ROBOT FOR CUB SCOUTS

We are having our Blue & Gold Celebration in February. This is a big graduation party where the boys receive their next rank badge. Every year we have a theme. Last year it was all about camping. This year I thought it would be great to have a Robot theme and have every Den build a robot to show at the Blue & Gold Banquet. Not only are they going to show their creation but everyone is going to take a vote for their favorite robot. The winning Den will receive an Ice Cream Party. The trick about the Ice cream party is that all the losing Dens will have to provide the winning Den with all the items they request. That could be dangerous!!!

Since the majority of the dens are run by Men, I came up with some rules so they would not get out of control. Guys would not only make this electronic but they would spare no expense to make it amazing. It's a Guy thing. The rules were..... it had to be made up of items donated from our scout families. Nothing could be purchased. We had to make it out of leftovers, unused household items & recyclable materials. It had to stand on its own, it could not exceed four feet tall, wide or long and it could not be run by electric or battery.

My Scouts and Scout parents got together today and started building the robot. They all brought in some amazing items from home. You would be surprised what is hanging around your house when you really look. We set a time frame of 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and hoped we would get it done. The boys chose the style robot. They were very adamant about the propellers. They spent about a half hour with me going over the robot and how we were going to put it together. Then we broke up into teams and started building it. All the moms and dads were doing different parts of the robot. A half hour after that we lost the boys to basketball, playing on the trampoline, shooting water at each other, etc. Shortly after that we lost the Dads.

We stopped for lunch and thought we would get together another week to complete it but we were all busy. We made the decision to complete it today. Seven hours later we came up with this outstanding robot.

The head and hands are made out of milk jugs (the red eyes are lazar eye's that were made out of a red gift bag). The legs, body and arms are made out of boxes. The cannons are made out of cardboard tubes (the red in the cannon is a gift bag cut to the size need). Knee pad and Knee cannon is made out of plastic caps at the end of tubes. The feet are made up of cardboard tubes cut in half. The chest plate is painted styrofoam. The propellers are PVC pipe and cardboard. We have Cable wires that we cut to make it look very mechanical. Of course every great warrior has minions. We added minions to the robot as well. Everyone pulled together and made this outrageous robot that surely must win.

Cub Scout Achievements

We have only a few Achievements left to complete before the boys could receive their Bear advancement badge in February.

Last night’s Achievement was Build a Model. We have to do two requirements out of the list of five. We chose to make a model of a car and build a model from a kit. The car is our Pinewood Derby car. Last night we built a model from a Dinosaur kit. The boys were so happy with seeing their project come to life. As I look back on the pictures I took, I saw how every parent was involved in helping their Scout put the model together. I know for most life is very busy and we run our children from one sports to the next. Then when you throw working parents into the mix, sometimes there is little time for one on one interaction. I do steal moments in between all our activities and homework only because The Cisco Kid loves crafts so much. We could sit and create things all day long.

Over the next three weeks we have to complete the Achievements, Tying it up, Saving Well and Spending Well and Weather.   

Details of the Questionnaire that came home

Now that I got all the details for the Legoland trip from the questionnaire, we can make a decision based upon all the positive and negative aspects about the trip. 

Pros:

1. Going to Legoland.
2. I might be a chaperone.

Cons:

1. I might not be a chaperone.
2. It is two and a half hours away from home.
3. The bus departs from the school at 6:30 a.m.
4. The bus returns to school at 8:30 p.m.
5. Then there is school the next day. 

It looks like cons won.

School field trips

An Interest questionnaire coming home today from school for authorization of letting my third grader go on his first long distance field trip to Legoland. First long distance school field trip ever…..possibly without me. I’m OK with Legoland & the distance. I’m not OK with him going without me. Even though it is with school. My first long distance school field trip wasn’t until I was in eighth grade. Times have changed!!!  I am not into the whole free range child raising techniques. 

Pinewood Derby

We have our Pinewood Derby race at the end of this month and we have started getting our cars ready. First step is picking out a design and cutting the car out of a block of wood. It is a huge help when our Assistant Cub Master brings in his band saw. at this point all the boys are required to do is trace their car out on the wood and Mr. E will cuts to order. Of course the Cisco Kid has very specific requirements for his car and he must go over them with Mr. E in detail. The second step is sanding the car very smooth. The third step will be to paint it. The fourth step will be adding the weights. (It cannot weigh any more then 5 oz.). Then we add the wheels and The Cisco Kid is done. The past two years The Cisco Kid's car made it to regionals. We'll see if he makes it this year.

The New Year!

Ever since I could remember my mother had her new years superstitions. She would always say....What you do on the first day of the year is what you will be doing the rest of the year.  So today... first thing...I woke up at 8:30 a.m. That is late for me. ( I guess I will wake up late every day), I kissed everyone good morning, gave them big hugs, told them how much I love them and thanked God we are all safe and healthy. (love hugs and kisses),  I made myself a big pot of coffee, (Yes! I will drink the whole pot today,) I thought about eating breakfast (O.K. so far it is just a thought), I cleaned the floor whipped down the counters and threw in a load of laundry, ( I guess I will be cleaning my house all the time. Whey could I have not hired a maid??), Hubby suggested we go out to breakfast.  (I thought what a good idea. Perhaps I won't be doing much cooking throughout the year), We went to Cracker Barrel and I made conscious effort to watch what I eat. (could this be a sign??? I only ate 1/2 of a biscuit, one egg over easy and one slice of bacon.  I hope this will set the standard for the year. HUMMMMM!!!),  After breakfast we went to Wal-Mart and purchased 64.54 worth of merchandise but only spent 4.54 of our money. We had sixty dollars in credit. (Does that mean we will get inexpensive merchandise throughout the year???), We came home and relaxed watching TV.  (We are TV watching Family), Then we played with some Christmas toys. The Cisco Kid had gotten a pottery wheel and made something, He also got a plane that he could fly. We always enjoy doing things as a family.  (A family that has activities together will have fun and stay together). The was a really great day to set the standard for the rest of the year.  

The Cisco Kids Clay Cup

A plane that will fly by winding up a large rubber band with a gun.  

The Cisco Kid has gotten into the habit of not reading the instruction on how to build things. This is one of those examples. He sat at the counter and was so patient about putting it together. Amazingly enough there were no parts left over. His insight must come from building models and putting Lego's together with the Chief.

 

Of course the first flight went right on top of a very large growing vine bush and the Chief had to do some climbing.    

Two days of Christmas

Christmas Eve!

  My father in law has a tradition every year he sends us a honey baked ham.  That is our Christmas Eve dinner. 

I have started a Christmas Eve tradition a few years ago. We fill up our stockings with gifts and Christmas Eve we open them. This gives us the opportunity for the family to exchange gifts with each other. Christmas morning is all about the gifts that Santa brings. Since Christmas Morning there are some significant gifts for The Cisco Kid we give him little play toys and candy in his stocking.

We got the Cisco Kid into bed at 8:00 p.m. because we had so much wrapping to get done.  We started around 9:30 and we did not finish until 12:30 a.m.

It took the Chief and me three hours to wrap the gifts for The Cisco Kid and a little over an hour for him to open them. All The Cisco Kid asked for this year was an electric guitar and a skateboard. When he got up he searched for the boxes that looked like the guitar and amp. He went right to the guitar and them he went on the hunt for the amp. He spotted a very large box and thought it was the amp. It was his gaming chair instead. The search went on. The amp turned out to be his next pick. That was one happy boy.

After we opened all the gifts, we ate breakfast. I made my traditional Egg Soufflé. I prepared it the day before so all I have to do is put it in the oven and bake it for an hour.

Egg Soufflé link

After a long fun day of playing with all The Cisco Kids new toys we were ready to just relax. In my comatose state I vaguely remember saying goodnight to everyone around 8:00p.m.
This year we had turkey for our Christmas Dinner.   

These Christmas Holiday pewter plates weigh a tone. I have been collecting pewter for about 25 years. I got these plates about fourteen years ago and they came all the way from Mexico.

A girl that worked for me in California went to Mexico regularly to visit her family and one time I asked her if she could bring me back some Pewter plates. I know here in the states pewter plates go for about $40.00 each. I also knew that in Mexico they were much more inexpensive. I gave her $100.00 and asked her to bring back whatever $100.00 would buy. She brought back twelve of these wonderful Christmas Poinsettia plates. I was in shock. Even though I could only use them for Christmas, they are one of my prize pieces.

Enjoying winter break

The Cisco Kid has a total of eighteen days off from school. He had school on Friday Dec 16th but I decided to keep him home so we could do some Christmas shopping for the Chief. After we were done with Christmas shopping we come home and made some hot chocolate and had some delicious cookies. Usually we are running from one activity to the next but now that it is winter break, it gave us some time to just do whatever we want. Some of our days were filled with putting up some train track, Wrapping gifts for family and friends, doing a massive mail out of my Christmas Cookies to family and friends & getting out my Christmas cards. Last week we had a Pack meeting with the Cub Scouts and I suddenly became panicked that I did not start on my Christmas cards. I looked at the Cisco Kid in his Cub Scout uniform and thought....That would be a great Christmas Card Picture! I quickly took his picture in front of our Christmas tree and went to Walgreens pictures on line, ordered the pictures and when we were done with our Cub Scout meeting we went to Walgreens to pick them up. The next day they were all mailed out. The Church The Cisco Kid goes to had a Play called NOEL! They had a live Nativity scene complete with sheep, donkey, chickens, & a lama. I guess the lama took the place of the camel. There was a Choir and a narrator telling the story of the birth of Jesus. After the Play we went to the other end of the Church for the activities. There was a Christmas light show, Hay ride, Cookie decorating, Model building, Pictures with Mickey & Minnie, Cookies and Hot. All of this was free. We enjoyed it so much that I invited one of our friends to go with us again. This time it was Girls and kids night.

Christmas Card Picture.

The Church where we saw the NOEL play and activities. Later that week we went with friends.

Our first visit where The Cisco Kid did his cookie decorating. 

The Cisco Kid and I just love our trains.  We only put them up during Christmas. 

 This year we have several tracks so two engine can run on the tracks at the same time. 

We are half way through the winter break and we have much more fun in store.