my little tiger

scout that is !! We hoed and hummed about whether to have Brig do Cub Scouts last fall... I certain opinions about the organization and so did his dad. He came home from school one day with the flyer for sign up and was so excited to try it!.. (even though he had no clue what it was!).. We decided since soccer was over for the fall that we did want him in something extra curricular and this was actually just the perfect thing for him. His meetings are once a week with a pack meeting once a month. It has been great to see him interact with the other boys (and to realize that our kid is by far not the worst kid out there.. lol). Parents are encouraged to attend the meetings with families invited for the pack meetings once a month. He has been super excited to put on this little uniform, and after 3 months , his slacker of a mama finally put the patches on it. Here is a picture from an awards night where they received a patch.. (though I can't remember what it was he earned. =(
He was thrilled to receive the patch and a hand shake from his den leader.

In January, we attended the first ever Pine Wood Derby ! Oh.. my the anticipation of this event (again, even though he had no clue about it). Daddy went to the garage and dug out his old car from when he was a kid. This excited Brig even more. Brigham promptly got out a piece of paper and drew out how he wanted his car to look. We got the wood and took it to the hardware store to be cut. Happy day for my little guy for sure (and that he got free popcorn from the store).

Having never been to a PWD before, I had no idea what to expect. Some of these cars were super intense... can you see some of the detail and design to a few of them? Of course others really didn't alter their block of wood status, and had a couple stickers glues to the side.. Brig's car was someplace in the middle.

Here he is gearing up for the first round. Lining it up ever so straight... Don't know if you can tell, but his blue car had waves down the sides and an open JAWS on the top, with a shark fin on the back.

The Shark, actually did really well, and Brig made it through 3 rounds before losing to an older kid. He was so pumped and had such a great time! I have to say it was amusing to watch the other parents get so riled up about their kid's car coming down the line. Guess we just are not that kind of parents. At least not at this stage of the parenting game.. not the over competitive type. We just let him have fun and didn't care how well he did. He surprised us, though and won an award and took home a very cool trophy for "funniest design". That is my kid.. he is always the jokester.. our friends always tell us he'll be doing stand up one day.

And here he is. So typical. I asked for a picture with his winning car and this is what I got !

We finished up the 'real' year with the big Blue and Gold Banquet in early February.. it was a great night with lots of food and all of the awards were given out to the kids. This was a very long evening as it included dens all the way up through high school. Brigham walked across the bridge and became a "cub "scout.

We'll probably do it another one or two years, but I don't envision us doing this long term.. at least we won't encourage him to continue through high school...

He really wants to go to scout camp this summer, but we are going to sway him to do a Y camp instead. It is basically the same outdoorsy stuff (and parents don't have to attend!) =)