football & flight

i'm so slow on blogging these days. blme that silly full time job. i know when i'm behind when the husband sends me pictures from his phone. here's some from last week. b had a soccer tournament. i spent friday & saturday driving out to bfe at ungodly hours to watch 7 year olds kick the ball around.


saturday, while i was enjoying soccer, j& dh went to enjoy a day at smu. friends had great parking spots, tailgating on the boulevard and catered suite for the game. 




they had fun, so much fun, that the husbands, who i thought were going to take the boys to the 8pm game on saturday night, decided it would be better if the wives drove the little boys instead. fun, more soccer! (Actually, it was good game and i like watching b play. it's just fun to give dh a hard time.)

wednesday this week, dh took b on a cub scout outing to the frontiers of flight museum.


i think they had fun except b spent too much time playing in the ejector seat and missing the tour inside the big plane. tears ensued.

i need to work on my vocabulary, i overused fun.

Cub Scouts

B's cub scout den is back in the swing of things. (I was selfishly hoping that he would drop scouts this year, just for my own schedule. He likes it and wanted to continue so we did.)

Over Labor Day, they had a camp-out weekend, or should I say lake-out weekend. One of the families invited the boys and a parent to come out for the weekend. We hemmed and hawed about whether we would go or not. Finally DH found out they had cable and brand new big screen tv. That was enough incentive for him.  Lake, boating and football.

They all had a good time. B went water skiing. The boys went on an adventure, taking the paddle boat way across the lake to an island. They swam, looked around the island and found dog prints. They thought it was pretty cool.












Last weekend they got together to earn their horseback riding belt loop. The leader's sister rides a lot and she hosted the event.

They had to watch the horse get saddles, brush the horses,  learn all the horse body parts. After all that they got to go for a ride. B also stuck his finger up the nose of a water buffalo. (I think that was a water buffalo!)






I think B got most excited about the 'worm' he found in a log. I like the spiders, huge brown and yellow garden spider and a blurry black widow.

J just said the blog is all about B now. I think he's correct, but I told him it was because he won't let me take pictures of him anymore. He at least agreed with me.

Cub Scouts at the Aquarium

B's leader wanted to keep the cub scout den going over the summer. She scheduled an activity a month over the summer. A couple of Sundays ago we went to the Dallas World Aquarium.










The boys had a lot of fun and it was more interesting that I thought it would be. I love the third picture because I can see in the reflection his excitement watching the sharks feed.

Cub Scout Camping

I signed B up for cub scouts this year. DH was against it. He did cub scouts with J and he likes boy scouts better. I said he could do it and I would be the one to take him scouting stuff. I still didn't really want to but A&J got to do it and I couldn't deprive him just because he's the youngest and I was done with it already.

It has been a good year. I signed up with a den where I only knew one mom. B and I both knew more people in the other den, but his den leader responded quickly and enthusiastically and we've gotten to make new people and B has had a lot of fun.

Of course, the part I dreaded came this weekend. Cub Scout Campout. I tried to tell DH that even though I was taking B to meetings, camping was his thing. He said no. He's going Y Guides camping next weekend and he wasn't camping two weekends in a row. When push came to shove, I had to take him. All the boys in his den were going. We skipped the fall campout. I couldn't make him miss this one just because I didn't want to go camping.

I haven't camped since I was 21 years old. Almost half my life ago! Scary thought. Luckily, the other parents were there is most of the stuff. They had the fishing gear, they cooked the food over the fire. I was responsible for s'mores. That part of camping I can handle.

B had a soccer game early Saturday. After the game (which they won, undefeated, league champions, go PST-Vasquez!) we packed up the car and headed to the lake.

he looks so excited to be camping, no?


retiring a flag


lots of fishing, but no fish


huge water snake


giant beavers


sleeping boy still in his uniform

In addition to all the above we did some hiking. B & I went on a long hike by ourselves in the afternoon and the whole group went on a long wandering, no we're not lost, hike at night. Overall, it was a very good day of camping.

The sleeping was what I dreaded the most.

B was exhausted and starting to lose it around 10:30. I could tell and when he suggested that we just "lie down for a little bit", I said absolutely. Of course, no one else went to bed and several kids were set up with toys and a bright LED light right outside our tent. B got a very long back scratch to get him to go to sleep. I was awake. Somewhere close to midnight, some parents realized that they had forgotten to put some kids to bed. They were still playing with the very loud wind up trains outside our tent.  I was still awake. At almost 1am, the last of the dads headed to bed and turned off the second LED lantern that was close to our tent. I was still awake. I fell sleep fairly quickly, but B woke up at 3:00 to pee. I was awake again. I could hear trains, highway traffic, an owl hooting. I gave up trying to sleep and read for another hour. I finally fell asleep after 4:15. At 4:45 I woke up to a boy crying "Mom!" At first I thought it was a dream but then I heard the den leader talking to the boy. His mother had gone to the bathroom and the boy woke up alone and scared. They settled back down. I dozed fitfully until 6:30am when the boys started waking up, and then pretended to sleep until 7am.

B woke up and asked when we were shooting b-b guns. Um, never. That's next weekend with dad. One of the fathers was taking a group of boys fishing. We got up and tried to catch up with them, but ended up taking a short hike. After our hike, he headed out to fish with the other kids. I packed up the car and was ready to leave by 8am. B was not a ready. He fished and played until 10am and I finally dragged him out of there.

I'm glad I took him camping. He enjoyed it and he didn't feel left out. But I think I'm good with sleeping in a tent for another 21 years.

Busy week in Cub Scouts

B had a busy week in Cub Scouts. Wednesday, his den went to visit the Dallas Office of the FBI. One of the dads in the den is an FBI Swat Guy. Or as J & B like to say, he's a sniper, then they raise their arms like they are holding a big old rifle (or whatever big gun a sniper would hold) and pretend to shoot. Boys do like guns.

The boys got to go visit the FBI warehouse where all the "toys" are.










Friday night was the Pack Meeting. The Tiger Cubs got to do color guard duty. B carried in the Texas flag. They also received the Bobcat badge. It is hanging upside down right now, waiting for B to do a "good turn" so we can turn it rightside up and sew it on.

Tiger Cub

J decided to take a year off from scouting. I was a bit sad but happy with more time in our schedule. Of course, the second week of school, B came home with the cub scout flyer so excited to join cub scouts. I was hoping for a schedule conflict so I could tell him no, but also feeling guilty that I had given the first two the opportunity to enjoy scouting and I shouldn't deny B. My poor third child.

It all worked out in the end. We're in a den with 8 other boys. I don't know most of them but I think it is good for B to have friends outside of his regular crowd. The timing is fine, Wednesday evenings, twice a month.

Last night was B's first pack meeting. I did make it over to the scouting store in time to get him a uniform shirt. (I'm a meaning and didn't buy the shorts or the socks, his uniform shorts & socks will do.) However, I bought it Friday afternoon and the meeting was Friday night. There was no way I was going to rush around trying to get all of those patches sewn on by 7pm. I finally convinced B that I would pin them on and he quit fighting me. He was pretty mad that he wasn't going to be in uniform. I waiting until 6:30 and tried to pin them on. Well, I went through 3 safety pins before I gave up and went to duct tape, his sister's blue and purple duct tape. Oh, my poor third child.

Oh, I did not have a happy Tiger Cub! He was so mad and so worried that his patches were going to fall off. I told him to sit still and they would be fine.

See the duct tape.


See his clutching his sleeve to keep them on

His leader turned around and thanked him because he was the most behaved and sat so still through the whole meeting. I guess it was good for something, you can't mess around when you're worried about losing your patches.

so well behaved


His raffle ticket was drawn and he got a prize, a cheetah poster.

His duct taped patches held up pretty well until the end. They had samples of a new popcorn flavor. I tried to hold him back so he didn't have to go through the rush of kids trying to get a sample. However, as we were walking out, I noticed he was missing his den 11 patch. He turned around to look for it and I saw that he was missing his "2" from Pack 712. I got a short "I told you so" speech and he stomped off to look for his patches. We found the 2 but not the Den 11. First thing this morning, we went back over to the scout store and bought a new patch. Now I have to get them sewn on before Wednesday when he can wear his uniform to school.

Parvuli Dei Award

Last Sunday was Scout Sunday. J received his Parvuli Dei award.

I tried to get a picture of him receiving his award but phone camera took too long to get the shot. Here's a shot of Fr. B's back while handing him the award.





A very proud Den 9.





And here's J with his banner hanging in the church.





He got his Bear (I think) patch at the Blue & Gold dinner and I think that means he goes onto Webelos next (again, I'm not sure.) This whole Boy Scout thing is confusing to me. Of course, I'm afraid that I'm going to get swept into it with B next year. Keep your fingers crossed that I can still claim my girl scout duties and avoid being den mother.

Cub Scout Camping

After a long day in the hot sun at the ballpark, DH & J got up early on Saturday. J played an 8am soccer game and they headed out to cub scout camp out.

It was at the Collin County Adventure camp which is a great facility. They had archery, bb guns, rock climbing wall, canoeing, fishing and all kinds of other fun. DH said it was good but windy. He could hardly sleep because the wind was flapping the tent around. It was so noisy he ended up sleeping with earplugs.

Light of Christ

J received his Light of Christ medal at the Scout Sunday mass.





Doesn't he look proud!