Scrub Scrouts

Have I ever mentioned that for the last year I've been the Cubmaster for our ward's cub scout pack? I enjoy the opportunity to plan monthly themed parties and events (aka pack meeting). It's especially nice that I get to be heavily involved while Bryce is in the middle of his time in scouts. 

My personal goal is to make the cub scout experience extremely enjoyable for each scout, because if they love cub scouts, they are much more likely to have a good attitude heading into boy scouts. 

 

Aubree has designated herself the "assistant cubmaster," and comes to every pack meeting to serve as my right hand woman.

 

I'm happy to say that, so far at least, Bryce has loved his scouting experience. It helps that he's had excellent den leaders.

For our Pinewood Derby this year, I borrowed the idea of a friend and reached out to three other wards in our stake to do a semi-combined Derby. Each pack had their own designated two hour time slot in which to run their event, but the races were all held on the same day, in the same location, and we split up the duties of set up, decoration, and clean up.  It was a resounding success and SOOO much less stressful that trying to do all the work on our own!

Getting Uncle Seth's help making his pinewood derby car paid off for Bryce; he ended up getting third place for the Bear den.

For our June pack meeting, we met at a nearby Lion's camp for dinner and a campfire program.

Bishop met us at our car with a nifty way to transport all the food and children. I didn't realize until later that he was using the trash cart.

 

The Webelos were supposed to be in charge of making dutch oven desserts, but their leader ran into work difficulties and traffic and ended up being late. Aubree jumped right in to assist in getting the desserts put together quickly.

The campfire program was fun and silly and very, very cub scout.

Somewhere along the way, Bryce and Thane got too close to the fire and they both ended up getting ash in their eye(s).

 

Bryce's eyes just seemed irritated, but Thane's eye kept us pretty concerned for a while. Thankfully it was better by the next day. (Thane was furious with me for wanting to take a picture.)

 

Graham spent his time playing with his buddy Marshall. Marshall has an older brother who is also named Graham, so we joked that we should put Marsh"mallow" in the middle of the Graham's and we'd have our very own s'more.

When the campfire program ended, the scouts and their siblings occupied themselves with (what else?) the trash cart. Gross.

In July, Bryce and his scout friends had a chance to attend the District Day Camp. Bryce didn't attend last year because our ward ran our own day camp.  The district day camp was great, but it requires a LOT of parent volunteer time. I spent all afternoon and evening on Monday helping to set up as part of my volunteer obligations. We were first assigned to set up shade tents, which seemed like a good idea until we realized the shade tents were extremely old and more of a logic puzzle than a simple task. I am happy to report that we were ultimately successful in our task, and only broke two or three in the process.

The scouts attended four long days of camp (usually arriving around 8:30 am and not leaving till after 4pm). Bryce always came home exhausted, but full of tales of wonderful activities.

BB Guns and Archery are always a hit with the scouting crowd.

The daily cooking stations were also big hits.

By Friday, family day, the boys were completely wiped out, but pulled it together enough to include their siblings and parents in their fun activities.

Mark stayed home with Nellie and Aubree (Aubree was not interested in attending, and I was not interested in Nellie attending), and I brought Thane and Graham with me. They can't wait till they're scouts too.