CAP Promotions

The last meeting in April was the Change of Command ceremony for our Civil Air Patrol squadron. Major Sumner, who has been the senior member commander for many years, decided to "retire", and Captain Williamson is the new commander. Landon, as the senior cadet member, was asked to be the flag bearer for this ceremony.

Major Miles, the Group 3 Commander, accepts the flag from Major Sumner. He then handed it off to Landon, who is waiting in the background. Then they do the reverse process to turn it over to Captain Williamson.


The squadron also had promotions that night. Gerren received his Wright Brothers award, which is a milestone promotion to the NCO ranks. He is now a staff sergeant.


Now that Landon is an officer, he has a minimum of one "sustain" between every grade change (I call this a rank, but Landon says the appropriate term is "grade"). So, instead of moving up every 2 months, they can only change grades every 4 months, sometimes even 6 months. He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in February. So, he spent the next two months meeting the requirements for the Flight Commander Achievement. He stays at the grade of 2nd Lieutenant. Then, over the next two months, he'll work toward meeting the requirements for promotion to 1st Lieutenant.


I was not in this picture, because when I went up for Gerren's promotion without Carys, she threw a fit. I had to take her outside. I came back in just in time for Landon's recognition but decided to stand in the back and hold the troublemaker!

Happy 14th Birthday, Gerren!

Gerren's birthday often sneaks up on me as it comes 10 days after Landon's. I feel like I have more time, but it just goes by too quickly. Birthdays are school holidays here, so we had the day off from school.

Chase again made breakfast as her birthday gift for Gerren. Today it was chocolate chip pancakes. (I had mine plain. I just don't like chocolate chips in my pancakes!)

Chase and Landon enjoy the food!


Finally, we got around to opening gifts. This card was just perfect for Gerren. Notice the resemblance?


Boys just love any humor that has to do with bodily functions!


Both boys have really started to love all things "Mustang" this year. Gerren requested this hat, but Greg thought the magazine would be neat, too!


Gerren was getting desperate for drumsticks. His drum teacher and given him a pile of old ones that he kept around, but he was down to his very last pair. So this was a welcome gift!


We also bought Gerren an iTunes gift card and a new pair of dress shoes for Civil Air Patrol, but the shoes haven't arrived yet. The new CAP boots we bought Landon for his birthday aren't here either!

Carys really enjoyed playing "box monster". Huh? Yesterday, she was calling Chase "Jesus". Who can figure out the mind of a three-year old?


Since Tuesday is CAP night, we saved Gerren's requested dessert, chocolate chip cheesecake, for after they got home.

An Officer in the House

February 10 was a big day in the Meahl family as both of the boys were promoted that evening at their Civil Air Patrol meeting.

Gerren was promoted to Cadet Senior Airman. Here Major Shewbart pins on his grade insignia.


Major Shewbart, the Deputy Commander for Cadets, Gerren, and Greg.


And Landon was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant! He is only one of two cadet officers in his squadron at this time.


This is Major Shewbart, Landon, and the new Group 3 Commander, Major Miles.


I included this picture of the pinning on of Landon's epaulets for one reason. You can just see a tiny bit of Major Shewbart's face in the background.

If you look closely, you will see that he's talking. While he's pinning on the cadets' insignia or epaulets, he talks to them in a whisper. He said to Landon, "You're doing a good job, Landon. I'm proud of you. Keep up the good work." And I think he added something else more personal. He said something similar to Gerren. He's an incredible godly man who has had an awesome impact on my boys. I am so thankful for the men God has placed in my sons' lives at this crucial point in their spiritual growth (Keith Shewbart, Kevin Spiddle, Bob Ayton, Al Kearse.... I'm probably forgetting someone, but these popped in my head right away). Thank you for giving freely of your time to impact these young men.

Winter Encampment

This year both of our boys attended Civil Air Patrol Winter Encampment. Gerren went as a "doolie", and Landon was a flight sargeant. When we arrived for the graduation ceremony, Landon was drilling his flight. I have no idea who this kid is! He really had his doolies motivated.


Our squadron had quite a few staff members. Ashlyn was the flight sargeant for the female flight.


And Sam was flight sargeant of a flight as well. (Of course, they all call each other by their last names, but I am NOT a CAP member!)


I found Gerren in line waiting to complete his final paperwork before the Pass and Review. Right in front of him was another boy from our squadron, Trevor, who was in his flight all week.


Further up the row, I found John Mark, another doolie from our squadron.


Here is a picture of everyone who attended encampment from our squadron, except Shane, a staff member who was busy cleaning up!


Good job, everybody!

Gerren and Science

Gerren is using Apologia's Exploring Creation with General Science curriculum this year. He is having a few struggles with it: 1) memorizing definitions, 2) explaining himself well on a test (even though he does understand the concept), and 3) warning me ahead of time when he needs something for an experiment (even though Sonlight does an awesome job in their schedules, which we use, of warning you the week before you need something).

Due to this last issue, Gerren ended up doing an experiment Sunday because we didn't have any distilled water on Tuesday. Lots of the experiments in this book call for purple cabbage. After buying numerous heads for Landon (or begging individual leaves from the produce managers), I got smart, bought one head the first time we needed it, and froze what we didn't use. We've been pulling leaves off that head as needed. Usually they are used to make purple cabbage water, so their consistency doesn't really matter.

He had to make several different cups of cabbage water this time. Carys cried and cried, begging for a "drink". He finally gave in and let her have a taste!


She didn't ask again!


This balloon contraption was used (along with baking soda and vinegar) to make carbon dioxide and trap it in the balloon which he then had to release in one of the glasses of cabbage water to see if it made the water change color. Gerren was afraid the balloon was going to burst!

Happy Birthday, Gerren!

I have another teenage boy in my house! How will I ever afford the groceries?

Gerren turned 13 today. It is hard to believe, as usual, that another year has gone by so quickly. His birthday fell on a Monday which was crazy with choir for Chase and Civil Air Patrol for Landon. There was no time for our usual birthday dinner out between these two activities. So, we went out yesterday. We headed to Orlando to eat at Sweet Tomatoes' new breakfast buffet. Afterwards, I finally got to tour the new IKEA store. It was incredible! I will definitely be back when in need of furniture. Then we spent an hour or so at the Mall of Millennia. I haven't been there in several years. On the way home, we decided to drive through The Villages, a very popular retirement area in central Florida which I hadn't seen since before Landon was born, probably before we were married. It has grown so much! Well, we have some dear friends who moved from Crystal River over there in January. We called them on the spur of the moment and ended up spending the afternoon and early evening with them. It was SO wonderful. We also had a very light dinner at TooJay's Gourmet Deli. I'd seen these restaurants, but had never eaten at one. It was awesome!

Today, the kids slept in. They were exhausted. They managed to roll out of bed sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 am. We had breakfast, then headed to Sears to have Gerren's pictures taken. After we got home and did some chores, he and Landon flew their RC airplanes. He finally started getting antsy to open his gifts.

Landon and Chase got him this shirt.


Greg and I got him a new crash cymbal (he broke his old one - I didn't know this was even possible).


While we were at it, we bought a splash cymbal and a boom stand for either of those cymbals.


He also got the entire set of the Terrestria Chronicles, adventure novels by a Christian pastor that I read about on my homeschool loop (I think)! He said they look good.


He decided to go with Landon to CAP tonight as they are going to fly RC planes. :-)

Toothless? Not Quite!

Today, Gerren had 4 adult teeth pulled under anesthesia by the oral surgeon. He just doesn't have enough room in his mouth for all his adult teeth. (Greg had to have two of his adult teeth pulled also when he was a kid.) These are the yucky teeth that came out of his head and that he wanted to keep!



He doesn't look like he's missing any teeth does he! He does look tired, though. He never even needed a Tylenol. He did, however, get a $6 smoothie! Next summer, after the remaining adult teeth are in, he'll get braces. Yippee!

Little Drummer Boy!

Okay, he's not so little, but Gerren did finally get his new drums. We wanted to buy him a tom for his drum set for his birthday. However, they had discontinued the entire set, which we just bought in November! His drum teacher expressed his displeasure with the rep who sold him several of these sets. So, for about $65 more than what the tom itself would have cost, we traded in his old set for a completely new and even nicer one. He was shocked. Here he is up in the playroom where we have the drums practicing.

In back of him you can see the totally awesome playhouse Greg built for Chase in the corner of the room. He finished it this summer!

Happy Birthday, Gerren!

Unfortunately, Gerren's 12th Birthday got somewhat lost in the shuffle this year. First of all, it fell on the Saturday of the time change. We usually go out to eat at someplace nicer for birthdays, but losing an hour of sleep when we had to leave for church at 7:15 a.m. Sunday morning was not conducive to a late night out. So, we planned either to do breakfast out that morning or lunch after church Sunday at a nice place. Gerren and I had a 24-hour stomach virus Wednesday night and Thursday, but we were feeling better by Friday when we made these plans. The virus wasn't through with the Meahls yet, though, and by 7:00 p.m. Friday night Chase was throwing up. Landon started in at 10:30 p.m. and I was up with Chase at least every 30 minutes until 2:30 a.m. Greg was up with Landon until 5:30 a.m. We were exhausted, and we obviously did NOT go out to breakfast on Gerren's birthday. We did manage to open presents. Again, that was a slight disappointment because the main gift we got him, a tom for his drum set, did not come in. He was still very surprised at the "coupon" Greg made on the computer and put in his card.


He loved his Star Wars Legos, too.


Chase made him this latch hook rug which goes with the theme in his bedroom.

Landon kept telling Gerren that he was getting him a can of sardines for his birthday. So, even though he did give him a Lego Racer, he had to have a can of sardines for a joke!


Gerren's birthday supper was Arby's eaten in the car on the way home from church Saturday night. Nobody but Greg ate much; Landon didn't eat at all. We did eat at Fazoli's per Gerren's request after church Sunday afternoon, but Landon didn't eat anything again. We thought we were through with the virus until Greg started throwing up this morning. Carys seems to only have had a few runny diapers, thank the Lord! What do you do with a 14 month old who is vomiting every 30 minutes? We should be able to pick up Gerren's drum at lessons Wednesday. I'll take some pictures then!