years, and we have been a couple of times in the past. Ryan and Papa always enjoy seeing all of the different cars, especially Holly Refinery’s “flame throwing” truck.

Burt Brother’s Tires, one of the sponsors for the event, had a throw-the-football-through-the-tire contest. They had age divisions (4 & under, 5-8, 9-12, 13-19, 20-64, 65 & up). So Ryan was one of the youngest in the 9-12 age division, since he recently turned 9. HE WON for his division! His prizes included Jazz sweatbands (1 head and 2 arm), and a Burt Brothers water bottle.

Then they announced that the overall winner (the most completions in ALL age groups) would win a mini basketball autographed by Deron Williams (Ryan’s favorite Jazz player). RYAN WON!!! Here he is with his loot. Yes, my 9-year-old child had more passing completions than the 100 other contestants!

Copper’s 10 Week Check-Up

We took Copper to the vet for the first time on Friday. He had gone once at about 6 weeks with the rest of his litter, but this was our first visit with him.

He did very well. He didn’t even cry or whine when he got his shots! (That's also what the breeders told us - that he was the only puppy that didn't whine or cry when he got his first set. What a brave puppy!) The vet had a lot of little treats that he kept giving him, so I’m sure that helped. But still!

When we got Copper at 6 weeks & 1 day, he was 4 pounds (the biggest of the litter at that point). At Friday’s visit, he was weighed at 8.3 pounds! He has DOUBLED in size since we got him! That is so hard to believe. The vet said that was normal for this age.

The vet said he is very healthy and looks great. He was charmed by his little personality (he kept saying, “He’s very active, isn’t he?”) and told us several times what a good-looking dog he is. That was fun to hear the vet say all of those things.

Hill Air Force Base Open House & Air Show

Ryan and I had such a fun time together on Saturday! We spent the 65th anniversary of D-Day with thousands of veterans at the Hill Air Force Base open house and air show.

Due to prior experiences with this event, I decided that we’d take public transportation instead of driving. UTA was having a special summer event price - $10 for FrontRunner to the Clearfield stop, then a shuttle to the base, shuttle back to the Clearfield stop, and FrontRunner home. I decided it was SO worth it not to have to fight the traffic and park 2 miles away!The open house had over 50 planes and helicopters as part of the “static display.” We were able to go through a couple and peek in to several. Ryan had fun checking out the cockpits and other areas of some pretty cool planes, including the KC-135 refueling stratotanker. (In the second picture below, he had been lying down on the cot (?) where technicians watch the boom during the refueling. A dad jumped down in front of me as I was going to take Ryan’s picture, so I asked the dad to take a quick picture of Ryan. He rudely grabbed my camera and pointed it in Ryan’s general direction and clicked. He took a lovely picture of the padded area above the cot. So, after they left, I had Ryan quickly climb back down so I could take another picture. By that time, someone else had already climbed onto the cot. Oh well.) We thoroughly enjoyed the air show. The last time we attended, Ryan was a year old, so he doesn’t remember anything, just the pictures. We were able to meet up with some friends who had been there early to get great seats. There was a really neat “Heritage Flight,” a 3-plane tribute (F-4 Phantom, P-51 Mustang, and F-16) to veterans…
A very large (and very slow compared to the F-16s) C-17…MiGs, gliders, hang-gliders, parachuters, and biplanes…But our favorite part of the show (everyone’s, I’m sure) were the Thunderbirds…
Four…Five…Six…Even after the show was over and most of the millions were mass-exiting the base, Ryan wanted to stick around and watch them come in on the tarmac (and take pictures)…

I Totally Forgot...

...One of the things I was going to include in the previous post! Ryan's "teacher gift" turned out so cute that I wanted to post it.

We bought a big bottle of hand sanitizer and a bag of rock candy. Ryan traced his hand on bright turquoise paper (to match the turquoise rocks in the candy and the turquoise on the hand sanitizer bottle) and wrote this on it:

"Thank you for the HANDS-on education. You ROCK!" It turned out super cute, and Ryan's teacher was happy to get something other than a mug. :)

The ABCs of Third Grade

Ryan loved his third grade year. I keep telling him how lucky he is. I only remember three things from my third grade year, and they were all bad. So, to wrap up Ryan’s third grade year and highlight some of his favorite things, we have created “The ABCs of Third Grade” together…

A – Assemblies; the Aquarium field trip; the Aquarium’s visit to Ryan’s class and AR (Accelerated Reading, the computerized program where they take tests as they finish books).
B – Mr. Bacall, Ryan’s favorite teacher so far; and Ryan’s birthday, when I took treats and he was interviewed by his classmates (and received a very enthusiastic group hug).C – Learning to write in cursive; computer class; and Copper visiting on the last day of school.

D – The dance program; and learning division.E – Learning about the earth in science.

F – Flag ceremonies; Field day, Fridays, when Mom volunteered; and friends.G – Learning Geometry; and reading George’s Marvelous Medicine and other Roald Dahl books as a class.

H – The Halloween parade and activities; and learning that his friend Henry is a cousin!I – Learning about the Incas; and, in Ryan’s words…I LOVED it!

J – Juice with notes from Mom in his lunch every day.

K – Komodo Dragons, the topic of Ryan’s first ever research paper.

L – The Living Traditions Festival field trip (Mom was a chaperone); and Library time.M – Learning multiplication; Music class; and Mom volunteering on Fridays (I know, this is the third time, but he really did say it for all of these letters.)

N – Learning about Native Americans; Notes from mom on juice (yes, he said it for both J and N); and playing the noseflute for the music class talent show.O – Teaching the class how to make Ooblek.P – Mr. Prusse, the best principal ever; PE; and Pizza Hut pizza on Wednesdays (one of two menu items that made Ryan choose school lunch over home lunch. See “T” for the other). To explain the picture, this is Ryan holding the flyer for Mr. Prusse's good-bye open house, and the wadded up tissue he used to wipe his tears away during the good-bye assembly. The kid is worse than I am!!!Q – Learning about quadrilaterals.

R – Entering the Reflections Contest with a drawing of himself with Alice & Claire; Rara coming to talk about Bountiful history; and I suggested recess, every other kids' favorite thing about school.S – Science, his favorite subject, which also included learning about space and the solar system; learning about the Shoshone; and the St. Patrick’s Day lunch from Mom.T – Tater tots, the other lunch item Ryan would choose over home lunch (for those of you who appreciate Napoleon Dynamite, we always joked about him wearing pants with cargo pockets on tater tot day); learning about different kinds of triangles; and the talent show in music class.

U – Learning about Uranus during the solar system studies.

V – The opportunity that the kids had at Ryan’s school to vote for their favorite presidential candidate in November.

W – “We Are the Loyal Lions” (school song) on the noseflute for the music talent show (I know, we’re duplicating again. He mentioned it for more than one letter.).

X – As hard as we tried, we couldn’t figure out anything for X. Feel free to give us your suggestions in the comments.

Y – Signing yearbooks on the last day of school.

Z – We’re also stumped on Z. Again, we welcome suggestions.

Ryan and I will both miss Mr. Prusse, who is moving on to a new school. We've already had an offer to move in with friends within the boundaries of his new school, but I think we'll stay where we are. Ryan also asked Mr. Bacall if he'd consider moving up to fourth grade. (Ryan also asked me if he could be held back a grade and have Mr. Bacall again.) We both enjoyed this year, and are sad to see it come to an end, but hope that fourth grade will be almost as good.