Cubbin'

It wasn't long ago that Joseph entered the Bear pack, and so now he is working hard to earn his Bear badge. One of the requirements was to learn about some of America's tall tales. Well, Joseph really got into it, so much so that we borrowed a book from the library by Mary Pope Osborne on Tall Tales, and he and I have been devouring the stories each day. His favorite tall tale characters were Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, Stormalong, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Mose. It has been interesting reading the stories with him. There were many that I knew - Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed - but, there were also quite a few new tall tale figures to get acquainted with. My favorites were Stormalong and Pecos Bill.

Now we've started reading about American Heroes. There are pretty short summaries about the heroes and heroines in this book by National Geograpic, so I read a couple each night to the boys as they wind down to go to sleep. Joseph is just soaking all the history in - he has the brain for history - linking events to people, time, and regions. He says that he's going to be an archaeologist someday. Maybe so.

On Monday, for Family Home Evening, Joseph was in charge of activity, so he decided that we needed to go on a family hike (another requirement for Cub Scouts). We went over to Thunderbird Park (basically Pinnacle Peak and 59th Ave.) to have a little hike. It was already close to sunset by the time we got there (it takes a little while to get Erik home from work and feed everyone dinner), but we took a short little hike anyway. It was probably good that we didn't take a longer one, for Jalen Andrew insisted on walking the whole way, and it was a fair bit of exercise for such little legs.

We stopped to take this picture of the sunset - although this picture makes it look like noonday- and when we turned around to start back down the hill, lo and behold, there was the full moon making it's entrance. It was beautiful, and huge, although it looks tiny in these photos.

Anyway, so there we are at the park, with the moon coming up over the hill, and we thought, "What the heck. Why not try to catch the moon?" And so that is what we set out to do. . .

Being good Cub Scouts, before we left for our hike, we made shoeprints on aluminum foil, and wrote a description of what each family member was wearing. Then on the way out to the park we talked about hiking safety. We gave each child a whistle (the girls were good sports to wear theirs - for the "good of the family") and taught them how to blow 3 short blasts if they get lost. So as I quizzed them about what they would do if they got lost, James piped up and announced, "I would pray." I think that out of all the learning we did that night, that comment was Erik's and my favorite, for we learned that when James needs help, he knows exactly who to ask.