I got to go on a fun day with Peter to the mall, while the other kids were at school. We rode the train, this fun car, walked through Hogsmeade, talked with Santa, and played at the play place!
Anna was chosen as the leader of the month for her class! She got to attend a special leadership breakfast! Her teacher said, "Anna is a dedicated student! She comes in every morning with a smile, and gets right to work! She understands prioritizing and strives to get the job done and on time. She is also very willing to help others. Anna will be, and is, an amazing member of the community, and I'm glad she's in our class!"
Scott prepared a really nice last Court of Honor for our ward. He worked so hard this year, with almost no support from the ward or parents to keep the prophet's instruction to stay involved in scouting through the end of the year. Daniel was able to earn his 1st Class! This was a really fun night!
Mary had her DARE graduation!
We had a nice Thanksgiving at Dad's house.
Aunt Kathleen spent Thanksgiving with us this year, which was really nice. The day after Thanksgiving, we got our tree, and she helped us string popcorn and decorate it. She enjoyed it so much that she decided she'd like to get a live tree too. So we got one and drove back to her house to help her put it up and decorate it too. It was a really fun, Christmas tree decorating day!
We had the last court of honor in our ward early this month, but it was an Eagle court of honor for one boy (who will forever be the last Eagle from our troop, though I suspect a couple of other boys that are in our ward will still get their Eagle award in a different troop). We didn't give any of the other boys any of their awards, so then our Scoutmaster (who is being released), also attended our Young Men's opening exercises last Wednesday and awarded a bunch of Merit badges to other boys that they had earned.
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about Scouting ending as a church program because I loved it as a boy, but as an adult leader I have seen how some boys like it more than others, and also how there was a lot of unnecessary overhead that in my opinion did not do much to actually help young men. Also, it started to seem a bit unfair to have the BSA program for boys but nothing with as much history, formality and national organization for the girls. Now that girls can join scouting, I could have seen it working as a good program for both young men and young women in the church, except for the fact that even more young women than young men percentage wise would likely not find the focus of scouting appealing. So, I can see why it makes sense to just create a whole new program for both Young Men and Young Women that is totally flexible to meet the interests of the specific youth and leaders in each group.