This week has been one to both strengthen the spirit and weaken the body. It has been Cub Scout week. Day Camp dominated our days and left us happy and exhausted at night.

Caleb joined Den 2 (of 16): a pack of Wolf Scouts. Every day, Monday through Thursday they did cooking, woodworking, and archery. He also got classes in fishing, knots, citizenship, nature, science, leathercraft, and sports. He made lots of friends, learned new songs, and made paper crafts. The week was capped off with an egg drop. He put his egg pilot "Yolkie Eggleston" in a box filled with dry oatmeal. The Boy Scouts launched it from a rubber tube catapult. Caleb was very proud that Yolkie survived.

The only real drama of the week was Caleb pounding his thumb with a hammer in either woodworking or leathercraft. He had an impressive amount of blood but he refused to be kept from the fun for very long and was right back on the line hammering.

I spent the week teaching knots to groups of kids as large as 16. I was amazed by a few things. First, the older the kids the less easily they were managed. With one exception all of the Webelos dens were very difficult to teach to. The second is that the kids that wanted to learn absorbed everything I had to teach and wanted more. They learned a disappearing knot trick and how to tie between 5 and 7 knots (depending on the age and willingness to learn). The last day I brought my yo yo and did a couple of tricks for them at the end of class if they cooperated. Many adults also learned a few knots which I find very fulfilling because I know they will now pass that on in their own packs.

Thursday night after Day Camp was over I went to Romio's Pizza for a Pack 31 leadership meeting. We learned about the popcorn sale coming up. Then we planned a few events and spent a lot of time gabbing. Unfortunately I ate dinner there. I had beef ravioli and I never did find much beef. I've eaten spaghetti there too and it was pretty bad as well. I hope their pizza is better.

Today the pack got together for a "welcome back" picnic in the park. We drank root beer made by our Cubmaster. We completed a very fun scavenger hunt and the boys learned about the popcorn sale coming up. We were going to play flag football but the field was soggy and the kids were already having fun on the playground.

As Caleb and I enjoyed Scouts all week, Jill and her parents were busy painting the bathroom and replacing our bathroom floor. The previous owners (in order to sell this place quick) put a linoleum tile floor directly over the existing linoleum floor. None of it was water sealed. We recently had a leak in our toilet that got under both floors and caused the particle board sub-floor to expand. So all of it had to be ripped out and replaced. Jill and her dad worked themselves to exhaustion but the floor got in. We are letting the grout cure before sealing the whole thing and installing our new low flow, duel flush toilet that my in laws gave as a gift.

Jill and Caleb have become addicted to the Angry Birds game and spent most of the day playing.

Art Card of the Day

The two art card swaps I have been hosting are done. Probably tomorrow I will be starting two more. One will be an open themed nude swap and the other large ships. The card above I did a few years ago. I'm going to try for more detail this time around.