Patrick had such a good time. Scratch that - GREAT time! While it was miserable heat wise - we did have a breeze all week so 99 degrees wasn't as bad as we all knew it could be. :)
Five days of 3:30 9pm of complete boy scout fun with 230 campers! There were two adult leaders with each den...(scout rule - must always be 2-deep for safety purposes) then there were at least 2 leaders per activity plus 2 junior volunteers per activity - so.. like 300+ total.
The boys received numerous patches, belt loops and parts of larger achievements this week.
They worked in art, nature, woodworking, leather working, woodworking..again, archery, bb shooting (favorite of course) and games.
The schedule was fairly simple; arrive sit with your den through flag ceremony then on to first activity, second activity, dinner, third activity, fourth activity, announcements, taking down of the flag and then home.. and every night Patrick was asleep before his heat hit the pillow!
It was all so interesting - we learned (in Nature) how to make a compass Polar North vsTrue North. How to take readings with the compass - something I had never learned before...Goes back to that learning something new every day thing! :) Art Belt Loop - with cub scouts they typically have to do 3-4 items/activities to get a belt loop - with Webelos it's more like 5-8 items/activities to accomplish before you have achieved the belt loop.. this week - we did 7 of the 8 items for them to achieve the Art belt loop! Patrick just has to do one thing at home!
Leather working......I don't really want to think about it - b/c if I do - I can still hear the pounding and pounding that 21 boys can do all at the same time.
With 230 boys - we typically had 3 dens at each activity unless it was games then we most of the time had six dens coming together so it was a bit more fun to have soaked down sponge balls full of water being thrown at you! My fellow den leader was a mom I knew from school and she's a hoot - we had so much fun all week and are looking forward to next year! We will be working on our swaps too!
The boys had to have 'swaps' to exchange with each other. Now I had no idea what a swap is - this is my first Scouting Camp and we left town to head to KY right after school so time was out the window but we made the cutest thing... First of all - the boys need to wear a hat -b/c it's sweltering and well -it's TEXAS and Summer! so they had this cute idea of the boys swapping something they can pin on their hats! There was everything from Giant cockroaches to fishing lures, a number of people put felt and cotton balls together to make it look like a smores - (so cute) we ( I say we...it was me this year b/c we got home Sunday night and camp started Monday afternoon ) made a marshmallow on a stick - I took a white bead and put hot glue on a small stick and stuck the stick through the white bead to make it look like a marshmallow on a stick! - THEN hot gluing it to a pin so you can pin it on your hat.. well - needless to say - we will do something else next year and Patrick will be helping! :) It was fun and the boys were swapping from the time they got there till it was time to take the flag down.
Rachel and Peter came out one night during our dinner time and that was fun - Poor Rachel - she wanted to come out, wanted to be there - but as soon as she got there my little girl was totally miserable with the heat, the bugs and what?! You have to sit on a five gallon bucket for dinner? Yes - we carried those 5 gallon buckets everywhere -they were not on our seat for each station but we carried our water, our projects and anything else - Belinda had everything in her bucket.
We were supposed to sleep over on Friday but by the time Friday rolled around we were all pretty miserable so we declined - there was to be no breeze Friday night - and it's only getting down to the 80's at night so we came home and cleaned up and had ice cream to celebrate!
It was an impressive operation and I think there was only serious mishap the whole week. I think the ladies who put the whole thing together were very impressive and did a super job. We look forward to next year! The scouts are only Webelos two years then they move up to SCOUT ranking so.... the mommas get to enjoy it as much as we can now -b/c it becomes less parental involvement the next big move up.
Patrick is so cute - he told a man one day, "Do you know what my goal is? My goal is to be an Eagle Scout like my dad".... ah... tug on the heart strings why don'tcha....my sweet boy.
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