All About Nate

 Tonight was Nathan's last soccer practice for the season. His team made plans for a parents vs. players scrimmage. He's been bugging me about playing for days. I told him I would but I was hesitant for a couple reasons. 1- I've never played soccer and 2- I'm not at all athletic. Thankfully once we were there a couple other moms were playing so I didn't feel so self conscious. I even stole the ball a couple times (so what if they're 11!).

The kids had to follow the rules but the parents were allowed to fumble their way through the game and  break a rule when it was 'needed'. Example, I saved my face and glasses with my hand on the ball but we didn't have to call a handball. I wasn't about to try a header so this rule breaking came in quite handy. The ball was kicked right at me and hit me hard in the thigh. A split second later, Nathan yelled out, 'that's gonna leave a mark!'. Thanks for encouraging me to play bud, it was fun.

 His team was pretty eclectic this season. Most of the good players at this age have moved onto a select team leaving a couple interesting boys to work with. I have no idea how his coach didn't strangle a couple of them, hats off to him. I am completely biased but I have to say it anyway, Nathan is the cutest boy on the team.

 From soccer we ran home, changed, ate and went to pack meeting. It was a big one. Nathan earned his Webelo, here he is with his leaders Brother Powelson and Brother O'Conner. He worked so hard this past month to get all this things passed off. We've been scouting slackers this year so it was major crunch time. A friend's 16 year old son (an Eagle scout) helped him a couple days after school and together they passed off quite a bit of what he needed. We owe Cody some brownies, cookies, donuts....whatever he wants.

 Nathan also earned his Arrow of Light tonight. This award is a big deal for a cub scout to earn. It's equivalent to the Eagle for boy scouts (or so the leader in our ward says). There's a little ceremony about the 7 rays of the sun (days of the week) and after the rays are lit up, we all walked across a bridge for him to 'cross over' into boy scouts. Very official.

 

He pinned me twice tonight. Once for his Webelo and once for his Arrow of Light. I'm so proud of him for getting it done. Way to go Nate!

 We all walked across the bridge and he said the Boy Scout Oath. Or was it Motto? Still learning scout lingo here. Nathan is a good boy that is striving to do what is right. A real scout. What more could a mom ask for?

One cub scout down. Three more to go.