Let the Auction Begin!!!!

 Last night we had our monthly Pack meeting. This was lots of fun. All the boys had to make a sports themed cake and bring it to the Pack meeting. To make this fun and raise some money for future events we had an Auctioneer person come so she could auction our cakes off to the highest bidder. All the money we made goes towards the whole pack spending half a day at a horse ranch riding horses and our next pack campout.

The Cisco Kid wanted to make a fish to represent fishing.

This is what he looks forward to when he helps me bake a cake. 

 There is a straw with a gummy worm to make it look like a fishing hook. 

These are some great cakes from our Den.

I am going to start out by saying that The Cisco Kid wanted to win the auction for his cake. I told him that the bid would probably start at ten dollars and he could bid as high as $16.00. The Auctioneer asked the boys what they think their cake is worth and the Cisco Kid said $16.00. So that is where the auction started. She then said.... any one for $17.00 and someone raised their number. Then she said $18.00 and the Cisco Kid just looked at me like, I want to bid mom!! Can I go higher! I gave him the waive to go ahead. The bids went back and forth from The Cisco Kid to another gentleman. The cake went from $16.00 to $18.00, then TCK bid 19.00, then 20.00 to a gentleman. TCK 22.50, I gave TCK the signal for that was enough bidding. The gentleman grabbed the cake for $25.00.

This picture shows The Cisco Kid Shocked that someone else was bidding against him. 

The gentleman that won. He was the Auctioneers husband 

     These two laughing were so funny. Sebastian was up to auction off his cake and he told his father that he wanted to win it. The bid started out at 20.00. When Francisco bid the 20.00, Nancy would counter bid. Francisco was not going to let his son down. Nancy and Francisco went back and forth until he won the cake for his son and paid 45.00.

That was a fun evening.  We raised 611.00 auctioning off the cakes. 

The change from one season to the next is amazing

The older these boys get the more aggressive they play. The only way I could explain it is, last season they were all very respectful of the other person wanting to kick the ball. They basically let everyone have a turn kicking it. This season (six months later) they will snatch that ball away in a second. So far this season the Cisco Kid has been hit in the face twice with the ball. Due to someone kicking the ball away from their opponent. Unfortunately, The Cisco Kid happened to be in the way both times. All this time I thought Soccer was a relatively safe game to play in their age group. Now these boys are walking away with scraped up knees, banged up legs and in my sons case a soccer ball mark on his face.

When he started playing back in September, you could see how much distance there is between the ball and the boys. In this picture you could see how the three opposing team members are hanging back to let The Cisco Kid kick the ball. 

Still keeping their distance.

Still other team members are hanging back.

Now!!!!  Here are some plays from this season and you could see how aggressive they are.  The Cisco Kid got the ball out of there just in time. This turned into a pile up, with The Cisco Kid in the middle. 

As you could see, there is a boy down and the game goes on.

Way too much hands on.

I ask The Cisco Kid every week if he still wants to play Soccer and he says, YES!!!  Mom is going GRAY!

Two diferent marinade's for chicken

I find that grilling out is so easy. There is virtually no mess to clean up and the cooking time is cut in half. I have several very good recipes for marinades. Today I am going to share two of them. I will share more in future posts.  One is sweet and tangy and the other is a mild seasoned flavor. We eat lots of chicken and it could get very boring cooking it the same way all the time. It makes every meal completely different when the chicken is marinated in several different flavors, not to mention the marinade keeps the chicken moist.

The first marinade is the sweet and tangy. 

1/8 cup of light brown sugar
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1/4 cup of water
1 tablespoon of dried parsley
1 tablespoon of garlic pepper grinder
1/2 tablespoon of kosher salt.

Wisk all the ingredients together and pour 3/4 of the marinade over the chicken. Save the rest for basting. Marinade for at least three hours.

The second marinade is the mild seasoned flavor.
2 tablespoons of butter, softened
1 tablespoon of dry parsley
1/2 cup of Vegetable stock
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1 tablespoon chicken flavor Mrs Dash

Add all ingredients to the softened butter and microwave for 25 seconds or until butter is completely melted. Wisk all ingredients together. Wait until the marinade is at room temperature before you pour it over the chicken. Only pour 3/4 of the marinade over the chicken and save the rest for basting.  Marinade for at least three hours.

Becoming one with the outdoors. Cub Scout Camp Out!!!!

Over the weekend we had a campout with the Cub scouts.  We got there Friday and my men stayed until Sunday Morning.  I came home late Friday.  I went back Saturday and stayed all day.  This was a well planned campout by our Cub Master's.  At this campout there were a total of 32 people from all the dens combined.  It was very nice having a smaller group so we could all get to know each other. 

This was our schedule for the weekend. 

FRIDAY NIGHT
1:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. SCOUTS / FAMILIES ARRIVE
* Set up tents. Familiarize yourself and your family with campsite.
* No dinner provided for Friday night.
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Campfire / Smores
10:00 p.m. Lights Out

SATURDAY DAY/NIGHT
7:00 a.m. - 7:30 a.m. Rise & Shine / Prepare for Breakfast
7:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m. Breakfast ( Breakfast burrito's, scrambled eggs, sausage, fruit, snack bars
Orange juice, apple juice ) Burrito are filled with sausage eggs and cheese.
8:30 a.m.- 9:00 a.m. Breakfast Clean-up
9:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Pack Activities
* Game Time ( Volleyball, kickball, tug of war, flag football, soccer relay )
* Hiking
* Fishing
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Personal & Family Time / Prepare for Lunch
12:00 p.m. - 12:45 p.m. Lunch ( Hot Dogs, chips, drinks, snack bars, fruit , peanut butter & jelly )
12:45 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lunch Clean-up.
1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Den Activities.
3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Pack Game Time or Hiking.
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Family Time..
5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Dinner / Clean up ( Hamburgers , Hot Dogs, Mac & Cheese, Fruit, Chips, Potato Salad, Cole Slaw, Pickles, Soda, Water, Gatorade )
6:30 p.m.- 7:00 p.m. Pack time with Jason
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Campfire / Smores
10:00 p.m. Lights Out

SUNDAY
7:00 a.m. - 7:30 a.m. Rise & Shine / Prepare for Breakfast
7:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m. Breakfast / Clean up ( O J, snack bars, fruit, apple juice )
8:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Clean-up Campsite
11:00 a.m. MUST BE OUT OF CAMPGROUND

After everyone got all their camp sites set up they started a fire.  

All the boys gathered around and started telling stories. Some of the boys wanted it to be scary so they put the flash light up to their faces.

It was getting late and very dark.  I took a picture of the men's campsite before I hit the trail. 

It was at least a mile walk back to the truck. As the Chief was walking me back, the lightning bugs were flickering all through the woods. We had our own private light show. I haven’t seen lightning bugs since I lived up north, thirty something years ago.

Saturday Morning!!!  Rise and Shine!!!  I got to the campsite around 6:45.  I tried to open the tent quietly so I could get a picture of my sleeping men.  Too Late!  They were already up.

Almost time for breakfast.

After breakfast everyone gathered around the fire pit.  The Cub Master talked about all the safety rules and went over our activities. 

Three Cub Scout buddies.

Off to our first activity.

A great game of volley ball.

Next was tug of war.

The dads had to get in there for a game of tug of war. There were two teams of dads. 1st team is Team Linguine. Second team is Team Meatballs. The Chief was on the Team Linguine in the red shirt. Their sons had to choose what team they wanted them on. The boys were so happy to see their dads compete.

Then a game of Soccer relay race.

There were several piles of these grasshoppers located throughout the park. The boys loved catching them and they were all so intrigued with them. 

For our den time we went hiking through the woods to explore and identify the poisonous plants.

This tree had some kind of animal living in it.

We came out of the woods when we saw this playground.

When we hit the trail again it led us to this dock over the river. 

We are on a quest to see these tree houses everyone has been talking about.

after walking for one and a half hours we finaly came across the tree houses that could be rented.  They have four bunk beds in them.  Very Cool!!!

Back at the camp one of the Den moms did a science experiment for the kids. She used a two litter bottle of diet coke with mentos. She put the mentos in a tube and put the tube on top of the bottle. Then a string was pulled and the mentos fell into the coke making it a guiser.

This was a great weekend.