Happy Birthday Bryson!

Can you believe he's double digits, now? The big 1-0. It doesn't seem like that long ago that we were celebrating his first birthday.
The picture below is from his 3rd birthday; it's one of my favorites. He ate Scooby Doo's nose on the cake which was jet black. There's no touch up on this picture, his tongue was really this black.
Where does all the time go? So here we are today and my sweet little angel has turned into an all-star, animal loving, star student, survivalist son. And what does this 100% boy want for a Birthday party? For us to drop he and his friends off in the woods, with only a pocket knife, and pick them up the next day and let them use their survival skills to survive (a sarcastic thank you goes out to "Survivor Man" and "Man vs. Wild"). I don't think so. So instead we compromised and had a Survivor Party where they could exercise their survival skills with adult supervision.

First they had to cross a stream on a rope.

The boys, of course, found lots of frogs, toads, salamanders, and even a snake!

Then they had a race up a steep part of the mountain to determine who was "King of the Mountain". Duncan came in first with Bryson a close second. This picture is them catching their breath at the top.

Then it was time to try and make a fire so they could cook their dinner. Flint, magnesium, a pocket knife and a napkin were all they were allowed. The first few boys got fires started immediately, but we let them burn out because we wanted everyone to have a chance. That might have been a mistake. The napkins started absorbing humidity from the moist ground and they got hard to light. Finally, Bryson's friend, David, saved the day and got a raging fire going.

Bryson was having fun just making sparks and yelling "Brisingr!" (You Eragon fans know what I mean). He was the fireworks man.While the fire got going the boys scoured the woods for sticks to make bows and arrows.
And they really worked.

Then it was time for a dinner of hot dogs, chips, and carrots as well as a dutch oven cake cooked over the coals. It was delicious.

There were actually 2 pocket knife injuries all to the same kid, on the same finger! Front and back. Luckily nothing too serious (we confiscated the pocket knife after the second one so we could continue to make that claim).

Happy 10th Birthday Bryson!

Bring a Homer, Get a Homer

After going to the Primary Activity last Saturday...where Bryson got to throw water balloons at the Primary President after memorizing 9 of the Articles of Faith...we took Bryson's friend Duncan Homer back to our house for a day of fun and adventure (it's always fun and adventure with those two!).
Bryson had a Baseball game that evening so we dragged Duncan along. It's a good thing, too. He was telling us as we arrived that he would bring Bryson good luck. Boy, did it work! Bryson played one of his best games, yet. Which included, if you haven't already guessed, a homerun. It wasn't an out of the park homerun, but it hit the back fence. They just couldn't get it into the infield in time because Bryson's really quick rounding the bases. One of the moms was video taping her son on second while Bryson was up to bat. You can hear the crack of the Bryson's bat and soon you see his teammate, Ben, come in; then you'll see the last little bit of Bryson's run in (slide in) as well as a priceless moment with his coach. Be patient with the video, the end is the best part.

New York State Day

The 4th graders at Bryson's elementary (as many New Yorker's pronounce it "ella MEN terry" - I don't know why that bothers me so much) put on a performance for New York State Day. It was well cooreographed and the kids sounded great. Among the songs were I've been workin' on the Railroad, Simple Gifts, "Er-i-e Canal", Adirondack High, and New York, New York. Here's a taste...

4 Star General

As an alumni of MIT and MIT's ROTC program, David had the opportunity to go to this year's commissioning of MIT's ROTC Cadets. That may not sound that exciting, but what if it was scheduled to be at the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) in Boston? If you think it's still just sort of cool, what if one of the Cadets had a father who was going to be speaking that was a 4 Star General and is the current Commander of US Central Command and one of the smartest men in our military? Well, if you're a military geek like David, you don't want to miss hearing General David Petraeus.


When David (our David) was in MIT's ROTC he held the position of Cadet Battalion Commander, which is the head of the Army Corp of Cadets from Tufts, Harvard, and MIT. It was at this ceremony years ago that David got his Army commissioning into the Infantry after receiving his duty assignment to the Berlin Brigade.


Due to weather, they had to move the commissioning indoors to the National Guard building. The General arrived in an impressive procession of Boston police officers and plain-clothed Federal agents. We noticed immediately that General Petraeus is shorter than we thought he would be, but a commanding presence none-the-less. He was definitely funnier than we expected him to be. He spoke to the cadets about working hard and leadership; including a quote from Roosevelt, "Work hard at things worth doing" and gave them some points to lead by. 1. Lead by example. 2. Listen and learn 3. Lead from the front (except going through the chow line) 4. Keep your troops informed 5. Lead and build your team 6. Learn how to sleep in any circumstances.

The rest of the ceremony was very nice, then General Patraeus led them in the commissioning oath. Afterwards, there was a reception and David got to meet General Patraeus.

I was glad David had the opportunity to do something for himself and not just for family, work, church, or school district.

Pinewood Derby

I know, it's late in the season for the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. Oh, well. Bryson and I spent a couple of days making a car for him and a car for me. Bryson originally wanted his to have some resemblance to a rhinocerous, but after we got it cut out, he didn't like it as well as he hoped and didn't spend much time decorating it. I called it the "Raging Rhino". We made sure it was the maximum weight, well lubricated and polished and hoped for the best.

On your mark, get set...

...GO!

And did he go! Bryson's car is the gray one on the right in the picture above. He won his first race, then his second race; actually he won all his races. Even when the front wheel popped up onto the center of the track and it went down kinda sideways. He took 1st place in the Cub Scouts.

Here's a picture of Bryson with his friend Duncan.
Then we were on to the open division. It was tough competition, but in the end, my little "shoe racer" pulled off 1st place as well. Then for the real challenge, 1st place in each division races against each other. Mother against child. Since we made them side by side it was a toss up as to which was better. But the Mom's car won in the end. You'd be surprised how often a Mechanical Engineering degree comes in handy when you're raising boys.

Seriously I made it just like my shoes.

Fastest shoe on four wheels!

Camp Out, Piano Recital, Baseball

A week ago Friday night Parker headed out with the Scouts on a several mile overnight hiking trip (he's next to the guy with the yellow hood on). One small snag in the trip was when they found out the tent they brought for Parker and another kid didn't have poles. They tied the tent to some trees to hold it up and it seemed to work OK. You have to ask why are there tents in the scout closet with no poles!?!
Everyone came back with no injuries. This was a nice picture of Parker before they headed off. I don't get many good pictures of him (awake and smiling).

Saturday morning I took a couple of the Young Women to plant a garden for a sister in the ward (my 3rd garden planted this year, but who's counting - luckily one was mine). Then home to quickly shower and head off to Bryson's Piano Recital. He did wonderfully as usual. He's really talented if he chooses to continue with his music. He loves to write songs, both music and lyrics, although he hasn't combined the two. He writes music to express feeling through the song, and lyrics to express feeling through poems to a familiar tune.

Oh, yeah. It was my recital, too. Yes, I take piano lessons. I am a painfully slow learner, but I'm getting good enough to play cool stuff, now, so it's getting fun. I love to play, but I get really nervous doing it in front of people. It will be a while yet before I'm good enough to play hymns out of the hymn book, but I'm slowly plugging away at it.
Our piano teacher is Wendy Blood from our Ward (congregation). She's an amazing musician and does a great job supporting us in our efforts to learn.

Then we were off to Baseball again. Didn't win, but Bryson played well at pitcher, shortstop, and centerfield.

Good catch Bryson!

Bryson had an amazing catch after a good pitch at his baseball game a week ago.

It's a little hard to see, but it hits his the end of his glove, bounces up and he juggles to get control of it just before he hits the ground.

This was one of his best games of the season.

Bryson started playing with a new team his season because his old team only lost one game last year, so they had to break up all the good players. It was tough because there is no one from our school on his team and he had only played with two of the kids on all-stars last year. This team only won one game last year. So far, now, they have won 3 and lost 4 which is much better than their team last year, but doesn't make Bryson feel much better since he is used to playing with kids that are better players. He was a little shy to play his best at first since no one on the team knew how well he could play, but now he's enjoying it more and trying harder and he batted in 3 of the 4 runs they got in the game on Monday.

We've still got several games for him to prove that he deserves a spot on All-Stars again this year.