Here we have our gangsta child. One of our neighbors, The Riddles, gave us three hats that the boys have left flat-brimmed and have worn in all manner of positions.
James is sporting a soap goatee in an effort to amuse me, but I know his real purpose is to avoid chores.
Sometimes when it's been quiet for a while, I go check in bedrooms to see what mischief is ensuing. Gangsta mischief.
We had a late night piano performance (more on that in the music section) in which we were invited to wear our pajamas to perform in. Spencer decided to wear his thermals with underwear on the outside. If he is going to do that, I'm going to get the camera out. And he is going to run. And I am going to post this on the blog for posterity, or bribery.
This is D.J.'s latest fashion that he is extremely proud of: duct tape shoes. Every last millimeter is duct tape, even the shoe laces. And he only drew blood once. Creativity is a live and learn process.
Duct tape pride! He was so proud of them he wanted to wear them to school. Fortunately, he didn't finish the second one until the night before the last day of school, so he was spared any ridicule. Not that I thought the shoes were a bad idea, I was quite impressed! But, I do know a bit about Jr. High life, and I was anxious to help him avoid what Jr. High kids can dish out.
But, that night was a Court of Honor and he begged me to let him wear the shoes. I figured since only a handful of people would be there, and those people were our friends, it wouldn't be bad. We have such good friends that D.J. was complemented on his creativity. I had to laugh when he showed them to his best friend, Brock, and asked, "Do you like them?" His friend immediately said, "No, you have an R on the outside of one of them." Brock is forthright and states the obvious. Thankfully, D.J. is too proud of his shoes to care and is quite resilient, not stubborn, resilient.
You can't see it very well, but there really is a big "R" written with permanent marker on the right shoe to help his tell the difference. He even went so far as to create insoles for the proper support.
Which brings us to the scouting portion of the post.
D.J. received the cooking, personal fitness and personal finance merit badges from that handsome scoutmaster. This handsome scoutmaster lamented to the audience, the fact that there is not a duct tape merit badge in existence, at which point everyone leaned over for a look.
The cooking merit badge was particularly fulfilling to me, when after helping D.J. make three meals and a dessert he said, "Mom! This is a lot of work! How do you do this three times a day!" If I wasn't a fan of scouting before, I am now.
Spencer also received the cooking merit badge. See his previous posts regarding fruit salad and pancakes. Mark is slouching a little, but you can tell that Spencer is at least as tall as him. Sunriiise, sunset! (My insights on life are courtesy of Fiddler on the Roof and The Sound of Music).
James received his Arrow of Light award in May, much to my surprise. He turned ten just a few short months ago in December and usually it takes a whole year to get through the requirements. But it turns out, the cub scout program is changing requirements and the accompanying awards, so his scout leader pushed all the kids through before the program change over. I had my doubts about James completing all the requirements, but it turns out he was good to go and had even completed some requirements and pins during school and family activities.
His buddies, Sam Echeverria, Theo Larsen and Ryker Warner, all with their arrows in hand.
And now for the music portion of the post. Spencer and D.J. were both in the same band this year. Well, D.J. started playing trombone in beginning band and then tested into Concert band because he thought by doing so, he could rearrange his schedule and put him in more classes with his best friend. His cunning was not fruitful. But it was nice to have them in the same band and relate to each other in another area of life. I did not get pictures of D.J. during the last concert of the year because I couldn't see one stitch of him from where I was sitting and I could only see a corner of Spencer's head.
But, when the jazz band was up, I did get one of Spencer. Despite what it looks like here, He's enjoyed jazz band because they get to play more exciting songs and it fills a few more requirements for band.
The Bountiful Arts Center held a fundraiser just after moving into their new building, that would help buy a grand piano for the performance stage. The fundraiser was called 88 keys in 88 hours. Over Memorial Day weekend, pianists of all advancement performed for whoever walked into the art center. Our piano teacher got the 2 AM-6 AM slot. Yay us! She tempted the kids with a pizza party, lots of cookies and an ice cream machine. They each played for 15 minutes in their pajamas on a grand piano. I was even going to play in case they didn't take up the allotted 45-minute Astling slot, but I was pleased the time was filled!
Even though D.J. has a different piano teacher, he was a good sport and performed as well. Mark even said he would perform if they would teach him "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," but except for one brief lesson from James, he did not become proficient enough to play. He did get up and come with us and even enjoyed strolling around the gallery admiring local artist work.
And lastly, the sports section. We are done with track and almost done with baseball (heaven help me), but Spencer is still going strong with Tae Kwon Do. Well, maybe not going strong, but as he put it, "If I don't finish, you'll never get off my back." This is true. The pictures below are his last testing before achieving black belt - I couldn't let him give up when he's that close! Plus one of the tenets of Tae Kwon Do is: Finish what you start.
He had to break three boards, technically four, with three different moves. The one above was a quick break. You can see the board flying from his hand.
This back kick move was to break two boards put together, held by two men, which only took a few tries.
This one, however, took quite a long time. Master Kim worked with him a lot to break it. It was so difficult that he asked Master Williams to show Spencer how to break it and it even took him four or five tries, after which Master Kim asked Spencer, "Does that make you feel better?" After multiple tries with different moves, he finally broke it with such gusto that the broken piece flew over the lights, nearly breaking one.
He couldn't have been happier to finish or to get this very large trophy. He might have been a little more happy if he could've shown me his abs in the picture.
And that's it for our end of the year activities. Now we go on to activities that are proving my age, like what rides I can still stomach at Lagoon. Not the Rock-o-plane! Or the Samurai. Or Jet Star 2. Or Air Ride. Or Wild Mouse. This is a source of great humor for the boys. I'm practically ancient you know!
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