Cub Scout Pow Wow

A few weeks ago the pack held the Cub Scouts held an event that allowed scouts the chance to practice some time honored sports such as archery, tomahawk tossing and spear throwing.   The local Boy Scouts got a great opportunity to practice some leadership and the scouts had a lot of fun.   A good time was had by all provided they had a high tolerance for elementary students throwing sharp objects.

Kai’s Sports

Kai is currently involved in two sports – a soccer league and a flag football group.   Here are a few recent pictures.

The Second Expedition to Hidden Lake

Alert readers will remember that two years ago a failed expedition was mounted to Hidden Lake.   There are no roads or paths to Hidden Lake and its existence was only noted by looking at a Google Earth view of the area around Danbury.   Two years ago with over 2 feet of snow on the ground we set out to find it but ended up turning back short of our goal when grahm cracker provisions ran low.

This year we resolved to try again.   On Jan 1, 2013 Ben, Kai and Nora set out to find the elusive lake and met with success!   The pictures below document the amazing journey.

Random December Pictures

Here are a few random pictures from December in Danbury.

2012 Christmas Day

Kai and Nora were up by 6am and Ellen, Art and Karen didn’t arrive until 7am.  That gave them an hour to sort and stack the presents in different ways.    Nora was surprised by most gifts but Kai was pretty sure most thinks were Legos or books.   As he put it “what else would they be?”

2012 Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve started early when our Elf of the Shelf named Danbury visited and left a series of clues that Kai and Nora had to follow to find their presents.    The clues alternated between pictographs (for Nora) and sentences (for Kai) so they could both participate.   That craft elf even had them running a few hundred feet up the road to the garage with the temps hovering close to zero.    Kai got a small star wars lego and Nora a Hello Kitty hat that she has yet to take off.

Later Ellen and Art as well as Aunt Karen joined us for a wonderful evening of conversation and the traditional Christmas Fondue.   The cheese didn’t curdle and there were no burns in the hot oil so – success!    Santa’s progress was tracked through the night via NORAD.

At bed time Nora was out like a light but Kai struggled between being unable to sleep due to anticipation combined with a fervent desire to will himself to sleep lest Santa give our house a pass due to restless kids.

Christmas Decorating

In typical holiday fashion we did both gingerbread houses and cookie decorating.

Christmas at the Posts

On a visit to Arlington we celebrated an early Christmas at Lea Ann and Steven Post’s.    Also there was Annette Wiemann and Paul and Bev.    Kai and Nora had a sleepover with Nina and Sara which they had been eagerly anticipating for a week.  Enjoy the pictures.

 

Snow Day

This set is from the “snow event” last week.   A couple of days after we arrived a system came through and dropped 7 to 8″ of snow.  A perfect amount.  Not too much that everything shut down but enough for beautiful scenery.   Kai and Nora had fun with snowballs and snow angels and we even started a snow fort off the front deck.   We originally used a snow shovel to move the snow but quickly switched to a 4-wheeler with a snow plow on the front to mound up the snow.   We had a great little fort for a while but since then temps soaring into the 30’s and a patch of rain have turned it into a dirty mound of snow strangely out of place.

Natural Bridge Caverns

One of the side trips that we took in Texas was to Natural Bridge Caverns.  We took the “easy” tour with the kids but it was still a fair trek and a stunning.  It was a chilly day up top but warm and humid year round in the caves.  Stunning display of all things subterranean.