Arrow of Light and Crossing over Ceremony

Last night was Mr. Meticulous' Crossover ceremony from Cub scouts to Boy scouts. It was really cool. He joined pack 260 at the beginning of the school year and has worked extremely hard to earn his Arrow of Light award (not all boys work hard enough to earn this one and the other 2 who did have been working on it for 2 years), which is the only award from cub scouts he is allowed to wear on his new boyscout uniform. We are so very proud of him.


The ceremony itself was a neat experience. As he crossed over the bridge from cub scouts to boy scouts he paused halfway and turned to salute his cub scout den leaders farewell, then he turned to salute the boy scouts and Scoutmaster Scott as they saluted him for his hard work and achievements.


Scoutmaster Scott congratulated him on his hard work and diligence


and one of the Eagle scouts from the boyscout troop helped replace the old neckerchief with the new troop one as a welcome gift.


Then they asked him to join them in saying the Scout Promise which is:

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law: to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

This weekend, Mr. Meticulous is going to Camporee as his first outing as an actual boyscout. Typically, the camporee involves competitions, with events such as fire building, knot tying, first aid, emergency preparedness, pioneering or orienteering. He will be judged on his uniform, how well he packs, how well he sets up his camp and other things. It will be fun.

The first weekend in June Big Daddy will join Mr. Meticulous for a backpacking trip where they will also be responsible for cooking their own food and other fun stuff. It's wonderful that they get to spend time alone like that. It's really good for both of them.

After Mr. Meticulous' long awaited trip to Ketchikan in July he will be off to Camp Hahobas in Washington for a whole week of boy scouting fun. I am so excited that he is involved in this particular troop because they are Christ centered in all that they do. The troop's personal motto is Scouting for Christ which they have on their own hats. It's nice to know what we work at teaching him is being reinforced by his troop and it's good to see the older boys take the younger ones in and encourage them. Yay God.

If you would like to see some pictures of the troop's fun you can go to their website and check out activities. Big Daddy and Mr. Meticulous went to the Buford Recreational Area and learned about forestry and geology. (If you click on the pictures they will zoom so you can actually see what's going on.)

Science Olympics

Back in April, Chicky-babe had the opportunity to compete in the Science Olympics on behalf of her middle school. Science Olympics is a series of problem solving events that are fun to do and require students to apply their knowledge of science in creative ways. Students work in teams rather than individually. A talented team of middle schoolers practiced after school a couple days a week and competed with other teams from each of the area middle schools.
There were events like the catapult, mouse trap cars (which must be solely propelled by the force of a mouse trap), life science relays (where questions must be answered in a relay format), and metric estimation among many others.

Chicky-babe and her partner were handling the metric estimation portion for their team. There were about 12 random items lined up on a table and they had to go down the row estimating weights, lengths, thicknesses, areas, volumes and distances, etc., on those items. There were things like a golf ball, an eraser, a pencil, an empty bucket, a glass jar, a magnet, a section of the gym floor...you get the idea.
Here she is hard at work:


Everyone did an outstanding job helping Hamlin take an overall 2nd place in the competition!


Chicky-babe's skill was apparent despite her nerves and she took home a second place ribbon in her team event. Way to go!