As part of the after school enrichment program, my wife and I signed Dylan up for some Tae Kwon Do classes at the River School. The classes were held right in the River School Gym, so there was no need to worry about transporting him to another location in the afternoon, and the instructor, Master Jason Yoo, came highly recommended for his skills working with young children. Dylan really seems to like it and I hope that he sticks with it. I took several years of taekwondo as a kid myself and truly enjoyed the way that it challenged me and made me more disciplined in everyday life. If nothing else, it will be a great form of exercise for Dylan moving forward.
One of the things that every student of the graduating Falcon Class at the River School has to participate in is the 3rd Grade Science Fair. Dylan’s science fair project was about the different types of fidgets that kids use to help them focus in the school classroom environment. He did an awesome job of researching his topic, running his own trials on real subjects and then coming up with a hypothesis… and he did this all on his own at school! We are so proud of his work and how well he is doing both socially and academically at the River School. Keep up the great work Dylan!
This years Pack 1229 Fall Hike event was held at Theodore Roosevelt Island in Fort Myers, VA. The island, which sits on the Potomac River between Arlington, VA and Washington, DC. is only about 88.5-acres in size and sits about 44 feet above sea level at its highest point. The island, which is a national memorial, was given to the federal government by the Theodore Roosevelt Association in memory of the 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt.
Our Cub Scout Pack did a guided nature hike around the island using guide books supplied by the National Park Service and then tried to answer questions about the island and memorial that were in the back of the Park Service guide. Except for it being muddy from all the recent rain, I think all the Scouts had a great time… and I believe they actually learned a little something about history at the same time.
As I said in an earlier post, Julie loves this holiday and makes it a priority to find fun activities for herself, Dylan and I. So here’s a collection of photos from this years Halloween festivities in and around Arlington. There are photos from our walk down ‘Spooky Street’, the Douglas Park Cemetery Trail, and they’re even some photos in the slideshow below from Dylan’s Halloween Parade at the River School in Washington, DC. I hope you enjoy all the photos… Happy Halloween!
This year we held our Cub Pack Pack 1229 fall campout at Curtis Memorial Park in Fredericksburg, VA. During the camping trip, I had the Scouts from the Webelos Den work on several of their Adventure requirements including ‘Cast Iron Chef’ and the ‘Webelos Walkabout’. The Webs stayed busy by first completed a 3 mile hike on the Curtis Memorial Loop. Then they prepped and helped cooked dinner using ‘silver turtles’ (foil packs) for the entire pack. And they were also responsible for prepping, lighting and tending to the campfire for the evenings events. Dylan and the boys did an outstanding job handling and completing their tasks for the campout and I could not have been prouder of them.
Julie’s favorite holiday as we all know is Halloween. Every year she goes out of her way to try and find spooky holiday events to go check out in our local area. Over the years we’ve done haunted hayrides, haunted forests, haunted houses and a favorite of mine is visiting Jackson Street… or Spooky Street as we North Arlington people call it. Another favorite attraction of mine in the haunted trail at Douglas Cemetery Park. This is a local event run by the local area neighbors around Douglas Park. The admission is free if you bring some canned food for their food drive.
This year Julie also added a new attraction to our list of events called GLOW. Jack’s Pumpkin Glow is a leisurely walking tour which takes you through Lake Fairfax Park, where families and friends can marvel at thousands of intricately-carved pumpkins… all of which are illuminated in unique & creative displays. This was our first year attending this event and even though I thought is was a bit long, they did have some very creative and elaborate pumpkin displays. I still think the Douglas Cemetery Trail is the best… it’s so dark back in there, you can’t tell who or what is grabbing you!
I wanted to put up a couple of photos from todays father and son event at the River School… Dad’s Hot Lunch. Every year the River School invites all the dad’s to join their children at school for a special pizza lunch day. Dylan loves this event, I’m sure it’s mostly because he loves pizza, but I’d bet he enjoys eating pizza with his dad and all of his school friends too.
Here’s a huge shout out to all my mates on the Fairfax Bulldogs Hockey Team for an awesome 6-1 championship win in our FHL 2018 Summer Division ‘B’ Hockey League. Let’s keep up the winning streak boys!
The Fairfax Bulldogs – 2018 FHL Summer Division ‘B’ Ice Hockey Champions
This year our family has become even more involved in Cub Scouts than previously would have expected. The recent shake up in leadership left the Pack without several key members due to the older Scouts and families moving on to Boy Scouts. With that, I found myself being talked into volunteering again… this time as the senior Webelos Den Leader. Since my son Dylan was a Webelo this year, it was nice to be able to lead his den and teach all the boys about the outdoors. Scouting at the Webelos level is a lot of fun and the adventures are more geared towards outdoors, camping, cooking and outdoor survival… all of my favorite things.
Being a Scout leader also requires you to gather the boys and encourage them to volunteer for service projects around the community. This year, with a Webelos Den of 13 boys, I had my hands full, but always found time to help out with Pack events. One of our service projects for the year was to help out at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC during the BSA NCAC National Mall Project. We had a great total pack turnout and at least half of my Webelos Scouts showed up to help with the Mall Project.
Now that my son Dylan is a little older I’ve been meaning to take him to a Nationals baseball game, but for one reason or another we just haven’t had the time. Yesterday my brother called me up out of the blue and said he had a friend who worked for a company that was a huge sponsor of the Nats and that she could hook us up with tickets for the next home game. It was a very last minute thing, but jumped at the opportunity… and everyone had a great time including Dylan who got to hang with the boys at the ballpark and chow down on a huge box full of Thrashers style boardwalk fries!
