Wolf Badge

Logan is a Wolf now!!!  He's worked so hard for the last 6 months to earn his Wolf badge.

Along with his Wolf badge he earned 7 arrow points badges.  An arrow point badge represents 10 different arrow points from his Scout book completed.  So 7 arrow points badges means he did 70 arrow points from his book!!!

For the last 2 months or so his Wolf requirements were all done except for one. little. thing... an outdoor flag ceremony!  We didn't have any means of accomplishing that one on our own.  We were stuck just waiting for it to happen in a Den or Pack meeting. 

So in the meantime we worked on arrow points, but Logan couldn't actually receive those until he had his Wolf badge.  He really likes earning things, anything at all, at Pack meetings, but it could be awhile before he'd get his next badge and arrow points.  

Then we discovered Belt Loops & pins.  These are additional things Cub Scouts can earn.  Extras.  So we started working on those.  Things like the Family Travel Belt Loop & pin (we went out of town for Thanksgiving).  So all told he's earned 13 Belt Loops and 11 pins.  A Belt Loop is the equivalent of about 3 arrow points and it's corresponding pin is like an additional 5-6 arrow points.  

Here's Logan earning 10 Belt Loops!  He also got 9 pins.  

The Belt Loops he's earned so far are:

Family Travel

Mathematics

Weather

Citizenship

Communicating

Reading & Writing

Chess 

Collecting

Marbles

Hiking 

Soccer

Bicycling

Swimming  

Many of these were very easy to incorporate because they were things he'd already been doing, such as Reading & Writing, Mathematics, Chess, Collecting and Weather.  Or things he loves to do, such as Soccer, Bicycling, Hiking and Swimming.  

Some of the Belt Loops we're wanting to work on next are:

Heritage, Art, Astronomy, Geology, Geography & Good Manners.  I like it when he earns Belt Loops because they just slip right on his belt and I don't have to sew them on his shirt.  I've got a fair bit of sewing to do now.  

The greatest thing about earning the Belt Loops is that many of them require Logan to share things with his Den.  He's gotten up in front of his Den several times now and he's getting more and more comfortable speaking in front of a small group of people.  That's one of the biggest achievements of all, if you ask me.  

We're so proud of Logan and how eager he is about Cub Scouts.  He just got his first Pine Wood Derby brick of wood.  He's beyond thrilled!  

Rock Museum

We went to a pretty cool rock museum the other day.  Logan's interested in rocks lately.  After going to the museum and reading books on the subject, Logan has decided to be a Geologist, so he can "mine for rocks."

 

 The museum had this cool map.  When you hit a button, the "quartz" button for example, lights show up on the map where quartz is found.  The kids spent a long time playing with this map.

 

And here's some quartz.  I thought it was intersting how it grew in this wave like pattern.

 Here's quartz with pyrite...

 and pyrite with quartz.

 What opal looks like in nature.  This is Taylor's birthstone.

 Barite (I think).  Isn't it cool how it grows in this square/rectangular pattern?

 Taylor loved the pink rocks.  This is rhodonite. 

Beautiful pink rock with a cool green stone inside. (heulandite-Ca with green apophylite)

 A meteorite that landed in Argentina. 

A cross-section of a meterite. 

 The kids got to touch a meteorite, a rock that had actually been in outer space!

 

 A dinosaur fossil at the museum.

 

What the dinosaur looked like when it lived.

 Fossilized dinosaur egg nest.

 Ammonite fossil.

 Variscite

 Quartz.

Gypsum.

 

 

Microcline.  I don't know what it is, but I think this was my favorite rock in the whole place.  I love it's shape and color.

  Azurite.

 Huge pieces of turquoise.  I'm used to only seeing tiny pieces.

 A 200 pound hunk of pyrite!

 

 The museum also had a gallery of flurescent rocks.  They looked just like all the other rocks until the black light was shown on them, then they lit up like a Christmas tree. 

 The kids were able to feel the inside of one of the thunder-eggs.  The thunder-egg is Oregon's State Rock. 

 The kids had so much fun.  We spent about 2 hours in the museum.  Then each of the kids were allowed to pick out a rock from an outside rock pile.  Who would have guessed rocks could be so fascinating. 

 

 

 

 

Working on the Car

The tires on our car needed rotated, so James did it himself.  He had some help though. 

 Logan bringing out the jack.

 Using all his strength (and body weight) to jack up the car. 

 

Helping put the lug nuts back on when the job was all done.

James & I both really appreciate what a big helper Logan is.  He's usually very willing to help out too. 

The Coast & a Birthday

We have not been up to much around here except getting over being sick.  The kids and I had upper respiratory infections.  It laid us flat for about 2 weeks, when all was said and done.  We're recovered now and feeling much better.  Ready to start a new week tomorrow.  

I do have some pictures to show you from other times, I just never got around to blogging about them yet. 

 We went to Rockaway Beach for Thanksgiving.

 It wasn't the best weather, but that wasn't the point of our trip.

This is the view from our hotel room!

 

 And this.

We hung out as a family and enjoyed the view.

 Logan loved how close the seagulls flew to our window.

 We also had a special birthday last month.  James turned 40 on 12.12.12!!!  It was finals week for him though.  He had a final on his birthday and then had to study for another one.  

It was Soup for Finals that day as well.  That's when the spouses of all the optometry students bring in soup and bread and the poor, overworked, stressed out students can have yummy, warm soup.  That makes it all better.  

A friend made this cool poster that says, Happy 40th James! with a bike going "over the hill."  In black of course.  We got the whole room full of optometry students to stop eating soup long enough to sing Happy Birthday to him.  I took a couple hundred cupcakes to Soup for Finals also. 

It was as fun as we could make it for being in the middle of Finals Week.  

 He also got a new handle bar for his bike.  It's what he wanted.

The kids left a trail of black streamers all over the house.  It started at the front door and went around footstools and chairs, under the dining room table and zig-zagged up the stairs.  It ended at the closet in Taylor's room.  James had to follow it to find their present for him.  When James got there, the kids jumped out and hugged him, of course, it looked more like a tackle than a hug.  That was the kids' gift for their daddy.  They came up with it all by themselves.  

He got another surprise too, an unexpected visit from his brother, who lives in Utah.  We met his parents and sister and her family for dinner and James saw someone who looked like his brother.  Then he took a second look.  It was his brother!  He'd flown in just for the weekend, just for James' birthday!  It was a great surprise. 

Then started James' 3 weeks off between semesters.  We had Christmas and New Year's and lots of family time.