Court of Awards

The older 3 boys had their end of year Court of Awards for Boy Scouts this week. Which meant a family pot luck/picnic for everyone. Planned by the adult leaders. Meaning as long as all you wanted was chips, cookies, and brownies, it was an awesome evening. If you wanted real food, you had to come home and eat. Yup, it is the same thing every year. The kids come home full of sugar and the adults come home starving. But all 3 boys made progress this year so a good time was had by all.

Liam will join the troop next year. I will admit on some level I feel a bit badly for the boys because there are so many of them that many of the adults never bother to learn their names. They just refer to them as "Oh, you are a Hitchings boy."

Winter Camping

Bryan and Sean just returned from a winter camping trip.  There was supposed to be a bunch of snow but the weather did not cooperate so many of the outside activities were cancelled. They did still get to go tubing and walk out on a frozen lake.  I'll admit that I am not quite sure why you would actually want to do that just for kicks but I'm fairly certain I would have been totally gung ho about doing it with my scout troop in high school given the amount of time I spent crawling around in caves and jumping off the sides of buildings. (Yes, children. Your mother used to be much more fun before she had kids.)  Even though Alan says he was cold for most of the weekend, I've been told everyone pretty much had a great time.

In case you can't tell, this is the crew out on a frozen lake.

Boy Scout Stuff

The court of awards was last night. Each of the boys earned at least a few badges.  The younger ones behaved rather well. There was actually enough food this year.  Good time had by all and now we get to enjoy a break for a few weeks.

Court of Awards

The boys' scout troop had their annual Christmas dinner tonight.  The evening also doubled as a Court of Awards.  This is always an interesting event for us since it is meant for the entire family.  Usually the younger children only make it part way through the evening before they are done and ready to head home but aside from a minor meltdown from Robert, they did rather well tonight.

Bryan and Sean both advanced to the second class rank.  I'll admit that I am not entirely sure where this puts then in terms of Boy Scout rankings but I do know they are making steady progress.

Kieran will join their troop in January and is looking forward to the chance to be with the bigger boys.  Ok, he's jumping out of his skin excited over the chance to join the big kids.

Boy Scouts

Tonight was the final Court of Awards for the season.  Bryan and Sean both advanced to Tenderfoot and each earned 3 merit badges.  This year they have also earned the Ad Altare Dei religious medal.  They head to camp in about a month and I believe they will both be working on 3 badges there this summer.  They both seem to be enjoying scouts and Kieran is waiting anxiously in the wings to join them after his next birthday.