Growing Avocados (Wolf Cub Scout Elective 15 - Grow Something)

My kids and I decided to grow avocados.  Partly for one of my son's requirements to earn the Conservation Badge and partly just to give us something to do.  We ate the avocados (well, mostly me) on the same day and suspended them in water on the same day, but had vastly different results.  Here is our avocado journey:

Week One

Week 2 - Still nothing

Week 3 - One of the avocados starts sprouting a root!  the other one still looks like it did on day one)

Week 4 - No real change to speak of

Week 6 - Holy moly!  One of the avocados took off!  The second avocado finally starts to take root.

Week 7 - My camera was lost, so I really wish I had pics of this week.  The first plant sprouted up a lot and had leaves!  The second one had little change.

Week 8 - We transplanted one of the plants.  It is a little over a foot tall, but leggy from the lack of sunlight here in Washington state.  I pinched off the top three leaves, as I read that it will encourage the plant to fill out and be healthier.  The second plant is only about two inches tall.  This is definitely not for the impatient!

I've learned 3 things from attempting to grow avocados:
1) The best time (in doing this in a cloudy and rainy place) to start them is in the summer when there is plenty of sunlight.
2) This project requires a lot of patience, as well.  I did this project with my kids and put them on top of the entertainment center so they would get more light and be relatively out of sight and out of mind.
3) Keep out of reach of kids.  We attempted to do this last year and placed them on the kitchen table by a sunny window.  As they were at the table, though, the kids asked when they'd be grown at every meal.  With it being within their reach, the kids also sneaked into them and tore them apart to see if they were growing, so that was the end of those plants...
4) Every avocado grows differently.

Thanks for reading!

 ~Vanessa

The Price of Karate

My son is pretty tiny for his age.  He is on the short side and skinny.  This is just how boys in my family start out.  Once they hit puberty, however, they grow a lot.  I don't have any male cousins or uncles under six feet tall.  I think the tallest once is 6'6".

My son has been having trouble with some boys at school lately, so I enrolled him in an introductory class at a local taekwondo academy that I am completely in love with.  The teachers are all highly qualified and it has a high quality curriculum.  However, the prices are very high.

I am a stay-at-home mom that is pursing my BA so that I can get a good job and my hubby works part time in a warehouse.  We have enough to get by, but we are far from rich.  The Black Belt program there runs $200 per month, plus a processing fee.  Tournaments and testing come with even more fees.  $200 is the price of a car payment!  It is just more than we can afford right now.  I can probably only afford 1/4 of that price.  That is the basic program, too.

My son took it well that it is just too expensive for right now, but I was near tears throughout his practice.  He has grown so much and has gained confidence while being there.  It just breaks my heart that I can't provide this for him.  I'm probably more attached to this program than he is, though.

He's also the type of kid that loves variety, though.  Even if we could afford it, that would be all that he would be able to do.  My kids play sports pretty much all year long and play a variety of sports.  He played basketball over the winter, both kids are in baseball right now, they will do soccer over the summer, and he says that he wants to try football this fall.

My parents put my sisters and I in a couple of classes through the city's Parks and Recreation program, but couldn't afford it as we got older.  I know that when my kids get older, we'll have to cut back to 1 or 2 sports per year, but I love that they have opportunities that I never had.

I am looking into small karate studios that would be more affordable.  I just hope that they will be just as knowledgeable and that my son will enjoy it as much.

Thanks for reading!

 ~Vanessa