Nathan's Arrow of Light

Nathan was finally awarded his Arrow of Light in September! He earned it in April and was supposed to be awarded it at a special Pack Meeting with a bunch of boys in his Den, but as fate would have it, Nathan came down with some awful virus that weekend. He also missed out on his Math Pentathlon, and his last soccer game. Poor guy!

Nathan was pretty sad to have missed out. But, then he started attending 11 yr scouts with Ken and got over it pretty quick. Technically Nathan should have waited until his 11 yr birthday, but the BSA rule is that they can move up to Boy Scouts as soon as they have earned their Arrow of Light. So since Ken is the leader of 11 yr olds, Nathan started going with him 4 months early. Really it's for the best because it's hard to be a scout leader when you have a stressful job, family commitments, etc. and Ken really struggled for a few months there when he had a break between Darin and Nathan. At least when your son is in your patrol it is easier to justify the time spent away from home.

Before the ceremony we had a special dinner with Nathan. Basically his favorite: chicken wings, macaroni and cheese, and corn. Papa was able to join us for the dinner but Lola was still working.

The girls HAD to get in on the picture taking action. Here's Nathan with his special present. We think it is a huge deal to earn all of his ranks plus his Arrow of Light. The funny thing is that Nathan threw a major fit when Darin got his special present. Like, full on waterworks because I wouldn't promise him that I would get him the same thing we gave Darin for earning his. It was very emotional. You would think that would make him remember and guess what we got for him, but he had forgotten.
Yeah! We gave him a Leatherman. I told him 18 months before that when the time came that he earned his Arrow of Light that we would get him something special that would signify his great accomplishment, be special and meaningful to him, and also show that he was turning into a young man. Turns out a Leatherman worked for both of our boys!
Ginger would make a pretty nice present too!
Nathan would not let anyone help him unwrap it. Even Ken volunteered to use his leatherman to get the plastic wires off.
There we go! That is one happy boy!
Nathan didn't want to do the whole big ceremony seeing as how he already felt like a Boy Scout for a few months. He wouldn't even stand still long enough to get a picture of him being awarded it.
They did foot racers at the end of the pack meeting. The boys thought it was pretty fun.
Notice the snazzy leatherman on his belt:-)
Ken was helping out and starting the races.
Then he did a few turns with our kids.

Lola and Papa with Nathan.
The proud parents!
We made him take like a billion more pictures with us.
Of course the girls wanted their own picture with the man of the night!

And back to his parents! We are so proud of Nathan. He had an amazing Cub Scout experience. I am so thankful to all the leaders who took the time to help our son progress. I'm also so glad that we were involved in Cub Scouts with him too. I really, really wished that we had been Den Leaders with our boys but at least Ken and I have always had Leadership callings over Cub Scouts while our boys were in there. It's really kind of sad that this era is over for us with our boys. It's really quite special!
After all the hugs and pictures we finished off the evening with an ice cream cake.