Eagle Scout: Civil War

Eagle Project: Civil War Grave Stones

As I mentioned a few weeks back my son, Superstar, has made Life Rank.

Life Rank is one step below Eagle Scout. My son has 5 merit badges and 1 Eagle project to do to make Eagle Rank.

He is still not sure what to do for his Eagle project. We have been looking at the ideas at My Project Finder to try to get the ideas flowing.

He is unsure about his Eagle project at this point, but he does have a clear goal that he wants to be done with everything by his 17th Birthday so he has a shot at earning some Eagle Palms

Even though my son does not have an Eagle project, at this point, the Eagle project process does mean he has had the opportunity to help the older scouts on their Eagle projects.  One of the more recent Eagle scouts in my son's troop Eagle project was researching, finding, and requesting new grave stones for Civil War Vets in our local cemetery.

My son helped on a couple of the days needed to find the graves. The scout ended up submitting over 40 names to to have new grave markers -- markers that were never there to begin with or damage over the years -- and to date 9 of the graves markers have been approved and replaced.

Over the weekend there was a ceremony to mark the occasion.  It was after the ceremony and talking to the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War, that were present, that we learned that during the Civil War they estimate that nearly 700 young women  served the military as soldiers.  This in today's time might not seem shocking, but remember in this era of American history women were not allowed to serve in the military and were not allowed to vote. If they were serving it was because they were disguise as men.  If they were voting it was because again they were living as a man and even their closet friends didn't know the truth of their gender.

I knew women did these things but I had no idea the number was as high as the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War shared with us. They also told us the story of some women that even POST war kept on living a man and that how no one knew... for one local woman it really wasn't until she seriously injured in an automobile accident in 1910 that her secret came out.

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Do you have an Eagle Scout? Or almost Eagle Scout? What did you do for an Eagle project? What will you do for an Eagle project? What projects have the scouts in your troop recently do?

Why haven't I been blogging? That is the question for the ages!!

So recently my husband out of the blue said to me "February 16th; February 16th what a shame!" or something along those lines. Confused I said to him, "What are you talking about?" He cheekily replied that's the last time you blogged I'm very disappointed!  Yes it's been nearly a month since I've blogged last.

I'm not sure why other then I don't think there is much to blog about lately. Homeschooling is homeschooling nothing new really going on, nothing exciting. Of course my kids have witty things to say and I'm sure some of my reader miss reading those witty things, but I just haven't been drawn to blog about it.

My nephew is here now and that's really not and excuse for not blogging. He's been here only for a week. My lack of blogging has been much longer then that. My nephew, little man, is a real gem! I'm thrilled to have him here! Although, I am not thrilled with the reasons he's here! Prayers for my sister. I can't share much about what's going on with her deployment other then it's pretty scary for her. We have been able to do video chat via skype so not only do I get to talk to to her, but I get to see her and you can see she's stressed out from the environment. I worry about what post-war will be like for her.  For the last 2 months Little Man has been at my Mom's, and after 2 months here he'll go back to my Moms. We are going to rotate homes every 2 months until my sister's 1 year deployment is done.

On a personal front I've decided to tackle my weight and other health issues again! This time I'm using sparkpeople.com as a means to track my nutrition, fitness, etc. If you are on sparkpeople.com you can find me. My screen name is the same there as it is here: SAHMinIL

I don't really have much to say other then I hope I'm finally out of this blogging funk and will star blogging again more regularly.

New Bunk bed - Waiting Longer

Well we bought a new bunk bed for SS room. The owner of the store delivered it personally last night, in his personal car, on his personal time so we could have it sooner. So hubby and I put the bottom bunk together and called it a night. Seeing the bed didn't arrive until about 8:30 pm last night.

We then went to put the top bed of the bunk bed together, this morning, only to see that the side rail was split.

-sad- We call the furniture store explained to them what's wrong. They asked us to email them pictures. We did! They called us back this evening to saying that it will be another 2 weeks before they can get the replacement part in. It's a bummer that the side rail had this defect, but we are getting a new one.

I would have like to have the bed already, seeing we'll need it for my nephew. (He's staying with us while my sister is serving our country in Iraq. Well 1/2 of the time the other 1/2 of the time he stays at my Mom's house). Speaking of nephew I figured that many of you would like to see a picture of "Little Man". (That one of the many nick names that my sister calls him. I thought it was fitting for a blog name). So the children in the house are my son Superstar, my daughter Web-Princess, and my nephew Little Man.

These pictures were taken right before my sister left for Iraq. :) We took the kids to an indoor play world and ice skating rink. She ice skated with my kids for while and I took Little Man into the play world. After they were done skating they joined us in the play world. The other one is at my house later that night.