The Eagle has Landed!

Check out these shorts! Aren't they awesome? These are the real deal, official and maybe even original BSA shorts. Following in Devin's footsteps, Eric donned the very same pair of shorts Devin wore to his Board of Review. I think they were the good luck charm. He passed! Or maybe these snazzy socks with the red trim brought the good luck. Or maybe Eric was just that good!























Now that's a boy who seriously wants to be an Eagle Scout. Seriously.  Check out that Vasity V below his merit badges.

Here is the Board that grilled him hard for 30 solid minutes about everything from the 10 essentials, (don't forget the water) to actually tying a bowline knot, to what do you want to be when you grow up and to what post would you like to be assigned when you serve a mission for your church?

Eric chose his first and favorite Scoutmaster, (aside from dad of course)Roland King, to present him to the Board. After Eric was excused, Roland asked the board, "Is there anything that would hold you back from advancing Eric to the Eagle rank tonight?" He's a serious deal closer. And that's why we pay him the big bucks.



The proud parents. Whew, one more thing to plan, a Court of Honor, and we're done. Well, except for the Eagle Palms he wants to earn. I guess you can never say you're done, can you?

Extra Credit

As Eric was doing his homework last night he casually mentioned that if he took a yam dish to Honors English tomorrow he would get extra credit. Oh, I said, you could use extra credit.

Yeah, he said so and so brought such and such a few days ago. Oh, I said again, you say oh a lot when you are a mom, how long have you known about this. Well, since last Friday, so a whole week! And I'm just now hearing about it 7:00 Thursday night. Not too unusual around here. Only one problem. I just didn't happen to have yams on hand. But I went online looking up yam recipes, hoping to find something besides the stuff you serve at Thanksgiving. Voila, the perfect dish, Candied Yam Cupcakes. Who wouldn't love that?

I told Eric I'd make a double batch so he could take one for all 30 kids. No, don't do that, he said. He really only needed to bring one for the teacher, and besides, there may be a lot of kids who don't want one. I'm beginning to sense that he is doubting my baking abilities! Nevermind, when I decide that everyone in the class should have one, then by golly they will. So after a not so quick trip to the store, and many hours of baking (it's a bit of a process when you have to steam the yams first) we had lovely cupcakes. And by the way, EVERYONE wanted one of these beauties. Ahh, success!

A Special Night

One week ago I was planning a special meal.

No special reason, just found this recipe,

Pasta with Bacon and Mushrooms on my new

favoritie blog, The Pioneer Woman, thought

my crew of men around here would like it, and I

finally had all of the ingredients gathered up.

Turns out we had a special night, and a good

reason to celebrate.

This was the night that Devin opened

his long awaited mission call!

Keith really liked this dish. He says this is the

kind of tasty meal you expect when you go to

a restaurant. Devin and Eric liked it as well.

I liked it too, but since we were a bit rushed

that night, having only a 10 minute window of

opportunity for Devin to read the letter with
everyone home or on the phone before he
needed to leave for a meeting, coupled with

the shock of hearing that Devin would be
serving his mission in the Philippines,
I didn't have my usual appetite!

The fun part of the meal for me was
cooking with Devin.

Videography provided by Eric.

Signs of Spring

Is there anything more sunny and cheerful than yellow

daffodils when it's still cold out? 

Ok, now look at these budding plants and see if you

can remember where they are in the yard.

These look like hanging teardrops.

Even though it's mostly bare branches, the leaf buds are

beginning to burst out.

Even this lilac bud is excited for Spring.

And look what else showed up in the lawn as I was

walking around?  Pretty cute little mushroom.

GO TEAM USA!

We love the Oympics! Thursday we zipped across the border and spent the whole day meandering around the Olympic zones in Vancouver. It was a gorgeous day, the temperature was in the upper 50's with blue skies. We parked right downtown. On our way to Robson Square we stopped by the fountain outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Great place to take pictures. At Robson Square they had an ice rink and a zip line. We watched an entertainer juggling on a unicycle, he was pretty funny. Keith worked on finding tickets to an event while the boys and I traveled on down the way. We explored all 7 floors of the Sears Department store by escalator looking for the Olympic merchandise which was of course on the ground level. The boys both found T shirts that we picked up later that night. Back outside, the street had been blocked off to traffic, and another street performer was setting up to do his unicycle/juggling/comedy act. Our favorite part was a slow motion "run" and fall to the music of Chariots of Fire. Really funny.
Beard Papa's is a cream puff shop we came upon. We ordered eclairs and they were actually even better than they looked. We liked them so well that we went back later in the evening just to get another round. Unfortunately, they had just run out of the chocolate. But the regular cream puffs were yummy too.
We decided to make our way to the Thunderbird Arena on UBC campus. We jumped on a bus and rode for 30 minutes or so. There were lots of ticket sellers touting their wares as we walked to the arena to see the USA Women's Hockey Team play Finland. We picked up some tickets at a decent price. Great seats too. The game was fun to watch, our team was SO GOOD! We won 6-0.
After the long ride back into town we made a stop on the waterfront to see the Olympic Torch, and then back to Robson Square. There were so many people out milling about, watching the events projected onto big screens and celebrating Canda's Women's Hockey team win that night. Lots of Canadians were showing their pride by wearing red. It was everywhere you looked, mostly hockey jerseys. It was a fun atmosphere!
We all enjoyed it and would like to go back to Vancouver soon to check out more cool stuff. And next time, we'll take a good map to find our way home.
That should shorten the trip by an hour or more!