The Leader of the Pack

I am the new Pack Committee Chair for the cub scout pack at our church.  It's more of an administrative job.  I make sure the planning and paperwork and training and leadership meetings get done.

I've only been doing this job a few weeks and we hadn't even had a pack meeting yet when our cubmaster told me he had to go out of town for a month.  Stupidly, I volunteered to organize and run the pack meeting while he was gone, even though I hadn't been to one in over twenty years.

I was so nervous about running it and I spent a lot of time preparing and trying to figure out how to do it and what it involves.  And the day finally came!

Scott was out of town the week of the meeting, so I had all the kids with me "helping." I went to the church an hour and a half early to set up (and I needed nearly all that time).  Almost all the boys showed up and almost all the leaders.  It went really well and the boys seemed to have a good time.  The boys were so sweet and eager to participate, so it worked out really well. We were giving out a lot of awards at this pack meeting and Grant cried every time people clapped or cheered, which was a lot since we were giving out all the day camp and other awards for the summer.   I'm glad it's over and next month (and ever after) I should be able to be mostly an observer at the pack meeting.  :)

The set up

The blanket is covering up a bunch of awards.  And you can't see it, but the pack flag is being held up by a step stool and a couple bricks.  Something I rigged up.  It didn't look the greatest but it worked.  Maybe sometime we'll get some real flag stands.  ;)

A Nature Walk

For our family home evening activity tonight we did a nature walk scavenger hunt.  Our lesson was about how God made the world we live in and then we went and looked for some things on a short walk.  The kids were SO excited about it.

 I made these two sided cards with things to find and the kids made check marks (or some kind of mark) on there when they found it.  I think we found them all by the end.

 Here is Matthew showing his card

And Anna

 

Grant was so tired.  But the rest of us had a good time.

The Dinosaur Museum

We drove up to Woodland Park (a short drive into the mountains above Colorado Springs) to see the dinosaur museum this weekend.  It was "Critterfest" day at the museum so there were a lot of dogs and other animals there. 

My favorite thing was this wolf, Apache, from an organization that rescues wolves.  He was BIG and later we found out he was small for his age.  We went to a little lecture about wolves and we found out wolves are not naturally aggressive (I still don't think I want to meet a hungry one in the wild) but domesticated dogs are, and have been bred to be.  It was interesting learning about the wolves.

Here are the kids petting a hedgehog.  A smaller critter.

And inside the dinosaur museum.  There were a lot of cool exhibits!  Here is a T Rex skull!

I think this one was a Pteranodon

This one is an Anna with a dino-head.

An I don't know what

And a T Rex

Scott and I were also interested to find out that Brontosaurus is now called Apatosaurus.  :)

On the way out of the canyon we stopped at Pikes Peak Gourmet Popcorn!

And I don't know why we thought it was a good idea, but we also drove down to Pueblo to check out the lake there.  The lake looked nice, but the swimming area was very sad and gross.  Don't think we'll go back.  Matthew and Anna were very disappointed to leave though.

Our Little Orator

Matthew was asked to give a talk in church today, so Scott and I went to primary to hear it.  While waiting for his talk to start, we found out from some of the leaders that Matthew has been asking and asking to give a talk in primary (even though he is 4 and in the youngest age class) and last week he even went up and sat on the stand where the kids giving talks were sitting, even though he wasn't supposed to.

Is this my child?

We also found out he whistles during all the songs instead of singing.  Or maybe that was just for our benefit today.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of it all.  I'm glad he enjoys his church classes and isn't afraid to talk in front of people.  Maybe I could learn a few things from him.  :)

The IKEA Experience

I've been wanting a new dining room table for about three years now.  Our old dining table is pretty small.  I bought it in California when I was right out of college and single.  Then  I moved it to Florida, Scott and I moved it back to California, then to Okinawa and now to Colorado.  The finish is damaged on the top, but it's a good little table.  But that's the problem.  It's little.  With more than two or three people eating at it there is no room for food.  

Scott wanted to wait til we moved back to the states, since our Okinawa house was also very small.  After shopping around a lot, Scott and I picked out a table we liked from Ikea.  We almost drove to Utah earlier in the year to buy it at the Utah Ikea, but Scott broke his ankle a few days before we were planning to go.  It might have been a sign that we weren't supposed to make that drive. 

So, for that reason,  I've been eagerly awaiting the opening of the Denver Ikea.  It was supposed to open fall 2011, but actually opened ahead of schedule!  Hooray!!

Here are the kids waiting outside the store for Scott to bring the car around (above).  :)

And here we are waiting to check out.  I LOVE Ikea.  A lot.  So I was very excited for the store to open.  I would never go to an Ikea within the first week of it's opening if I didn't love it.  There was sign on the freeway that said "IKEA PARKING LIMITED" and had a radio station to tune to for Ikea info.  When we got off the freeway there were neon vested parking attendants waving you in for about a half mile before getting to the store.  They got us right to an open spot that was pretty close to the entrance (they have a big parking structure at this Ikea).  

There were a lot of Ikea newbies at the store - trying to figure out how to make sense of this big store.  But we knew exactly where to go and found our stuff quickly.  It was "the mall at Christmas" crowded inside but not "mob crushing you at a soccer game" crowded.  So I was happy about that.

 

And here is Scott (with helpers) assembling the table. It's big but also has two additional leaves that store INSIDE the table.  Have I mentioned I love Ikea?

 And our new table upright.

Here is our old table (right) next to our new table.  I think the new one is 2 1/2 times bigger at least.  I'm glad to have the bigger table.  Now we don't have to put our jug of milk or bag of chips on the floor while we're eating 'cause it won't fit on the table.  :)  Thank you Ikea for coming to Colorado!

The County Fair

I really liked going to the county fair in the summer when I was a kid, so I wanted to go to the county fair here this summer.  As it turns out, the El Paso County, Colorado county fair is very small compared with the Orange County, California county fair.  I should have guessed at that.  :)  But we still had a lot of fun.  They did have a demolition derby, but we didn't stay for that.  And it took us a long time to explain to Matthew why people would crash their cars on purpose.
We had to drive a little ways out of town to get to the fairgrounds and it was such a pretty drive through the Colorado countryside.

There were a ton of animals at the fair!  We didn't even get to see them all.  Matthew loved them and wanted to pet ALL of them.  My favorite were these adorable little piglets (not in this picture).  :)

Matthew tries to feed the alpacas.  We got in trouble with the alpaca guy for feeding them too much even though they never actually ate anything we tried to give them.  

Why we thought it would be a good idea to go to the gun show, I don't know.  We left after about five minutes 'cause Anna and Matthew were scared of the loud gunshots.  Here is the stage set up for the show.  And, yes, Scott brought two tickets to the gun show.  ;)

We went to see a magic show after that.  I kept humming "Final Countdown" through a lot of it 'cause it reminded me of Gob's magic show from Arrested Development.  :)  Turns out the kids don't like magic that much.  Anna did this a lot of the time.

 So did Matthew.

Best Magic Show Ever

 Also did I mention it was really hot?

At least Grant wasn't covering his ears.  He probably would have if he knew how.

 One of the kid's favorite things was this corn sandbox.  They played in there for a while.

And probably the highlight of the fair was this show put on by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  It was a pretty cute show and they had lots of exotic animals, including this baby Jaguar.  We had a good time, but we were hot and tired by the end.  I need to enjoy this warm weather before it starts getting cold again.

The Other Tillamook Cheese Factory

I don't remember how it started, but the kids and I decided to have a cheese factory of our own in the basement.  We were inspired by our trip to the Tillamook Cheese Factory a few weeks ago.  Matthew loves putting up signs, so we made this sign, and he added an arrow later.

Anna was also a worker at the cheese factory.  We stopped to take a picture with some of our cows.

And here is part of our factory that Matthew set up.  The cheese goes through the tunnel and into the tent at the end.

Here is one of our trucks, transporting some cheese.

And Matthew working at the factory, making sure all the cheese (and other dairy products) are ship shape.

And Grant got an ice cream cone at the end.

We also had some cheese sampling (with toothpicks!) but I didn't get a picture. :(

If you can't go to the real Tillamook Cheese Factory, come visit our factory in Colorado!

Grant's Blessing

We blessed Grant in church while we were in Oregon so we could have more family there.  Grant was good and didn't cry during the blessing and fell asleep promptly afterward.  We had a luncheon at the Guptill's after with all the family.  Here's Grant with Scott.

 And Grant on his own.

 We had some watermelon and I had to take some pictures of Matthew eating his...

 and Anna.  So summery!

 These pictures (this and the next) were taken the day before Grant's blessing by Uncle Dana.

Hi Grant!

He's almost 4 months old and getting so big!  He seems to be a mostly happy baby.  He smiles a lot and seems to like people.  He doesn't cry too much and likes to be held!  He's getting more grabby and likes to try and put things in his mouth, although he hasn't quite perfected that skill yet.  We're so glad he got to meet his cousins and Aunts and Uncles and Grandmas and Grandpas.  We love you Grant!

They're Cousins!!

We had so much fun seeing all the cousins while we were in Oregon.  It's so nice when we can all get together.  Here are the Keeler side cousins.  Anna, Grant, Matthew, Whitney and Magnus. You'll notice Anna just wears what she wants.  :)

And here they are from a different angle.    Matthew, Magnus, Whitney, Grant and Anna.   And again Anna picked her own outfit.

 Grant and Magnus - best baby friends!

And the Guptill side.

Anna and Karlee, our little bookends.

And everyone!!  Anna, Matthew, Grant (again, not happy), Kelsie, Jaron, Kallie, Olivia and Karlee.  Cousins are the best and I love for the kids to have fun cousin times.  It makes me want to see my own cousins!  :)

A Giant Problem

After Anna ran away from me in the parking lot today I had to have a talk with her and Matthew about not running in the street.  The end of the conversation went something like this.

Me:  ...so you need to look out for cars and NOT run in the street.

Matthew (completely serious): And we also need to be careful that giants don't step on us!

He left me speechless.

This picture doesn't have anything to do with this story...or does it?