Cameron's a Cub Scout!

Cameron has joined cub scouts! Here's a cute picture of Cameron in his new cub scout uniform. He joined a bit late so we had to work on catching him up with the other children in his age group. He received his bobcat badge at the blue & gold banquet this past week (and worked very hard to learn everything in a short time!). He also received several other badges, but being new to this whole scouting thing, I really have no idea what they mean:-) Cameron & Matt are working on getting ready for the Pinewood Derby. Sounds like a thing for the boys to me:-)

At the blue & gold banquet Cameron really didn't like the sound of the balloons popping (they had badges hidden inside the balloons and had to pop the balloon to get the badge out). Here he is covering his ears, lol...

And when asked what his favorite part of cub scouts was, Cameron's answer was, "getting the badge was the best. oh, and eating the cake!" J

Cameron is practicing his cub scout pledge here on our kindergarten students. You can tell they are utterly enthralled with it!

Here is Cameron's Bear group singing the opening song for the Blue & Gold banquet.

This video just shows the end of a little bit they said about Cameron. Of course, my camera battery died just as they awarded him his bobcat badge, but at least I caught the tail end where they awarded him another badge (or something that looked like a badge? but goes on your belt? I really have no idea what it is...lol)

Snowshoeing and sledding at Moose Creek reservoir

We went snowshoeing and sledding yesterday out at Moose Creek reservoir. It was a nice day and we had fun. The kids found a small hill where they could sled out across the frozen reservoir.

We found these tracks across the reservoir. We think they were wolf tracks. As you can tell, one track was almost as big as Kayla's whole face! There were no human tracks near it (to tell us maybe it was a large pet dog) and the tracks came from out of the woods on one side of the reservoir, and across to the other side of the woods. They were obviously way too big to be coyote tracks (which we also saw a lot of).

We decided to be brave and cross the frozen water. Something we had never done before!

There was a just a little snow on top of this picnic table...

Cameron cannot control his excitement at sledding on the frozen reservoir:-)

This video shows where we were at when we started off snowshoeing at Moose Creek.

Cameron's swim lessons

Cameron started swim lessons this past summer of 2008. We thought it was time because he kept insisting he already knew how to swim, and would refuse to let us help him in the water. Meanwhile, he'd be gurgling, spitting, and basically drowing right in front of us while he would yell at us not to touch him because he could swim! Lessons went really well for Cameron. His swim teacher told us that he is the best student she has ever seen! It seems to come very naturally for him, which is a shocker since he is a stout little man:-)



This was when he was first starting his lessons. We did private lessons because Cameron's hearing loss makes it very difficult to hear in the pool and one-on-one would be the best way to go for him.



Getting ready to take the plunge!



And backwards...

So now it's been around 6 months of swimming lessons and Cameron is really good at it! He can swim laps unassisted now, is working on diving into deep water, and can do many different strokes including: freestyle, breast stroke, back stroke, and even butterfly! His teacher has suggested the next step for Cameron is the swim team. I think it is great for Cameron to have something he is really good at:-)

These videos show Cameron in some of his more recent lessons...

This video shows Cameron swimming laps, and his awesome turns at the wall:-) He is so relaxed when he swims. He just plods along and defies all laws of gravity:-)

June 2008, Wilderness Gateway Camp Trip

We went to Wilderness Gateway campground this past summer. It was beautiful, and relaxing, however there was only a very brief reprieve from constant rain. This was one of those moments!

This was one of Teddy's last camp trips with us. Obviously, the rain was getting the better of us! We had hiked out to the river while it was somewhat sunny, and it started to pour again while we were out. We would not be deterred! (Although I'm sure Teddy thought differently...)

We had decided that we were going hiking despite the rain. We had a few moments of relief from the rain, but for the most part, our hike was very wet! We still enjoyed the beauty and the fresh air which was the reason we enjoy camping in the first place:-)

Cameron's got his sites set on something. again. watch out!

My parents' new dog Scooby is a friendly guy!

More wet hiking in the rain!

You never know what could be lurking in the long grass!