January 2014 – Andelin Adventures

Ethan’s Arrow of Light

It’s pack meeting night, and that means awards. Jeremy received his CyberChip award and the Marbles and Photography belt loops tonight.

Ethan finally received his Arrow of Light tonight. We had it finished early enough for them to give it to him at the last pack meeting, but they weren’t prepared to give it to him. Ethan also received all of the other awards that we have been finishing up, including the Forester, and Aquanaut activity badges, the last compass point, the Collecting and Swimming belt loops, the Marbles, Swimming, Geology, Nutrition, Photography, Weather, Computers, Citizenship, Science, and Collecting pins, the CyberChip, and the Cub Scout World Conservation award. He also received a special award, the Webelos Super Achiever, for earning all twenty of the Webelos activity badges. When Ethan was done stuffing all of that into his pockets, they went on with the Arrow of Light Ceremony.

Then, since Ethan has turned eleven and will no longer be a part of cub scouts, they had a cross-over ceremony for him. Brother Howe walked him through each rank in cub scouting and he ended by crossing over the bridge to meet his new scout leader. I had given his scout leader his book and neckerchief and slide to present to Ethan when he crossed over the bridge, and that was that. Ethan is now no longer a cub scout, but a boy scout.

Here are all of Ethan’s awards that he received tonight:

Cub Scout CyberChip

With Nokia’s “Tell my story” thing going on in the house, that means that the boys will be having access to the internet on those phones and we decided that in conjunction with that they would need to earn their CyberChip awards. The requirements for each boy are different since they are both in different grades (found here), but in general they cover internet safety. What to do if you come across something that is bad. What information is safe to give and what isn’t, and other things like that.

Jeremy had to watch a video on “Netiquette” and Ethan had to watch a different video on passwords. Jeremy also had to play a game on the CyberChip website and answer some questions to earn a certificate. Ethan had to teach a lesson using one of their teachable recipe options.

Ethan chose the lesson about people on the internet. The object in this lesson was to teach that people may seem like good people, but they may really be someone bad. So to go along with this lesson Ethan had to make cookies. The lesson said to make two batches and switch the sugar for salt in one batch, but I REALLY didn’t want to waste that many cookies. So we made one batch, and after he made most of the cookies and we were down to the last bit of dough, I just had him add lots of salt to it. That did the trick. Then we had Ethan present his lesson to the other kids.

We lined all the kids up on the couch so I could get pictures of them eating their salty cookies (nobody but Ethan knew there was anything faulty with the cookies). Tyra is the ONLY one that made a face when she realized it was salty.

We didn’t make anyone finish their cookies. They were allowed to throw the salty ones away. Then we passed out the yummy cookies while Ethan finished teaching his lesson. 😉

Nokia “Tell My Story”

So a few weeks ago, I had read about a program Nokia was doing where they send out their latest device, the Lumia 1520, for people to use. Part of this program is they want one hundred people, between the ages of one to one hundred, to tell their stories: take pictures that show who they are. I thought a chance to play with the phone sounded good, but also the project they were going for sounded really interesting. I applied for it and wasn’t needed, but they actually had room for younger people, and Jeremy and Ethan fit the bill.

I had to send in pictures of my two lads with brief biographies about them, and Nokia sent out two 1520 phones from England, one for each boy to use. Here is what I sent as pictures and bios:

My name is Ethan. I love LEGOs. My favorite LEGO theme is LEGO NINJAGO. I HATE GETTING MY HAIR CUT. I love everything Pokémon, including cards, marbles, movies, figures, and pretty much anything. I am in 5^th grade and doing homeschool this year. I am the oldest of 7 kids. I am a Webelos scout and my dad is our leader. I love burritos and doritos tacos, but my favorite food is pizza. My favorite color is purple, and I have a seven foot long purple snake that I got at the aquarium, and take with me everywhere.

Hi, my name is Jeremy. I am eight years old. I am the third of seven children. I am in second grade and this is my first year doing home school. I just started cub scouts, and I am in the wolf den. I love chili and tacos. I can eat a whole can of chili, maybe two, or eight tacos in one meal. I am a king at making silly faces. My favorite characters are Snoopy, Donald Duck, and Jar Jar Binks. My favorite colors are yellow, green, and blue. My favorite animals are turkeys, dogs, bats, and skunks.

The boys were excited for their own chance to have phones, even if only for a month, and they didn’t even mind that they didn’t have phone service. Jeremy actually got his phone first, and Ethan’s is still on its way.

Once Nokia has collected enough pictures and videos from all their testers, they will create a website documenting the lives of all their participants. It should be fun to see once complete, and my boys are lucky to be part of this!

Ethan’s swimming progress

Ethan is still taking swimming lessons, and he seems to be making progress. We will have to take him to the pool sometime before pack meeting to finish signing off the Aquanaut badge. Hopefully he will be able to do well enough to earn it.

Ethan’s 11th Birthday

Ethan had a simple birthday this year just cake and presents after dinner. I made purple frosting for the cake. Ethan really wanted fondant, but I didn’t have time for that, and I had lots of whipped cream, so I made a whipped cream frosting instead.

With turning eleven, Ethan will move on to the big boy scouts, so for his present this year we got him his scout shirt, sash, and book.