It's my birthday...I can have cake if I want to...

Russell was so tickled pink with himself yesterday. He bought birthday presents for me a couple days before and was so excited he remembered so early! He made this yummy cake. (I made the frosting on Sunday - since I don't like store bought.) The cake was yellow. The frosting was coconut/walnut. The frosting you would normally find on German Chocolate cake. Chocolate doesn't agree with me most of the time anymore. :(

Blowing out the candles. Russell and the boys picked these really pretty roses from our yard.

Opening the cards and then the presents. He got me the movie "Enchanted" - love it, a cast iron skillet - been wanting one, a box of Applets and Cotlets and a shoe rack. (I think the last one was a hint....)

A couple of anxious boys watching mom open her presents.

Russell broke in my new skillet tonight with the most amazing steak ever! He is posting it to my food blog as we type. I had steak, shrimp, salad and hash brown potatoes for my birthday dinner. It was a perfect day. I was blessed to be able to share it with my wonderful family. What more could a person ask for?

June 2009 Tillamook Dairy Parade

Today the cub scouts district wide were invited to participate in the June Dairy Parade for kids. That meant the kids walked first and enough time passed between this and the "real" parade for the kids to get back to their families. Michael and I walked with a handful of scouts that we had been with all week at camp.

Nephi and Christopher anxiously awaiting the start of the parade.

Here we come! First there were 2 bagpipe players to start the procession. I love bagpipe music. They did an awesome job. There were 5 clowns I think just behind them. The clown with the red pants and blue shirt totally bit the dust about 3/4 of the way through our route. I hope he was okay. He fell right on his face.

You can see Michael just over the right arm of the kid on the 4 wheeler.

You can see the left side of me. I didn't know which side of the street Russell would be on. We took our chances. Oh well. The parade was fun. I think next year we should try to enter the big parade on a float or something.

Friday at camp...

The Orange Ranchers had opening flag this morning. I made sure to get some pictures.

The Brown Ranchers.

The Black and Yellow Ranchers. They are all in one community pack but since they had 20 boys come to camp - I needed to split them up.

The Green Ranchers.

The Blue Ranchers.

We took camp pack pictures and will be giving all the den leaders who came every single day a really nice 5x7 to remember their boys.

Thursday at camp...

Thursday was the second day of archery. I missed coming up to the archery range on Tuesday so made it a point to come up for Michael.

Michael doing archery.

Pack 687 practicing.

Station 2 was Knots and Relay. Jerry Luke was teaching them about knots and how to tie them. We used twizzler licorice to tie the knots and the kids could eat them afterwards.

Brad Springs was teaching a relay race game.

Our lunchtime special was Nathan Parks. He rides bulls and talked to the boys about that. They loved it!

Another station on Thursday was horseshoes. Josh Rebello and Erich Ellison were in charge of this station. The learned how to play a game of horseshoes.

They also made barbed wire photo frames. Michael said he knew just what picture he was going to put in his.

Camp Clark is right on the Oregon coast. This is how close we are to the beach. The water was a beautiful shade of green/blue. The waves were really big because it had been really raining hard earlier in the day.

Pack 687 on a trail.

Wednesday at cub scout day camp...

Wednesday at camp was a productive day I thought. I caught Michael's pack at each of their stations and got pictures of their activities to share with you my wonderful readers.

Station 1 was US Puzzle Relay. They were divided into teams of two and had to assemble a US puzzle.

Station 2 was at the campfire bowl. Songs and Rubber Band. Their station leader was just great with those boys. I hope he will come back next year.

Station 3 was leatherwork. Each boy made a bracelet which they proudly wore.

Our lunch time special this day was the Hohmans from our ward. He knows about panning for gold. What could be more western than that! Sister Hohman is talking to the boys about gold pieces and showing them some of Brother Hohman's findings.

Brother Hohman is showing the boys what it looks like when panning IF they find gold.

The shiny specks are gold!

Up at station 4 is the wood project. Brother Wilson from our ward was their station leader along with the oldest Reeder boy. They did a fantastic job.

Station 5 was hot dog kabobs. The boys were able to make their very shish ka bobs. They cut their veggies and hot dogs and then our station leader cooked them on the fire.

Michael and Nathan are hard at work.

Michael's hot dog kabob has zucchini (gasp!), pineapple, green pepper and hot dogs.

The last station of the day for our pack was bb guns. You can shoot standing....

or kneeling. Even laying down! But I didn't see the boys laying down.

Beach boys

I was at camp. I left the camera home. Not on purpose. It was an extremely low tide this morning so bright and early Russell took Donovan, Christopher and Nephi to a beach just north of Oceanside. He took pictures from his phone. It looks like a great beach and I want to go there. Soon. Very soon. Some of the pictures even had a waterfall!

Beach boys.

Donovan, Christopher and Nephi.

This is probably one of my favorites. Nephi, Chris, Donovan and Russell in shadow. I love it!

2009 Cub Scout Day Camp - Monday

Cub Scout Day Camp 2009 has officially begun. Officially. :) It sprinkled a little tiny bit but the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. I guess it poured all day in Tillamook so we were quite lucky.

Pack 687 the Orange Ranchers. All our boys were able to be at camp as well as two visiting cub scouts from Alaska! How cool is that.

Daniel and Michael. I think we have some pretty happy campers .Don't you?

Hard at work listening to the station leader for whittling.

Making ice cream is fun to do. Fun to do. Fun to do. Making ice cream is fun to do at cub scout day camp. All the boys thought that was just fabulous.

Happy Father's Day!

To my husband, my dad, my father-in-law, my brothers, my brothers-in-law, my cousins who are fathers and my uncles.....
I hope your father's day is a special one. Thank you for all you do to make life easier for the rest of us. I am truly blessed to know each of you and to have you as part of my family.

Update on Chris' campout

Russell and Chris came home late afternoon from the 11 year old camp out. Chris said he had a fun time. I was really happy to hear that. Russell took some pictures on his phone. Not really sure if they can be transferred to the computer. The three boys that went looked like they had a great time. One of them said it was the best time ever.

What could be more western than...

What could be more western than homemade bread?

I made 24 little loaves of bread for Monday morning as a thank you to my station leaders and den leaders for RISING to the occasion and helping at day camp. The boys KNEAD good leaders in order to make camp a success.

Chris goes on his first camp out

Russell and Christopher left yesterday afternoon for 11 year old scout camp. It's a three stake get-together at Camp Ireland over in Hillsboro. Chris was not happy he had to go. I hope he had a good experience by the time he gets home. Russell called last night to say Chris forgot his dinner at home. Oops.

Coming to camp

If you feel inclined to visit camp this year....
These signs will guide you into Homestead Clark. Just watch for those white bandannas!

Egg boiling gone wrong.

As most of you know - I am the Program Director for Cub Scout day camp. This means I am the experimenter of sorts. I have to make sure each station runs smoothly. I have to test them out beforehand so I can show my station leader(s) what I am wanting.

One of my stations this year is supposed to be Egg boiling. I did it at girls camp when I was 13 I think. That was over 20 years ago. I remember using a paper cup, an egg and water. I put the egg in the cup and added water. I put it over the fire and made me a hard boiled egg. The only problem I am finding out is....
I don't remember how long it took. (sheepish grin) Today I tried this experiment again with a wood fire instead of using charcoal like yesterday. Yesterday the cups caught on fire and water came pouring out. The wood fire method in theory should have worked today. Maybe the fire wasn't hot enough. The cups did well though. Come with me on my egg boiling catastrophe (journey I mean). Don't try this at home. :)


I figured I would do three hard boiled eggs. The water was nice and hot. Even boiling!
I was so excited! I thought I had found the right fire combination. All was well. Or so I thought.

The fire was nice and hot. The wood was white. It was perfect egg boiling conditions. So I thought.

I took the eggs off and drained the water.

I let them cool in the grass until they could be handled. I could hear the boys calling if the eggs were ready yet.

Upon cracking the eggs....

they clearly weren't hard boiled. After 45 minutes on the fire.

Let's take a commercial break and enjoy some lovely roses. Courtesy of Michael.

Back to our scheduled show. Let's change the channel for a moment. I had this nice fire going and felt like it would be a waste to put it out. I had Russell put together ham and cheese sandwiches and I grilled them on my little fire.

Boy do those look good!

Nephi dived right into his.

I figured third time is a charm. Maybe - just maybe the fire wasn't hot enough. Well - these coals were super duper hot. For the last time I put another egg on the fire.

We pulled double duty and thought roasting marshmallows would be good to pass the time.

My perfectly roasted marshmallow. Mmmmmm.

A long story short.....this last egg in a cup was on the fire for an hour. Nope. Nada. Nothing. The egg was not hard boiled. We will not be doing egg boiling at camp. We will be using the eggs however. Just not for the original intended purpose.

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We will be making Golden Prairie Nuggets. A.K.A. scrambled eggs. Always have a Plan B.