Pool Party

The Man-Cub had a great time at the pool party - we rented 2 rooms and they played in the water from 4:00 checkin until the 11:00 pool closing - boy were there some pruned up fingers.

They got out once for cake and presents and then again for pizza.




They played diving games, keep the ball in the air games, and lots of races.



The Man-Cub says (as he does every party) - that was the best party EVER! (I wonder when the current party will cease to top a previous one - hopefully for him - never)...

Pool Party Cake

The Man-Cub's birthday cake choice for this year is a pool cake. So we formed some characters - matching his friends - out of cookie dough. I used the vegan shortbread recipe here http://www.vegancooking.com/recipes/shortbread.htm but I didn't use any butter flavor - and I added some cinnamon.

Then the Man-Cub advised on how to decorate - the legs with the flames on the suit are his...

This is the finished cake - the Man-Cub really likes it - now we're off to the Fireside Inn for the party. I'll post about that tomorrow.

Rainbows

We've been having a rollercoaster ride with spring weather up here - but it was nice yesterday even though the meteorologists were calling for rain and thunderstorms all day - and we got a couple of ever-changing rainbows that lasted all evening. We watched them as the Man-Cub played outside.

Here are a couple of shots - it's the same rainbow.




The pool opened and we went for "family swim" - The water was really cold and the air temperature was 66 - fun-fun-fun - the Man-Cub met up with some friends from school and he really did have a good time - blue lips and all...

Pass To Purple

The Man-Cub got his purple belt last night at Tae Kwon Do - YAY! He was so excited/nervous all day - but he did a great job and the instructors said he had a lot of spirit. He knew his Korean vocabulary and recited the Oath perfectly.

He broke his board with a step-turn-sidekick - the first time he's had to take his eyes off the board and then refocus and break it. It took a few tries but he finally kicked it...

Now the old blue belt resides with it's siblings on the belt rack in the Man-Cub's room.

Tamales

I know I said earlier that we were having way too much fun in the kitchen - it's still a mess - there is a problem with the paint - not sticking to the primed walls - the new wall is fine - it's the existing walls that have the problem - the paint just sort of bubbles up and falls off - YUCK! So the Man is sanding them down to bare drywall and sometimes a little bit further - More Yuck!

So, we cleaned everything up and made tamales - the Man-Cub loved it - and you know what a Mexican food junkie I am. The filling was super easy - I just made a vegan batch of Nanny's Mexican Cornbread - we had little cakes of that too - and the 'meat' filling is just the Morninstar Farms strips chopped and mixed with salsa.

Shift Happens

I just found this online - It concerns the massive changes that are happening on a global scale -- when it comes to things like population growth, job trends, etc. Take a look. It's pretty amazing.

glumbert.com - Shift Happens

TKD Socks - Navy - (to match the Cub Scout Uniform)

I finally finished the latest iteration of the TKD socks - these were navy - specifically to wear with my Navy Cub Scout uniform - which will be retiring after next year - as we move to olive/tan as Second Year Webelos. So hopefully I'll get a year of weekly wear out of them...

Needless to say - I've already cast on the next pair - these will be cool cotton - pale blue - I ordered some white cotton online and by mistake got light blue - instead of spending the postage to return it - I just added it to my stash and reordered the white - it's for socks too - of course.

Bunny

We were out walking with Jack late yesterday evening and I happened to have my camera with me - when we came upon this Jack Rabbit crouched down hiding from us. The Man-Cub saw him first - even Jack didn't see him. I knew I would have no time to fiddle with the settings and just turned the camera on and snapped the picture from where it was hanging around my neck - of course it was set to auto and the flash went off (making the bunny's eyes look funny) - and that of course scared him enough to bolt - and then I had my hands full with Jack trying to pursue.

The Man-Cub still calls them bunnies - even though they are nothing like the "bunnies" we had down south...

VEGAN Corndogs

We've been having way too much fun in the kitchen. We made veggie corndogs Sunday evening. It was a lot of fun. I adapted a recipe from the hillbilly housewife http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/corndogs.htm with obvious substitutions:

1 cup soymilk
1/2 cup flax seed goo
1/4 cup oil
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/3 cups corn meal
2/3 cup flour
1 to 1-1/2 pounds veggie dogs

flour for dusting (about 1/2 cup)

Hot oil for Deep Frying

Wooden skewers






I know there are ready made veggie corndogs - but you can't get them here and I had brought the veggie dogs back from the 'city'. Anyway, these were way more fun. I'm kinda tired of the kitchen being messed up with the remodel 'though. The stove is out about 2 feet from the wall and there is masking tape everywhere and I have to thoroughly clean every surface before I cook - drywall dust gets everywhere - I've put everything away that I can and covered what I can't with towels, but still everything gets dusty...

Soggy Saturday

The Man-Cub's first day out of school was rainy/snowy - Yes I said SNOW - Just a dusting here but about 1/2 hour north they had 6 inches - So we pretty much stayed indoors. We worked on several of his scout beltloops and pins. And I shortened some of his trousers that either had holes in the knees or were too short for him.

One of the cute things his 3rd grade teacher did was a time capsule at the beginning of the year - it had a sample of his handwriting and a list of favorite things, but it also had a string that measured his height on the first day of school - it only comes to his nose now.

Birthday Sweater or "the old grey sweater ain't what she used to be..."

Obviously, I couldn't post about this any sooner. This sweater has been through a lot - I've had the yarn since before the Man-Cub was born - always intended for a sweater for Karen - whose favorite color is green. This is a now discontinued color of Lustersheen called "spruce". I tried to get more from the company because I was afraid I would run out - but they didn't have any.

I started making this sweater after the first of the year http://cache. lionbrand. com/patterns/ kms-tankTop. html?noImages= 0- and finished the back and dropped the stitches - but they immediately slid together and I was not happy with the result. Maybe this yarn is too "slinky" for this pattern. So I ripped it all out and started over - this time I did Yarn-Over's instead of dropping the stitches and I like it a lot better.

This is the back blocked...

I hope it will be a nice cool replacement for the old grey sweater...


This is the finished sweater.

The present ready to go - The card has a funny story - it goes back and forth every year - inside it reads "save this card and send it back to me". So I followed those directions (it originally came to me) and then every year we send a proper card and then this one with just a note and the current year. Fun!

New Link - Vegan Cook-A-long

I joined the Vegan Cook-Along and I've already tried my first recipe - follow the link to see the results - a yummy Strawberry/Banana Pie http://vegancookalong.blogspot.com/

I added the link to my sidebar too...

Sea Trek

The Man-Cub's teacher asked me to go along on a field trip to see a movie about sharks. So we bundled up and walked over to the facility - it was about 40 degrees and windy - brrr.... Isn't it almost JUNE!

It was so much more cool than a movie - it was a live telecomm link to a facility in Florida (http://www.seatrek.org/) that studies sharks.

Our video feed back to them...

Our super-fun super-charged instructor was Kasey - originally from ND...


It really was a lot of fun and I think we all learned a lot about sharks. We played a Shark Fact vs. Shark Myth game.

...btw - that's a myth - sharks have excellent vision and they even have rods and cones like we do - for seeing color...

Update - Mrs. Kildeer

I thought you might like to know how Mrs. Kildeer is doing. She has laid four eggs and we don't think she'll lay any more - it's been a couple of weeks now - so I think she's done.

She's so used to us checking on her that she doesn't feign injury anymore - she just leaves the nest and scolds us until we peek and leave. It shouldn't be too much longer before we see fuzzy little baby kildeers...

Bear Cub

It's official - the Man-Cub has completed all the requirements for his Bear Patch and he's earned one gold arrow point and 8 silver - he wants to get some more before the promotion ceremony in July - we'll see how much time we have for that...

It was a BIG award night for the Man-Cub - here he is with his perfect attendance award - how could he not get perfect attendance - his Mom's the Cub Master...


The Man-Cub passed his uniform inspection with a perfect score - he even had the oficial cub scout socks and was carrying his current Scout Card.


And, the night's activity was to make a picture frame for a Cub Scout photo. Our committee chair brought her camera and photo printer (neat) and took a picture of each scout in front of the flag.

Spring Fling

The Man-Cub's school has an annual picnic - aptly named the Spring Fling. We've been having some crazy weather with storms and tornado watches - highs in the 70s one day and in the 40s the next - we may even get some snow Friday... Anyway, between storms we had lovely weather for the picnic.

Darn it...

I darned the TKD socks Sunday afternoon while I was talking to Mom on the phone. I used the little ear attachment so my hands were free. We talked a long time - so it probably took a little more than an hour.

This is my darning egg - it's probably about 25 years old and is pretty nicked-up...

Darning in progress - I wonder if you can darn over darning when it wears out???

I couldn't find the leftover yarn for these socks so I used some from the Man-Cubs TKD socks - not a perfect match - but who'll know...

Paper Airplanes

The Man-Cub still loves to play with paper airplanes. He made this one Sunday afternoon and was throwing it around the living room when it got stuck in the blinds on the front door. He thought it was so funny and said that he couldn't do it again if he tried. He asked if he could take a picture of it for the blog - so here you go...