All That Is Gold Doesn't Always Glitter

Lisa pointed out the other day that I hadn’t updated the blog in a long time, so I will be writing about what has been happening with us in the last week.

The biggest event was the Blue and Gold Banquet. For those unfamiliar with the Scouting program, this is something done once a year to celebrate the many accomplishments of all involved in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Basically it is a Pack Meeting with the usual awards and with dinner added in. The theme for this Blue and Gold Banquet was on Genealogy and was designed to help the kids earn the Genealogy Belt Loop.

This topic is one near and dear to me, and so we went all out for the requirements for this particular award.

Each Den was challenged to create a centerpiece for the dinner. I had each kid in the Wolf Den create a “Family Tree.” They were instructed to pick out a branch which we attached to a base that they helped saw, they nailed together and they spray painted blue. Popsicle sticks were spray painted gold and then inscribed with names of family members and then hung on each tree with blue and gold ribbon. I don’t believe in doing all the work for the kids (or even the majority of the work for them) so the centerpieces looked a little home spun, but each kid knew that he had done it himself with minimal assistance. Here is what Liam’s looked like:

The next major requirement for the Belt Loop was to design a poster with your family name on it, a pedigree chart, and pictures or illustrations showing where your family came from, and a little about their origins. Here is the front of Liam's poster- Lisa helped him a lot with this part.

And here is the back of Liam's poster. We helped him pick four maps and three pictures. The maps are of Poland, Scotland, New England and the pioneer trail. The pictures were of the Nauvoo Temple, the Ellis Island Immigrant Center which is now a museum and a familiar picture of the handcart pioneers burying their dead.

I wish we had brought the camera to the actual banquet. Liam's display had the poster and a few Family History books and heirlooms we brought to illustrate his family tree. It turned out really well. All three boys were as good as gold and had a good time. We were there for over two hours and they behaved themselves well. It was also great as a leader to see how the boys I have been working with have progressed. I have been in Scouts now for almost two years and know them all pretty well at this point. I am happy that Liam is treated like one of their own too.

Another smaller event that happened this week was the completion of a project Ian and I have been working on for quite some time. Whenever I work on a project, (everything from planting a tree to, making one of my mission pastas to sanding down furniture), Ian wants to know what I am doing and wants to get involved in some way. He'll dig and weed like a professional gardener or chop basil and rosemary like a chef or in this case, sand down the furniture like he was a carpenter. Here he is about a year ago, going to town with his own piece of sandpaper.

He was very conscientious about getting all the sides of the armrests.

I explained to him at one point that you need to blow or brush away the sawdust so you can see what progress you have made on the wood. Here he is very carefully blowing away the sawdust.

After about a year of working on this on and off, Ian and I deemed the Goldy Moldy was ready for the big overhaul.
Now for those that are unfamiliar with this piece of furniture, I will give a brief background about it.
The Gold Moldy came from Deseret Industries and was purchased by me when I was a teenager in the late 1990's for the very low price of $17. Despite the garish velvety yellow upholstery, it was built very solidly and was unexpectedly comfortable. I remember studying in it and falling asleep on numerous occasions both in High School and later when I was at SLCC. When I got back from my mission it was one of the few things that I could say was truly mine. When I met Lisa, she was the one that Christened it the Goldy Moldy. However fun it had been to make out in when dating, she wasn't too thrilled when I insisted we move it in with us when we married. It was usually relegated to a back room and most recently to one of our children's bedrooms. When I joined the army, it was carted with us to San Antonio. We almost got rid of it then when Liam got sick on it (from both ends). I cleaned it off as best I could and Lisa insisted it never be used in the living room, (unless we had company we REALLY didn't like.) It wasn't until last year that, frustrated with a lack of any home improvements I could do on our military housing, I set to work to remake the Goldy Moldy with Ian. After months of hard work and searching for a cheap re-upholsterer, Ian and I went to pick out the fabric. Search though we tried, nothing came close to the original upholstery.

So we decided on a conservative blue. Ian and I made a special trip of it down to Austin to pick it up. We went right after school on Friday and despite the nasty traffic we encountered, had a good time. We stopped at Denny's and ordered pancakes for dinner and talked. We both decided that we could no longer call it the Goldy Moldy as it is neither gold nor moldy. It also isn't as comfortable as it used to be, but agreed it definitely smells better.