Something to play on

So, most evenings after work this week the kids and I have put a bit of time in on the play structure finishing up the details.

The kids helped a lot with the climbing wall. I just lined stuff up and they put in the screws.


Then there were the roofs, handles, rope and telescope.


The kids are having a great time playing on it.


Money well spent to stimulate the kids imagination as well as the economy.

A Busy Weekend

Saturday was a busy day with a bike ride in the morning. A very nice ride in the May Gray (when that term came up I don't know, I have only heard of June Gloom for Southern California) Up the mountain with the mist from the fog on my face.

After that Ethan and I headed off to a birthday party at Jumpin' Jammin' which was followed by the 2009 Scout Expo at Santa Anita Race track. We've never been and it was great fun. We had heard that Ethan could earn some belt loops at the expo, he soon figured out that some of the booths were just activies and others were the belt loops. For belt loops he did astronomy, science and computer, I just realized the geekiness of that.


On the non-geeky side Ethan participated in archery. It wasn't for a belt loop but he did get a patch.


Sunday I got up and went to play music for the kids at church. Always fun, it was a bit of a train wreck last time, this time went much better. After playing I came home and started working on the new play structure we got for the kids.

7 boxes of about a bazillion pieces. Kerrianne read online that these things take "handy" people forever to put together.

This is about the state I had it in when the kids got home from church.


The upper level floor in.


Junia liked climbing on it already.


Ethan like drilling holes in the roots in the ground.


The kids are already getting Uncle Leo on the slide.


So, today I was able to get the pic nic table, both platforms, the ladder and the slide on. So the kids will be able to start climbing around on it. I need to get time soon to get the roof on and the rest of the rails and it's good to go. I'm feeling pretty good about today's progress.

Pinewood Derby

Today was the big race.... the Pinewood Derby.

Ethan and I got the wheels on our cars earlier this week and used some teflon powder to lube them up a bit. We didn't have a scale to check the weight so we left that till last minute when we got to the race. Some minor weight adjustments and borrowed some graphite from another racer and we checked in the cars, ready to go.

Here are the cars from the Tiger Cub Den.

Ethan's is the white one in the front row.

The event started with the Tiger Cub den. Each car raced 4 times and got points based on what place they were in each. The car with the fewest points was the winner to move on to the championships.

Ethan got a 1st, 3rd and 2 seconds for a total of 8 points, which meant 3rd place in the den, good enough for a ribbon!


My car raced in the "Dads" group. I was consistent at least. 4th place in each of 4 races. But my car looked good.

Ethan and I ran our cars down the track together .

Almost Race Day

Well, in about 15 hours the Renegade Off-Road Triathlon starts. I'm feeling pretty good though I missed taking an allergy pill yesterday morning and by afternoon felt pretty awful. Picked up some Claratin on the way home and started to feel better, though not perfect. Felt even better after a good nights sleep and a pill this morning. I don't want to have any excuses for not doing as well as I'd like but I'll push through.

According to the web site the race results will be posted by 5pm on Monday 6 April 2009.

Yesterday Ethan and I went with the Tiger Cubs to visit a radio station. We went to the local Public Radio station KPCC. It was pretty interesting for me to see how stuff has changed from analog to digital in the 18 years since I did public radio in college. All of the Tiger Cubs got a chance to talk into the microphone.

March Belt Test

Today was belt test day, well belt promotion, we did our tests during class the last few weeks and today was a celebration and awarding of the belts. With all the students at the school ranging from kids to adults they ran two ceremonies. I chose to go to the early one and celebrate on the mat with Ethan and Junia.

We started out warming up with everyone on the mat. You can see Rog, me and one other mom were the only adults in the early session. Junia, Ethan and Reed are in there too.


Everyone did some kicks.


Then the white belt and Little Ninja Graduates showed off their stuff.

Front fall.


Side fall.


And blocks. Ethan got to be Junia's partner.


Junia's friend Arlie was out there too.


they discussed their hapkido skills.


Then everyone got to break boards.






There was a Kung Fu demonstration by Sifu Lopez and some of the instructors demonstrated parts of their black belt tests. This included the Walters brothers doing some flying kicks and Mr. Zlada demonstrating chair defense. Quite impressive, Ethan was very excited to see his instructors show off.

Then they awarded belts. Master Connard handed them out.


Mr. Birkholz (Uncle Bill) tied on Junia's belt.


After Master Connard handed out the belts we went down the line and were congratulated by all of the instuctors.




Ethan's friend Christopher.

Stickers

When the paint was dry, a week ago, Ethan and I put decals on our derby cars.


Ethan got flames, lightning bolts, some flags and a few logos.

I got white pinstripes and a few logos.

Pinewood Derby Cars

One of my greatest moments of childhood trauma was the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. I was the kid that had made my car all by myself and when the big race came along my car stopped 1/2 way down the track and had to deal with the embarrassment of walking up to get my stalled car. Here we are 30 years later and I'm the Cub Scout leader helping 6 boys with their cars... pressure.

We had the den over to our place to get started on our cars. There's a lot more pictures and story over at http://tigercubscouts.blogspot.com

I got to help Ethan and the other boys using the band saw.



Then everyone dis some hand sanding. No one seems to like that part.


It took a while to get the shapes cut out on all of the cars so after everyone left Ethan and I worked on his car a bit more.

Beginning with sanding some more.


Then paint. He wanted multi colors and chose black and white. (Is that really multi color?)


The sides got black and after that dried we masked it off so he could paint the top white.


More to come..... after the paint drys.

Thank You God For Little Things

The First Grade classroom 1B poem party was on Friday the 13th but there was nothing scary about it. Every student remembered their poems.

Here's the class. Ethan is in the back row, 4th from the left.


The deal is each student is given a poem to learn. They get about two months and work on it during the day and as homework. Ethan also got some pointers from Miss Kristen his speech therapist. They are given help with some hand motions to go along with it. The beauty thing about it is that this is an activity that they will continue each year which gives all of the students an experience in speaking in front of a crowd, using a microphone and respecting others as they do the same.



Every kid in the class did great! There were poems that were funny and some that were sweet, every kid gave their own little twist to them. No one tried to pull off the Mike Meyers poetry reading from "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" though.


Proud Mom and Dad.


All smiles with Brian.


With his buddies, Ethan, Jason, Brian, Owen.


With his teacher. Mrs. Tcharkutchian (I'm sure that's not spelled correctly.)


Afterward we left school and went to Santa Clarita to play miniature golf at Mountasia.


Of course Junia went along too.


And the reason we drove all the way to Santa Clarita is that there's a Farrel's Ice Cream Parlor at Mountasia.

KC and I split the Oreo Bliss... here's a shot for the Extreme Bootcamp folks.


And Junia with her Clown Sundae.


And the poetry reader with his.