Father's and Son's

Last weekend was the Father's and Son's for our ward. This year we went to the church property in Fairfield. This is the first time in several years that I have not had to plan it so it was nice to be able to just go and hang out. We played baseball, heard a lot of interesting stories, got to deal with about 40 cows being around us and some bad wind that around 1:30am woke most people up.

I made a couple of observations at camp. The first is there has never been a fire made in the presence of a boy under the age of 12 that didn't have a stick put in it. There must be something in the DNA of boys that makes them do this because they all do the same thing. They put the stick in the fire until it starts to smoke. Then they pull it out and I don't know if they think they are writing or sending smoke signals but it always goes in the air and is waved around until it stops smoking and then it is returned to the fire.

Second is that I am not sure this is a big bonding experience for dads and their sons because other than eating and bathroom breaks most of the boys leave their dads to take off exploring looking for trees to climb, rocks to throw or sticks to put in the fire. The dads all sit around telling stories about the mischief they got into when they were young. Remember, stories told at camp stay at camp.

The last thing I learned is with age comes wisdom. The high priests were in charge of breakfast. None of the high priest in charge of breakfast were in camp the next morning and they were supposed to serve at 8:00 so those who had baseball games at 9:00 could eat before leaving. With ten minutes to go the group showed up with bags of McDonald's breakfast burritos and sandwiches. Apparently they had been discussing a menu during the week and someone realized that they could have McDonald's make everything for about the same cost of buying all the ingredients but they wouldn't have to do any cooking. Everyone got fed and nobody had to cook or cleanup afterwards.

Camp was great but what will probably make this camp famous was the surprise we had at camp. I can't find words to describe this scene so I am just attaching a picture. Jared was one of 5 boys that I know of who had this picture taken. I think most of the boys will remember camp for this more than anything else.

~Brad

Scouts - Wolf AND Bear

Between my Young Women callings, I was called as Bear leader. Let's just say I was not so excited to be wearing a scout uniform. This was my "first" pack meeting as a new leader. Jared was earning his Wolf and moving on to Bears.



Before becoming a leader I was not so interested or excited about scouts. Poor Jared was lucky to have any badges on his uniform (Is it ok they were Brandon's old ones?). In fact, it was really not complete until I had to put the badges on my leader uniform before his was up-to-date. I had bad memories of sore fingers in trying to get them on for Brandon back in his cub days. Luckily I got to borrow the "Strong as Nails" glue from an "experienced" leader and wallah...no more sore fingers! Wish I would have found that YEARS AGO!

Maybe due to my non-love of scouts Jared felt it necessary to embarass me in front of the entire group as he was pinning my mother's pin on by telling EVERYONE that I had done NOTHING at all to help him earn his wolf. You can see mine and the other leader's amusement/nonamusement as we listened to his answer of what I had done to help him earn his wolf. I WILL have you know that is NOT TRUE!! I had done quite a lot!!



Although doing NOTHING to help Jared with his Wolf, the Sunday they sustained me he was THRILLED to find out I was going to be his leader and lucky for me I had a GREAT and well-trained partner. Shawna and I were able to get both our boys (and a few other boys) their Bear in less than five months before being released to go to young women's. Not bad!



Good thing Brad's the artist! That is his job to get him all painted up.



Great job Jared! We are proud of you!