Air Monk's End Of Year PARTY......Part Deux!!

Pics....pics....and more pics......

Coach Marty and Cori

Davis...Michael and Dave

Renee....gutter ball??

Lesly....gutter ball :-(

Cara

Coach Denis and Scottie

Coach Ron and his kids

Coach Marty checking out his cool gift

Coach Denis

Coach Marty and Nick

Coach Ron

Nate and Jeremy

Wayne taking pics

Justin being cool.....

Cell Phone Blogging

Technology is cool.....I can now post to my blog directly from my cell phone....why is this useful? I have no idea but I think it's cool....

Scott's Arrow of Light - Pack 611

On Friday, May 29....Scott earned his Arrow of Light award. For those non-scouters out there...the AOL award is the highest award that a Cub Scout can earn. It is the culmination of 5 years of hard work and dedication. I'm proud to say that all the boys in Dens 1, 2 and 4 earned the award and that all the boys will be moving up to Boy Scouts. This is a huge achievement for us leaders as we have done our job to keep the boys focused and looking forward to moving on to bigger and better things. With one more outing left...the Cub Scout Olympics, Scott and I will be officially done with Pack 611 and Scott will now wear the uniform of Troop 50 and I'll be taking on the role of Assistant Cub Master to Pack 50 for Sacramento. But deep down inside, we will always be Pack 611....

Den 2 ROCKS!

Scott and Mitchell.....friends for life......

Scott performing the candle lighting ceremony

Den Chiefs Robby and Eric

All the boys from Dens 1, 2 and 4

The step ladder to AOL....Tigers, Bobcat, Wolf, Bear and Webelo

The boys relaxing after the ceremony....."we did it!!"

Yuki Beach with Troop 611

This weekend we (Webelos II of Pack 611) were the guests of the Boy Scouts of Troop 611 to a private beach a little south of Pescadero called Yuki Beach. An old time San Jose family owns this land and allows access to the scouts of the San Jose Buddhist Church. Each May, scouts from San Jose, San Francisco and San Mateo gather at the beach for some camping fun.

It was hot in the Bay Area when we left on Friday....but as we got closer to the coast, you can see the fog rolling in....not good......

A picture of Yuki Beach the night of our arrival...the fog is slowly starting to break up but the weather was COLD!

Once all the tents were set up, we had our own tent city....with all those scouts and cars, space was limited but it was comfortable even though we were so close together.

Saturday night I awoke to find our Den Chiefs....Eric and Jeff sleeping under the stars....crazy because it was very cold and very moist all night. I don't know how they do it.....they said that they are too lazy to clean the tent so they would rather just sleep outside....crazy.....

Wakey...wakey...Eric and Jeff.......

Saturday morning we awoke at the crack of dawn to a chilly but beautiful morning...

Yuki Beach has no public access so the beach and tide pools are in pristine condition. You can find all sorts of things in them, they were by far the most beautiful and interesting thing to spend the time exploring through....

Sea urchins were around in the dozens.....too bad I don't like uni.

Besides seeing crabs, fish, sea enonomes, starfish and various snails....there were also sea lions and some small abalone, which I tried to get but to no avail....too bad!

The weekend included a day long instruction on fire safety, how to start a fire without matches, tool safety and enviromental education. Here Scott is learning the proper way to start a fire using a magnifying glass.

After class was over, Scott and Mitchell had a chance to fool around.

Scott on Saturday afternoon.....the sun finally popped out and we finally had some beach weather.


Some of the boys on Saturday night.....the boys spent most of their free time exploring the tide pools.

Good Bye Pack 611

So it all started 5 years ago.....I decided that would be the Tiger Scout leader for Scott. It made sense.....he would join Pack 611 along with all of his buddies from Lotus Preschool. I was a Cub in Pack 611 when I was his age and I was more than excited to be a leader. It seems so long ago that we started this adventure and it has been fun to watch the kids grow. When we started, they were all so small and their uniforms were all so big and baggy. Now 5 years later, voices are starting to change....baby fat is all gone....and those once baggy uniforms are now tight and small. We are close to ending our scouting year and with that, my time with Pack 611. Scott will now be transferring to Troop 50 in Sacramento and will now get to hang with Sac buddies. I know I speak for Scott...our friends in Pack 611 will always be in our hearts and they will remain scouting brothers for life. It has been a privilege and an honor to lead such a great group of boys and to watch them grow from pre-schoolers to young men. I hope they reflect on their time in scouts and remember it with fun memories.....I know I will........

Our first outing...Mitchell Tsudama, Mitchell Kitazumi, Scott Kumamoto and Jason Minagawa

2009 - Mitchell Kitazumi and Scott Kumamoto

Faithful leaders of Den 2 - Donna Minagawa, Leslie Kitazumi and Me

Scottie and YouTube....

Scott loves to watch videos on YouTube.....he introduced me to this one, so I have to give him props....I couldn't stop laughing at it.....

San Jose Sharks....is there a tomorrow?

For those that know me...know that I am a huge San Jose Sharks fan....back when they started, I got curious to this new sport to the Bay Area....Ice Hockey....Ice Hockey in California?! Well....my work had some tickets to give away so I took them and went to my first hockey game.....it was all over after that....Renee and I got season tickets....row 14, center ice. When you have no kids, you can do crazy things like that. Once the kids started to come, we went to less and less games....when the kids got older, we started to go to more and more again. We lived in a neighborhood where many of the Sharks players lived and we often ran into them around the area. Our love for the team was now family wide as the kids often went with us to games. I write all of this because tonight, the Sharks play for their playoff lives. They won the season with the best record in the NHL but it means nothing as they face elimination tonight against a very tough Anaheim team. I always say that I would take a player with heart over a player with skill. The Sharks have a ton of players with skill but they now need to play with heart. For the thousands of Sharks fans who have been faithfull for so many years, we deserve it. I'm hoping that the Sharks can deliver as we all believe they can....