We've been getting into letterboxing a bit. Some friends of ours invited us along on a letterboxing expedition when we met up at a park to play a couple of weeks ago. I think we may be hooked, expecially N. We found 3 in just over a week, and have many more clues printed out and ready to be discovered! To learn more about letterboxing, check out http://www.letterboxing.org
Last weekend N. and I had the opportunity to participate in our first Brownie science workshop through Totem Council. A friend of a friend is a troop leader, and a few of her girls couldn't go at the last minute, so she contacted me to see if we were interested in going. I'm so glad we went. It was up in Bellingham, at Western Washington University, and one of the speakers was "Pinky" Nelson, a retired astronaut for NASA who flew on the space shuttle Discovery (there's an interview with him posted on Education World). He was great with the girls, and really captured their attention. After the workshop, N. and I took the opportunity to walk around the campus, go to the bookstore, and check out their outdoor sculptures. I have to say, being able to stay behind and spend that time with N., rather than having to rush back to meet parents back at home like the other troops, was really nice. I keep finding more and more perks to being a Juliette.
Then today, N. and I got together with three other Brownies at Build-a-bear. One of the other little girls (a younger sister of one of the others) had just bridged to Brownies, and to celebrate we were there to stuff a creature and pick out a Girl Scout uniform for it. We got there right after they opened, and had the place to ourselves as the girls picked out their new buddies, got them stuffed, dressed, and accessorized. If we'd had six girls or more, we could have had an actual party, but I think this worked out just fine. All four kids are Juliettes, and it's nice to be able to get together with others to do fun stuff like this. What's a Juliette? A Juliette is an individually registered Girl Scout who does not belong to a troop, but participates in activities just like any other girl scout. They are named after Juliette Gordon Low, founder of Girl Scouts of the USA.
Also last weekend, we went for a really nice hike over near North Bend. We headed out on a forest service road to check out a campground I was curious about. When we got there, we learned that the campground was not yet open for the season, but a half mile back down the road there was a trailhead for the Middle Fork Trail on the Snoqualmie River. We decided to give it a go (after having just driven 12 miles of forest service road, most of which was gravel), rather than heading back to the freeway for our original hiking destination. Definitely a smart move - the scenery along the trail was phenomenal, and the trail itself not too busy on a drizzly day. Afterwards, we found a CCC trail that led into the backside of the campground, so we went in and scoped out the layout there. We hope to get some camping in this summer - it's been too long since B. and I have gone out and done that, and the kids are plenty old enough to be enjoying some simple car camping.
Please keep my friend in your thoughts and prayers. She found out that she's going to be needing chemo, followed by radiation. She's going to be part of a clinical trial for a more aggressive form of chemo that's not supposed have any more side effects than regular chemo. She said this inspires her and makes her feel she can contribute something to her daughters' generation. She's a homeschooling mom of three sweet kiddos, and wife to one amazing guy. If anyone can get through this, it's them.
And lastly, kudos to my awesome friend L. down in CA. She took the qualifier last week to become an official black belt candidate at the old studio we trained at together. I would have been right there with her this fall, so it's a bit bittersweet for me. I'm living vicariously through her experience. She's making me proud!
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