Weekend Adventures

Well, with the start of school and Scouts, fund-raising can't be far behind. And having procrastinated for about two weeks, I thought it was time for Hobbes and Calvin and I to make an attempt at selling some delicious Trail's End popcorn! So we headed down to the center of, uh, town (such as it is) and began the difficult task of selling popcorn. Why is this so difficult? Because we don't actually have the popcorn to sell; it's order-based. So since most of the foot traffic is tourists, they're not too keen on ordering popcorn that will be delivered to us on the island with no good way of getting it delivered to them. And also many of them come from communities that have Cub Scout Packs of their own and have already purchased popcorn. And then there was that large group of Indian Guides that didn't seem too keen on supporting a rival organization (okay, actually they were preoccupied with fishing). But we did get some people who sent snacks to the troops overseas and a few people just made a donation to the Pack. It was a good lesson in the practical difficulties in selling anything to anyone.

In the afternoon, we went to Shark Harbor for the first time in a while. The tide was way out, which gave Sweetie an opportunity to take some pictures of intertidal critters. The waves ranged from 1 to 4 ft, but were coming straight in, so the whole wave would crest and curl at the same time all the way across the beach. So not optimal for surfing (body, boogie, or otherwise), but we had a good time jumping around in the waves. Hobbes got his first lessons in body surfing and had some success. Calvin got tumbled once and popped back up immediately, but he was a bit more wary of the waves after that.


Sunday was soccer day. Calvin's team won handily again, but there were two events worth noting. First, the Yellow Team finally scored. They were pretty excited, as were most of the parents from both teams. Second, Calvin scored! I managed to miss the event, being on the far side of the field at the time and couldn't see through the mass of kids. He was happy, but pretty nonchalant about it. We had some celebratory ice cream afterwards.

As we crested the last rise before the descent into Two Harbors on our way home, we saw this enormous ship in Isthmus Cove. I mean, it must have been about the same size as Bird Rock. It was huge! It was some Navy vessel, I think, but not one that I could readily identify. (I know 'aircraft carrier' and 'battleship' and 'submarine' and this was none of those.) So we took a quick bike ride out to Lion's Head point to get a better look. I'll have to ask about why it was here at work tomorrow. (There's always someone who knows in a small town.)

Activities

Well, you'd think that being stuck on the lonesome end of an underpopulated island, where there's only a one-room schoolhouse and 7 kids, the activities would be rather limited. Fortunately (?) in Avalon (a mere 20 miles away over dirt roads) they have more kids, and thus we have Calvin signed up for youth soccer, and both Hobbes and Calvin signed up for Cub Scouts. I have agreed to be the Tiger Den Leader this year, as well. On top of being PTA President, I'm starting to feel, not over-extended yet, but perhaps fully-extended.

Soccer games are Sunday at noon. Avalon has enough U-8 kids for two teams, Green and Yellow. Calvin was quite reticent to play when we first approached him about it. There was a lot of whining about not wanting to drive across the island, but it was something else that was bothering him. Since we had already signed him up, we told him he would go week 1 and see how it goes. So we get there and the first thing that happens is Calvin gets his uniform, including shin guards, and he's told he can keep them. Calvin is now sold on youth soccer. He is very excited to play. Now this being Southern California, a large majority of the kids there are hispanic, and a large number of them (for, I guess cultural trend reasons) have their hair slicked up into fauxhawks. Calvin stuck out like a sore thumb on the pitch because 1) he's the smallest one out there, and 2) he's blond. Well, after some practice kicks, the coaches arrayed the kids across the pitch, the ref blew the whistle, and amoeba soccer (props to my friend Mary for introducing the term to me) began. Hobbes has never been interested in competitive sports, so this is our first experience with it. It was an odd feeling, watching my boy out there on the field: pride, anxiety, excitement. For his part, Calvin was so excited to be out there in the action. Huge grin, running around after the ball, kicking it a few times, getting knocked down and, one time, getting hit "in the tenders" (his words) by the ball. Hilarious. Afterwards we had lunch and drove back to Two Harbors. Calvin slept hard the whole way.

We ended up driving back across the island Monday for Cub Scouts. Two days in a row is kinda hard, but it looks like we may be doing it many weeks this winter. We've got 4 in the Tiger Den right now. I've been realizing/remembering that being a Den Leader means you have to organize meetings. So I found my files from when I was Hobbes' Tiger Den Leader and I pulled out Hobbes' Tiger book and started planning out some meetings. The Webelos I leader (Hobbes' group) said she thinks that they're going to try to do most of their advancement work during weekend campouts once a month, rather than weekly meetings. We'll see how that works out. It would be good to get more camping in. The Pack in Avalon is probably 25 kids, and the Scout Troop is about 15. They meet together once a month. The program has only been going on for about 7 or 8 years, I think. The oldest Scouts are just now getting to the upper ranks (Star, Life and Eagle) [Speaking of which, can anyone explain to me why the Scouts switched to those drab beige rank patches? I liked the old ones much better.]

Tonight we also had Back To School Night. The new Ms Frizzle is great; she's got a lot of energy, and has a strong background both educationally and experience-wise. She explained the structure of the school day and then the kids showed us some of what they'd been working on. The mornings are all about math and reading/grammar. Then in the afternoons they have "enrichment", which can be PhysEd, Art, Music or Science. She has everyone, even the first graders, learning cursive. Both Things are enjoying school, although there are the usual complaints about the usual things.

Okay, I'm going to try to load some video now. We'll see if it works. Okay, apparently I need to fill up this disk before I can get any video off it. I'll have some killer stuff when I do. Well, at least I have some pictures, thanks to Sweetie.

These pictures are from week 2 of soccer, so Calvin is sporting his very own fauxhawk. Here he is getting kitted up:


During warm-ups, his shoe came off. Classic.


And now the action shot - Calvin goes in for the strike!