One Happy Dog Speaks

Here is the oldest having fun on the camping trip:

And on the very last day, the boys had fun climbing the trees!

I must say it was a pleasant time and I had fun…

Continuing on the scouting theme… just one month after joining we had our first camp out. We borrowed a tent from Bou. And had bought some blow up mattresses and sleeping bags… I couldn’t walk the next morning. My arthritis does NOT like sleeping on the ground even with blow up mattresses.

And the youngest had fun with the activities…

I am finally getting around to making the scout scrapbook pages. Seriously… It’s been almost 4 years and I am getting my act in gear… Here is page one. This is my youngest as a Tiger at his first Den meeting.

Here is page two. My oldest joined as a Bear. This is his first outing with his Den.

How life has changed in 3 years. I also need to catch up and stay caught up… Ugh.

I am starting to wonder if I should open a printing press. Ok, not really. But between scouts and school, I find that I’m printing a lot on my little home printer. It makes me wonder if I should consider commercial printing. It might be cheaper than the toner and paper I’m having to buy. It amazes me how much they charge for home printer toner. And if I run out of a color, my printer won’t print at all. Didn’t know that until recently. While printing a bunch of stuff for scouts of course.

I am really enjoying scouts this year. It is a good mix of volunteer adults. We are thinking ahead and have a good group that really wants to help. In fact we have a new volunteer that is talking about how we can send more stuff to the troops. Setting up a website and getting people in our community to buy chocolates from the pack that we will ship to the troops overseas. He did it before for another pack before he moved down here.

I would need to find out how we can ship that of course. While I don’t think it will require any kind of hazmat shipping, it doesn’t hurt to really check out the laws and regulations. Seriously. Shipping is a big deal. You need to make sure you follow the rules. I learned that from living in Germany. Everyday household items can be considered hazardous to ship.

Back to scouting though… I have to say, I’m really pleased the way this year has started. Our cub master has kept it right on track. He appeared in a judge’s white wig and black robe for our first Pack Meeting. He kept the boys entertained and still taught them about Honesty. I love it. He has the next couple of pack meetings planned out… and has a ham operator coming to one, the police dogs to another. Yep. This is going to be a great scouting year.

Today we have work, pick kids up to take to swimming, homework for 20 minutes before going to music and then home again. But yesterday was a long day as well. I could have sworn this week was going to be my easy week.

I went to a scout district council meeting last night. Interesting stuff. More politics there than at work. Then again it is a weird mixture of paid and volunteers. Oh, let’s not forget the ‘good ol’ boys’. Mix well and you get very interesting politics. Seems there is one paid person that is being ‘difficult’ and not passing information on to the rest of the packs and troops. Did you catch that… one of the paid personnel… Yaa, I think it’s time to get rid of said paid person. Seriously. Our pack and others missed a fun event because this person decided not to share the information and have it email blasted out. It was amazing how the forces divided on this one and the political game that occurred. Yep. I can’t wait until the next event and see if we get something or not. Just happy that I am not involved in any activities county wide that would need to go through our district council right now.

Take that along with the coach and I having issues at swimming and I’m ready to drop all activities for my kids and just hide under a rock. Ok, not really. But it does make for an interesting life and really really forces me to be an adult. Sucks. I want to be the childish one occasionally.

Last den meeting for the school year is this weekend. Yaa… I missed the notice on it being Mother’s day on Sunday until now. BLHHHHHH Still having the meeting. What to have the kids do is another thing. I was thinking they could make something out of leather and then by dyeing leather to their favorite color it would be unique. After looking at what I would need 12 kids to do together… I decided I would pick something much easier. Maybe a card from them with lots of scouting stickers on it? Yep… sounds much better.

Ok, my son got his scout wolf badge last night. I now officially have a wolf and a webelos II. I love the scouts. I love watching my boys grow in scouts. Life is good!

I paid the money. We were all set to go… and… I asked that we not go. I’ve still got a little bit of a cough going on… hence I didn’t want to spend two nights on an island. Is it gorgeous? Yep. Did we have fun last year? Yep. The boys hiked and played int he water the whole time.

This year… well, we just went for the day. The youngest was in the water from 10am to 3pm. The oldest was out for a short while to hang with some friends that just arrived… I think that lasted all of 15 minutes. Oh… and both came out to eat lunch… 5 minutes.

Yep… it was a good time. Glad we went for the day.

Yep, it is suppose to be a great weekend. I’m so looking forward to camping with the boys… 80s in the day, 70s at night… as long as the mosquitoes stay at a minimum… it will be a fun weekend. Wish us luck!

to the camp out. To the place built in 1945 and has never been upgraded. Where it has been tromped on by kids for all these years… there is no grass. There is only soft sandy dirt. I believe they call it ‘sugar sand’. You can’t park near your campsite… so you must trudge through this sand with all your gear to the site. If you bring a wagon, be sure it has really really wide tires or it just sinks most of the time.

And what I remember most about last time… was my youngest and his buddies laying down going “Look, Sand Angels”… Egads… I think it took me a month to get all that stuff off of him and out of our house and car. Good thing they love this place so much… or I would skip it.