Soccer

Check out Anna's blog for some pictures of her first Soccer practice/match!

Tom

Estote Parati !!!

Matthew and I just returned from the annual Carleton Area spring scout camp that was held at Fitzroy Provincial Park in Eastern Ontario. Matthew and I went with 4th Kanata Beavers and shared this great weekend with 900 other scouts, leaders and parents. What a great weekend we had!

The theme for this year's camp was "Ancient Rome", thus the Latin phase Estote Parati! (Scout Motto: Be Prepared) was used throughout the camp.

We arrived on site early Friday evening and setup camp. The weather was perfect! After a late night as the boys had a lot of energy, we woke up (at about 6am) to a blue sky and had a hearty Roman breakfast of oatmeal and hot-chocolate. Here is a picture of some leaders and parents getting breakfast setup:



The opening ceremony was held Saturday morning. As you can see from the picture below, many of the organizers and participants were dressed up in period costumes.

In keeping with this theme we made up a "Standard" for our group. Here is a picture of Matthew (on the right), his friend William and William's dad holding the group standard.


Most of Saturday was taken up with games and activities for the group. All of the games had Roman themes with "catapults" and "aqueducts" themes being very popular. Here is a picture of the boys assembling a "chariot" as one of the activities:


The most interesting activity was using the home-built "catapults" to fling water-soaked sponges at other scouts (and leaders of course!)


After a hearty supper of spaghetti and meatballs (another Roman favorite) we then had a very special ceremony called a "Swim Up".

The "swimming up" ceremony is for the older Beavers "White Tails" that are now 8 years old and are moving up to Wolf Cub the following year. We had 6 White Tails present that Swam Up to Cubs. "Here is a picture of Matthew "swimming up" and the Akela (leader) of the Cub Pack and the Cubs getting ready to welcome Matthew to the next step in the Scouting Movement.



After Swim Up we joined the rest of the Beavers at the camp for a the formal campfire. The campfire, one of the oldest and most important scouting traditions, involves skits, songs and lots of cheers!



The boys were quite tired from the long day so most retired early (around 10pm ;-). As you can see from this candid shot I took of Matthew, he slept very well!



We woke up to cloudy skies Sunday morning. just after breakfast the rain started, but most of us had our tents down so we did not mind. It rained for the closing ceremonies, but all were still in good spirits.

After one final snack we broke camp, cleaned up and headed for home!





Many thanks to all the leaders, parents and volunteers who help to make this camp a great success!


Tom

Mother's Day

We celebrated Mother's Day today. As is traditional for this, and most other special days, the festivities centered around food ;-)

Alana worked 12-5 today but she was still able to sleep in a bit while the kids and I made her a nice big breakfast consisting of French toast, bacon, orange juice, apple slices, espresso (for me) and tea (for Alana).

While she was at work we made a batch of chocolate chip cookies (my mom's recipe: the BEST!) as well as a pan of chocolate brownies. Matthew and Anna suggested that smarties would make a nice addition to the brownies. Great idea!

After a dinner out (Wendy's ;-) we came home and had our brownies complete with chocolate ice cream, blueberries, strawberries and whip cream. Yummy!

Alana received very nice cards from the family and a set of Celtic-Heart earing's as well.

A very Happy Mother's day to all the mom's out there!

Tom

p.s. When is Father's Day again ? ;-)

Five Little Ducks

Check out Anna's Blog for a video taken during last weeks school assembly.

Click here for Anna's Blog

Tom