Our family has suddenly become this scouting extraordinaire family. Not by our choice, but Ben's calling is as the eleven year old scout leader, and I'm now the eight year old scout leader, or the "wolf den leader," if you speak the foreign language of Scout.
Our first big event as scout leaders was the Blue and Gold Banquet. The scouts all make a cake to be judged and have a big dinner and program.
They all did "country reports" about scouting around the world, which actually meant I did a lot of mindless research about scouting in other countries and gave the boys notecards to read about them!
Our scout pack chair is amazing and put in so much work for this night, it turned out great!
We've had a sharp learning curve, and for the first bit it was a crap shoot, but scouts has turned out to be quite fun!
We've had several activities so far.
We had the fire department come to one.
For one requirement they had to recycle and do a service project.
We had them recycle a bunch of plastic bottles at Albertson's. Each one is worth 5 cents, so with the money they got from recycling they were each able to choose a small treat.
I had asked the store manager if we could pick up trash around their store, but there is a union in charge of picking up garbage pretty much everywhere in the entire city and we can't take jobs away, so they instead suggested we deliver flowers to a nursing home that they would graciously donate.
Being the week after valentine's day, there were a lot of flowers! This was perfect timing for donated flowers and easily over $1,000.
The boys were adorable! They introduced themselves and asked the residents' names. The residents were beside themselves with happiness. A few of the boys were kissed, and everyone kept commenting on what well behaved, handsome young men they were.
The boys were beaming.
One adorable woman in a wheelchair practically ran people over coming to talk to Cody. She wanted to know everything about him.
With the last few dozen roses we took them apart and they handed them out individually.
This was a perfect 8 year old boy service activity that was totally dependent on the scouts, not the leaders, and one that they could shine at!
I was so proud of the boys for stepping up to this opportunity.
And here is where I keep it real...
The first month of "reporting" awards our very black and white, by the book leader sent a text asking us to report our awards that night, not mentioning when she would be buying them, but definitely saying report them that night. I was under the impression she bought them the day before our activity and I was waiting to hear back from some parents, so I didn't text her back until the next morning when I sent my list of awards in.
She sent me back a passive aggressive email telling me we would need to go our own awards. Fair, since I was late reporting, but the fact that there are only three people to report was irksome...a simple "Hey I'm going to pick up awards" would have prompted a quick response to get my gears in action.
Anyway, it was still my fault, so I load up the kids and drive the 20 minutes to the store where they proceed to tell me that I can't get the awards without the proper paperwork that I was told I shouldn't need. I was pms ing and so annoyed at that point that I blurted out "What if I just steal them?!" The crazy scout lady took a firm, brutally evil look at me and threatened to call the police on me. They really are their own breed in there. At this point I broke down in tears, paid for my remaining goods amongst my astonished children and the befuddled boy scout store helper, and left. Ha! Then I called Ben, who had been listening to and consoling crazy women horse owners all day. After he listened to the whole story he calmly said, "It sounds like it was your fault" which made me cry harder. In his defense he also agreed our leader is a little intense and sometimes hard to work with. But now that that is behind me I am feeling so much better about life and still like our leader, she really is great! :) So it can only go up from there!
