The Growing Caldwell Family

  Having completed Arrow of Light, Charlie and several of his Cub Scout buddies were ready to move up to Boy Scout! We said goodbye to Grancy and she was very proud of Aaron for his leadership. Bittersweet moment as Aaron ends his role of den leader for Charlie and Charlie joins Pack 220. For six years Aaron has led this group of kids and through the challenges he prepared them well to enter Boy Scouts and excel.  The handoff to his new troop leader. We celebrated with dinner at Cane's! A real treat since this one opened about 45 minutes from us. 

The next weekend Aaron went camping with Charlie and the Cub Scout pack. As Aaron says, if it's raining, he must be going camping!  As they are finishing up Cub Scouts, the boys have formed patrols and are taking on responsibility for planning and cooking their own meals. On this camp out, the meals might have been the best part! They named their patrol the "Exploding Purple Pancakes" so purple pancakes were a breakfast must! The rain led to cancelling some of the activities; a scout went home sick during the night (leaving Aaron and another leader having to drive him to meet his parents at 1 AM), and leaky tents made for a rough camp out!  Charlie came home so very tired and we figured out a couple of days later that he had strep throat. Yay!   

I think this is the 5th year Aaron has taken Sarah Graves for a Father Daughter Camp Out at Camp Misty Mountain.  They had fair weather, planned their meals well, and no crowds. Plus, on the way back they stopped at  Bucee's!  

For Aaron's birthday, we were able to surprise him with his Mom coming to visit! Sarah Graves came home from camp that morning and we headed straight to the lake, so she was just as surprised to see Grancy! So fun! We did a little swimming, then made a fantastic dinner, if I do say so myself! We made some of the best filet mignons, baked potatoes, and roasted asparagus. I was nervous for us to make steaks for a crowd of ten since we usually only make steaks for us at home, but we adjusted our recipe and they came out beautiful! After dinner, we took a wonderful sunset cruise! There was dancing and singing while we watched the sun go down.  Sissy endured a lot of questions about the dances at camp! For dessert, Aaron requested a peach cobbler and Jeanne' made him a good one! Charlie made a card before camp to be sure his Daddy had a good birthday.  Livy was excited to give Uncle Aaron her card! Sissy missed her puppy! I think Lucy missed all the belly rubs.  Aaron racked u...

Aaron made breakfast for everyone before we settled on the sofa for TV church. Pre-recording the service worked well and no more glitch church as Charlie called it! After going to TV church, the kids asked to go back to the basketball area to play again. The weather looked like rain, but stayed dry.  Sarah Graves was giving us a glimpse of her sulky teenager face. Not sure why she was feeling this way since it was her request to play basketball. Charlie always has a smile for the camera! Aaron and Sarah Graves make a good team! Poor Charlie gets very frustrated with my lack of skills and my lack of ability to read his mind and understand his "plan" to sneak the ball from Aaron and score!   We added the fun of playing with a frisbee to our basketball and four-square route! Turns out that I am not too good at any of these, but we sure did have some laughs! Getting outside seems to be good for everyone's soul!