March 2022

 March was full of scouting, religious, sports, social and awards activities.......

King Cake for Fat Tuesday

Nicholas went on a Boy Scout camping trip to Blood Mountain - they hiked, with all their packs and gear, up to the top and then about half way down the other side of the mountain where they made camp for the night.  Nicholas was grubmeister for lunch and dinner.  It was a bitter cold and windy night and they unfortunately were on the high wind side of the mountain.  It was a rough trip but thankfully they all made it back safely the next day, and I think, had fun and learned along the way!

View from the top

Campsite

Nicholas went to his second middle school social - Neon and Sports themed.  The 7th grade boys met at Mellow Mushroom beforehand and then went to the school gardens for the event with a DJ, snacks and lots of fun friend time - they all had a blast !!!

Each of the top 3 winners of the Middle School and I pod Catholic School's Week Essays were asked to appear and read their essay on the QA Morning Show - Nicholas (middle school 2nd place), Grace(iPod third place) and Henry (iPod first place) all read theirs very well!

3rd Quarter Awards Ceremony this year was a BIG one for the Pinto Family - Each of the kids were recognized for being finalists in the Essay contest as well as the Religion Bee.  Nicholas was also recognized for his Future Cities Team accomplishments, for First Honors, and he was inducted into the Junior National Honor Society!!!!

Taking their oath for the honor society

Fr Paul shared his vocation story with the 5th graders for Vocations Week.  Fr Paul Porter has been a regular at the school this year and a fantastic role model for the kids - he is fun and cool and holy!

Henry helped Shawn fire up the grill for spring and cooked up some delicious cedar plank salmon!

Beautiful sunrise - God is amazing!

Samuel's Leprechaun Trap - unfortunately he was outwitted by the little man again!

The leprechaun made a mess of the house and garage!!

The Northern Ridge Cub Scout District (all packs of the Atlanta metro area basically) held a Finalists Pinewood Derby - each pack sends their top 3 winners to the race - so Samuel, Henry and Sammie Bates all went and raced.  There were some really fast cars there!!!

Samuel made the top 3 for the Tiger division.

Samuel's den had a nature hike,  and older scouts Henry and Sam Szoch,  taught the younger ones about hiking essentials and the nature code before heading out.

Samuel really wanted to play soccer and baseball this spring but we told him had to choose one - he chose baseball - he's on the Roswell Braves 7/8 yr old coach pitch team and loving it too far!

Godfather Chad came out to cheer him on at a game - so nice!

The banner made for the team and hung up at the park at each game they play!!! ( kind of crazy for this age if you ask me!!)

Nicholas, Grace and Henry all wanted to sign up for a 5K - the Chattahoochee Nature Center Water Drop 5K..it was an early morning.

Ready to race...

And we ended signing Samuel up on site for the 1 mile fun run

They all did amazing!  Samuel placed first in the kids fun run.  Nicholas placed first, Grace third, and Henry fourth, in their respective age groups!  So proud of them!  Most importantly they all had a lot of fun!

Nicholas has been working on his Ad Altare Dei scout religious emblem since the fall.  It's a big time commitment - meeting twice monthly, with homework in between and then also several sacraament related activities, a retreat, and service project are all required.  Shawn and Cheri are the leaders.  For their retreat, Shawn asked Father Martin to lead one for the boys one Friday night at the RC Mansell office - of course Father, and the teen missionary assisting him, did an amazing job and they had a great retreat!