Now that my boys are in scouts all they want to do is earn Belt Loops. For those of you who don’t know, Belt Loops are earned as the first step in earning a patch for whatever skills they are interested in. Earning a Belt Loop shows that they’ve mastered the most basic skills for an activity and once they’ve earned the Belt Loop they can continue to work on harder aspects of that particular skill, finally earning a patch for their uniform. Needless to say, they want to earn as many Belt Loops as possible.
A lot of the activities are things the boys are familiar with and have long since mastered, such as swimming, fishing, bike riding and other basic boy stuff. It’s up to the parents to sign off on the boy’s skill and even though my kids are proficient at a lot of the Belt Loop activities, the Island King and I decided that they must perform each task on the list, as if they’ve never done it before, in order for us to sign off on them.
The boys really want their Swimming Belt Loops so the other afternoon my parents came over and we took the boys to a local park so they could perform the required tasks. They had to explain basic swimming safety (always swim with a buddy, feet first the first time, and obey any posted swimming rules or orders given by a lifeguard) and they also had to lay on a boogie board and flutter kick 25 feet.
The boys have been in the water since long before they could walk and are both good swimmers so none of this was a challenge for them but as I said, we’re treating each task as if they’ve never done it before so they actually ‘earn’ their Belt Loop.
The water’s gotten a little chilly here but they swam in an ice cold lake last weekend so I knew the Bay wouldn’t be a problem for them.
The Youngest did ok as long as most of his body was up on the boogie board
But once his entire body got wet he proclaimed this to be the coldest water he's ever been in LOL
The Oldest did his part but look at that grimace on his face!
The sand at the edge of the water was teeming with baby sand fleas, many much smaller than this one
These little guys are so cute and they make great bait too.
I don't know what these gulls were feeding on but they were squawking and really going at something in the water.
It didn't take long before the boys were ready to go home and get into dry clothes. They've earned their Belt Loop but it will probably be Spring before we can work on their patches. Although we have been known to do a little swimming on Christmas Day LOLLabels: Staying
