Faeries Stold My Shoes!

This weekend we took a stroll through the historic district in Olde City Philadelphia.  It was the first really nice summer day that we have had around here and we enjoyed it by spending some time with  grass between our toes in the parks around Carpenter's Hall and Independence Hall.  There is one little nook that is a fairly large patch of grass but hidden away from the beaten path that Finn, maria and I explored.  I explained to Finn that it is in areas like that that the Faeries lived.  We looked through some of the craggy old trees to see if we could find any but the crafty little buggers kept evading our prying eyes.  I showed Finn the strawberry flowers that the faeries like to eat, and explained that they are poison to us humans.  It was fantastic to see the magic in his eyes.  As we moved on throughout the day we eventually noticed that one of his little green adidas shoes was missing.  He immediately turned to me and said, "Daddy, the faeries stold my shoes!".  Playing along, I agreed with him and offered that maybe they took his shoes because they wanted to be friends with him and needed something to remember him by.  He emphatically agreed...

Merit Badges

I was reading an article over at Make: where this guy's 9-year old was thrilled at the prospect of earning badges for various feats of technological wonder.  The good folks at Adafruit have created a series of patches in the spirit of Scouting Merit Badges, where kids are tasked with expressing proficiency of a particular skill and in return earning a badge to display on their uniform.  I plan on stealing this idea for the Junior Adventurer Society.  In fact, I see the Junior Adventurer Society becoming the next evolution of the Scouts.  Scouting has endured some black eyes in the past few decades as any organization of such size would.  The Junior Adventurer Society is open to both boys and girls and could function as viable alternative to both the boy and girl scouts.