Trail Life Awards

The boys had their Trail Life awards ceremony last night. 

Ezra finished up his second year in the Hawk Patrol and managed to earn all of his branch pins and stars! He now moves up to join Gabe in the Mountain Lions.

While Gabe has already done two years in the Mountain Lions he technically is too young to start the Navigators, which is the middle school group. When we started Trail Life, we weren't quite sure which patrol he should be in, so we put him in Mountain Lions. Unfortunately, we figured out after the first year that he shoudl have done a year in the Hawks first. What does this mean? Well, he's going to do another year of Mountain Lions. It will give him a chance to earn the last couple of branches and stars that he didn't quite get to this year and better prepare him for the additional work of the Navigators.

Great job, boys! We're proud of you!

USS Yorktown Trip

While we were still dealing with the power being out from Hurricane Michael, I took the boys on a field trip with the Trail Life Troop down to Charleston, SC to stay for a couple of nights on the aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown. 

 The Yorktown is a decommissioned aircraft carrier that was built during WWII and saw a lot of action in the Pacific. She was decommissioned after the war, but put back into action right after the Korean conflict and remained active in the Pacific all the way thorough the Vietnam War. She was even used to retrieve the astronauts and capsule from the Apollo 8 space flight! Afterwards, she was decommissioned a second time and donated as a memorial to the city of Charleston and later became a National Historic Monument. She serves now as a museum along with the USS Laffey, a WWII-era destroyer, and the USS Clagamore, a Cold War-era submarine.

 One of my favorite things was that, because we were sleeping on the ship, the adults had free use of the ship after lights-out, so I took a couple of hours after midnight and walked through all the exhibits. No crowds, no kids. It was really cool!

 Because we were there as a group, we gathered each morning for a devotional.

 And then it was off to see the planes and helicopters! The boys couldn't get enough of them.

 There were aircraft from every era that the Yorktown was active, from WWII

 to the 1970s.

 There were a couple of planes inside that they let the boys climb into and play around.

Touring the rest of the ship was fascinating as well. The history of the ship, the other in its class and the US Navy as a whole were really interesting to hear about. 

The boys also got to participate in an environment class where the learned about the ecology of the estuary where the Yorktown is parked. Of course, Ezra loved the turtles. 

They both loved the puffer fish, too. 

It was great when we got done and went outside and spotted a puffer nibbling at the growth on a rope 

and dolphins swimming around the ships! 

Then we visited the Clagamore. 

Talk about tight quarters! Walking down a hallway, my shoulders were rubbing both walls! I have no idea how the submariners didn't go crazy with claustrophobia! There was a story about how one guy was so tall, he didn't fit on any bunk, so he spread two mattresses on a torpedo and slept there!

This was one of the best experiences the boys and I have had together. I'm really hoping we get to do it again next year and get to bring the AHG Troop as well!

Trail Life Fall Camping

This year, I got to take the boys (well, the girls, too) to the Trail Life Father/Son Camping Trip. Fortunately It was held at Hagan Stone Park, which we know very well and also, coincidentally had just spent 2 week camping for Sukkot. No...I don't have any pictures of that. What can I say?

 Anyhoo... We had a good turnout and the weather cooperated with us, mostly anyway.

 Gabe and Ezra set up their own tent. Because I had the girls with us, too, I parked our camper at the nearest RV site I could and stayed with them. 

 The dads cooked breakfast each morning. Lunch and dinner were an "on your own" affair. 

We had a theme of "Hitting the Mark", so one of the leaders brought a bunch of slingshots and paintballs. Another one cut targets in the shape of the patrol mascots: a mountain lion, a hawk, and a fox. He drilled a hole in each target just barely bigger than a paintball where the eye would be and told the kids to put a shot through the eye of their mascot. Of course, none of them could do it, even accidentally. This was done to illustrate that nobody is perfect and we all fall short, so that's why forgiveness is so important. 

 Everyone got in on the shooting fun, even the girls. 

Emma wasn't a half-bad shot. She just didn't have quite enough arm strength to pull the sling back very far.

 In the evenings, there was a campfire each night and the boys sat around telling stories.

They also did devotionals and played a lot of games.

It was too dark to take pictures, but one of the dads brought an amazing telescope and we were able to see things like Saturn's rings!

Tornado Cleanup - Trail Life Troop Service

A few days ago, a tornado ripped a path of destruction starting near downtown Greensboro and running north for about 30 miles. The area hit hardest is one of the poorest area of town and the boys' Trail Life Troop stepped up to help with the cleanup and recover efforts. 

 Just getting into the area was the most difficult part. Because of the number of trees down and utilities disrupted, the police were only allowing work crews and residents into the area.

 After driving around for a while, we managed to find a place where we could park and walk a couple of blocks into the affected area and start working.

The boys helped haul out branches and chunks of wood that the volunteers, firefighters and utility crews cut for them.  

 They pulled, carried and dragged the debris out and piled it up neatly for the crews to chip and haul away.

 We left anything that was on or near downed lines for the experienced crews to handle.

 Even Ezra, with his broken collarbone, got in and helped out a lot. 

 We worked for about 6 hours that day at 3 different homes for incredibly grateful residents. 

It was really the least we could do for people who were in such desperate need.

Trail Life Pinewood Derby and AHG Luncheon

A big part of their respective years are the fundraisers that AHG and Trail Life hold. These fundraisers help reduce the costs for registration and events like cookouts and camping trips. For Trail Life, they hold a big Pinewood Derby race and invite other troops to join us for a full day of racing, food and fun. 

Our troop owns a rally nice, metal track with electronic timing that's accurate own to 1/10,000th of a second! There's no debating who wins, no matter how close it looks.  

We had never done one of these before, so it was a new adventure for us. The boys designed their cars and then we sanded and painted them, adding some weight to make them as heavy as the rules allow.

Gabe's is on the left and is supposed to be a shark and Ezra's is on the right.

After some fine tuning and a few tests, it was time to see how they matched up with the rest of the guys. We had about 130 cars entered into the race from 4 regional troops. 

Unfortunately, there's still a lot for us to learn when it comes to making the cars faster, but we have a whole year to figure it out! From a fundraising perspective, the event was a big success.

For the American Heritage Girls fundraiser, they hold a big luncheon at our host church. They served meals and sold baked goods. The girls decorated placemats for the tables and helped cook and serve the food.

 Olivia helped prepare salads and then worked a food serving station for a couple of hours.

Emma helped run the bake sale, though she was rather sad when she found out she couldn't eat any of it. 

As with the boys, the AHG fundraiser was a huge success all around, so it was a job well done!

A New Adventure for the Kids

This fall, we signed the kids (minus Irene, who isn't old enough yet) up for Trail Life and American Heritage Girls (I'm sure you can figure out who is in which group...) The groups are Boy and Girl Scout alternatives that hold fast to conservative Christian values and teachings while giving kids hands-on learning in all kinds of really cool areas. They even have to do a certain number of hours of community service each year.

The boys have been primarily learning about all aspects of safety, like fire, electrical, water and so on. The can earn badges in a number of areas, and just as soon as I can get the handbook, I'll be able to figure out exactly what those areas are. :)

The girls have been learning all kinds of stuff. Emma is in the youngest of the groups, so she doesn't earn badges this year, but Olivia is hard at work trying to earn hers. She has earned the Joining Award, which meant she had learned the Motto, Creed, History and various facts about the AHG and the things they do. Already, she's picked out a few badges to work towards and I tell you what: they are not easy. She's definitely got a lot of work to do!

Hopefully the kids' enjoyment and dedication to the groups continues and they can use it as an opportunity to make new friends and learn some very handy skills!