Losing the Weight

Last night at a farewell for a family in our ward, the ladies and I were talking about losing weight. Seems a few of them have been quite successful in losing weight over the past 6 months. OK, I'm not one of them, but I'd like to be. I started a new blog for myself to keep me motivated, and track my progress. Click on the "I Can Lose the LBS" link on the side to go to it. Any encouragement would be welcome!!!!!

More Glenview Pictures

Here are a few pics from Glenview. It's only a couple of miles from the Temple. That was so cool to drive by the temple in the dark, and see it. It was beautiful.

Here's Jacob, posing near the cannon. Crazy kid!Here's the whole fam, minus me. Someone's gotta take the pic!

And Jacob again, that crazy powder monkey!

Jim's more interested in his popcorn than the cannon!

Here's Eme. We've become friends with a new couple in the unit, Victor (imagine a slender Coronal Sanders) and .....oops, I've seemed to forgotten Victor's wife's name. Sorry. Anyway, at the last event, they said that they loved our kids, and wanted to be their "grandparents" for the events. Sounded like a plan to me! They spent a lot of time with Eme (well, everyone LOVES eme), walking her around, and taking her to the nature center (very cool), and talking with her. Here's a pic of her and her new shoes that Victor got for her. And her fan. Her old shoes were falling apart, so when they made their trip to the Sutlers, he got her a new (used) pair of boots. Thanks so much, Victor!

Even though I'm not an animal lover, I must say that I was impressed with this horse. Very gentle and regal, it was. And massive. It was so much bigger than other horses I've seen recently. Very pretty.

I just love this pic of Brent and Joe. Here's some of my boys!

Our New Campsite

So here's what we used to sleep in. These 2 tents on the end. Their called DOG TENTS, or PUP TENTS. Or SHELTER HALVES. Take your pick. They're very small, but they work. Brent and I and Jim all slept in one. It was tight, but do-able. Well, we decided that we needed something a bit bigger.

SOOOOO, we built an A tent, I think it's called. Brent and leave a comment if it's called something different. Look at how much more room I have. I can actually stand up to get dressed. What a novel idea! And, we made the fly to go with it. No more moving all our stuff to follow the shade of the trees. That's just silly. This is so much more comfortable! We brought our 2 air mattresses, and slept very nicely. Now Jim has his own pup tent (with port-a-crib), Jake and Eme share, and Tom and Joe share. It's so nice!

Check out the table that Brent made. It's pretty cool!

Silly Joe. He looks like he's drunken or something :)

The Civil War Battle

Here are a few pics from the battle on Saturday. It seemed to be a pretty good show from where I was sitting. Lots of action and such.

Yeah, I know these pics are a little out of order, but thats ok. Here's Brent coming back from the battle. He died today. But he died gloriously! And a few more of the troops marching back after they got all their dead back in the ranks :)

And a few more of the battle action.

Jacob was going to get to be the message runner again, and go out with the troops. Right before he fell in with them, an officer from the artillary unit asked if Jacob would be willing to help out their group as a powder monkey. That's the person who runs the gunpowder from where it's kept behind the cannon lines, up to the guy who puts it in the cannon. He was SO EXCITED. Much cooler than running messages. He absolutely loved it!

And back to the battle action. I told you they were out of order!

Cub Scout Day Camp 2007

Pack 140 and Pack 257 decided to do their own day camp this year. We have attended the council day camp (or was it district?) for the past 2 years, and frankly, I wasn't too impressed with it (no offense to those running it). I decided last year that I could put one on for our pack, and it would be better for our kids, and a lot cheaper.

I worked out a tentative plan, and ran it by Brent. He helped me tweak it a bit, and it looked pretty good. It was for 5 days, from 10-2 each day. Each day would have a sports belt loop, an academic belt loop, a water activity, and a fun game type activity.

I laid out a nice plan for each day, then myself, Beth Roberts from pack 140, Denise Dodd from pack 257, and Mindy Toller from pack 257 all got together and divi'd up all the jobs. It really wasn't that much work.

We had 25 kids that attended. Some only stayed for 1 or 2 days, but they still got the Cub Camp experience. We had about 13 or 14 scouts, and the rest siblings or Boy Scout helpers. It really was a lot of fun. Stressful for those running it, but a great benefit to the kids!

For anyone that knows me, my camera is always attached to my hip, and I take TONS of pics. Well, the first 4 DAYS of day camp, I forgot it at home. Can you believe it! What was I thinking? But, I finally remembered it on Friday. I know that some of the other moms took pics on the other days. Now I'll just have to try and get them to email me the pics.

Anyway, here are a few pics that I do have from Day Camp.

The Magic Show by Ron Dodd (Denise's husband)

Fishing at the stocked pond

In the car and on our way!

The kids are already asking if we're gonna do this again next year!