Scouts, scouts and MORE scouts!

This has been a week of lots of scouts stuff.

On Tuesday Kempton "crossed over" the bridge and is now officially a boy scout. At the pack meeting he was awarded a special patch and certificate for earning ALL 20 of the Webelo pins/badges! Way to go Kempton. He was also given his scout patch because he earned the Arrow of Light a few months ago. He is excited for Saturday's orienteering course that he will be doing and for the upcoming merit badge university in November.

Wednesday night was a Court of Honor where Nathan advanced to the rank of Star. I am very proud of him for keeping at it when it comes to scouts. He attended merit badge university a few weeks ago where he earned his engineering and first aid merit badges. He's doing a great job.

SSSSSSSnake!

Kempton is the proud and happy owner of a Ghost Corn Snake. "Phantom", as he is named, is a very friendly snake and likes to be held. He eats mice (frozen and then thawed) but will not eat in front of anyone as we have found. You may think I'm crazy, but I think he makes a great pet and I don't mind petting him, although I have yet to hold him! Phantom is the attraction of the neighborhood. The Lowry and Ahlstrom boys have been over a number of times to pay him a visit as well as Kempton's classmate Zack. I would definitely take a pet snake over a rabbit, lizard, turtle, hermit crab or fish anyday!! Phantom likes to slither into Kempton's shirt via the armhole as you will see in the pictures. It's pretty funny and Bryan thinks it a riot when he crawls into Kempton's shirt!

What have we NOT been up to???

To answer that question.....not much!!! We have had some summer indian like weather that has allowed us to enjoy the last of Kempton's football season and take a short trip to Miller Farm (about 3-4 miles away!) to pick some great vegetables, herbs and pumpkins. A friend told me about Miller Farm and it sounded like too much fun to pass up. We had a total blast riding the hayride to the corn field first where we loaded up on indian corn. Next it was out to the potato field where we dug up some nice red potatoes then onto the onion patch where we picked onions the size of grapefruit. (No kidding). When we got to the carrot patch the boys wanted to find the biggest carrot out there. They sure found some big ones, but I don't know if they were the biggest. We loaded up on squash, gourds and pumpkins as well. They had pedal tractors that the boys rode and big tractors and an airplane for kids to climb on. The boys had a blast and we are eating lots of squash, potatoes and onions lately.

Birthday Boys!!

Bryan is officially 3 now and as cute and ornery as can be! We celebrated his birthday last night with a fun cake (pictured here) and a few presents. He loved the part about the cake and presents, but not the throwing away of the binky. It was even harder at bedtime. He cried a lot for the binky, but I held out and didn't dig it out of the trash. Hopefully today he will do better.

Since Nathan will be going on the "turkey shoot" this weekend with the Varsity Scouts, we celebrated his birthday last night as well. I told him he didn't have to "share" his birthday, but he said it was no big deal. Maybe that's because he is turning FOURTEEN!!! He loves to make fun of his parents' old age.....little does he know. We really aren't that old. We're still in our thirties. Old is when you turn 90+.

We had a wonderful time last weekend camping in Mueller State Park just west of Colorado Springs. Unfortunately I have no pictures of our adventures because my camera didn't cooperate. So yesterday I had to "break down" and buy a new camera so I could take birthday pictures. The camping was kinda chilly, but that meant lots of big fires and hot chocolate. We took a hike on Sunday after going to church and had a great time until Bryan got tired and wanted to be carried. He did really well for the most part, but the last 30 minutes of the hike was all uphill and his poor little legs just couldn't go any more. Plus we were at an altitude of 9,500 feet.....kinda hard to breathe when hiking uphill!! The aspens were absolutely gorgeous, but sorry no pictures.

I had an interesting parent teacher conference with Kempton's teacher a few days ago. His teacher described him as an old man in a young man's body. Interpret that how you'd like, but I can see how he would say that. I do have to remind myself that Kempton is still only 10 sometimes even though he acts much older. Let's hope we can keep a good balance of the young and old with him. He's a brilliant kid and loves to be challenged. Challenges don't seem to phase him one bit. He takes after his dad a lot!