Cub Scouts,,and Camping

October 13, 2008

It has been quite a while since I last put anything up.  School started and all of a sudden it’s October!  Here I thought with the kids in school full time I would have all this time!  Well,,I have filled that time up pretty quick!  Between room mom duties, volunteering at the school and keeping my nice one afternoon a week my time gets used up pretty quick!

Not long after school started Parker brought home a packet about Scouting.  He informed that “Mrs. Walker wants me to be a Cub Scout”.  Well that was not completely true.  She just gave him the packet along with all the other boys ;-)  So we went to the meeting and signed up for a Pack.  It has been fun.  There are 3 other boys in his Den and they all get along very well.  Scouting at this age is all about family.  This means that not only am I involved but so is Holly.  She gets to go to the Den meetings and participate in the activities.  I suppose in a few years I will have to add Brownies to our evening routines!

This last weekend we took our first camping trip.  The Spook-O-REEE.  We went to the Gerald I Lawhorn Scouting Base.  This is really neat thing.  Scoutmaster Lawhorn bought a large tract of property along the Flint river (not sure of the acreage) solely for Boy Scouts.  They have tents there, bathrooms (some with running water and flush toilets a dining hall, pavilion and huge playground.  They also offer the scouts canoeing, a rock climbing and repelling wall  and lots of river front for fishing.  It is a place for the scouts!  Though the little guys can’t use some of the things yet they can enjoy camping.  The event had fun games and activities for the boys along with a Hunted trail for the older boys and a Tiger Trail for the little guys,,,like ours.  The boys got to sit around the camp fire and for my little guy got to roast his first hot dog and marshmallows over an open camp fire.

For mom here this was a bit of a challenge.  As I told the dad’s I am not an outdoors person.  I would have been content to just send dear old Dad with our son and stay home or go to work :-)  However, since I take Parker to the Den meetings he really wanted us all to go.  It rained, it was cool, there were bugs.  Thankfully, I didn’t see any snakes,,,even though I knew they were there.  Yet even for my “not liking” camping to much, I had a good time as did there Dad.  As for my little Princess,,well you don’t always wear a teara when you are a princess.  She enjoyed the activities as much as the boys and got just as dirty.   Even costume for the costume contest (a barbie bride dress) is filthy from playing with the guys!

I am even looking forward to the next camping trip.  I will be a little more prepared though, as I am learning this stuff as well!