My Scout

Last week Jack went to Cub Scout camp.  He loved it with all his heart and soul and being, from the tippy top of his crazy Alfalfa hair to the bottom of his stinky piggy toes.

They did archery and shot bb guns and went hiking and swimming and rode in paddleboats and did BMX biking and played games and did crafts.  He didn’t even mind the 90-100 degree heat that plagued the camp last week.  The lunches were the BEST!  They knew how to make a mean PB&J sandwich and there was a salad bar and he could go back for seconds on anything as many times as he wanted.  He came home every day absolutely filthy, covered in dirt and food and paint and bug guts and more dirt, and if that’s not a sign of a good time, I don’t know what is.

photo courtesy of Shay’s mom, Jill (you’ll meet Shay down a few pictures)
The last day of camp, families were invited to join the campers for a cookout.  Do you remember last Friday?  Last Friday of the 100+ degree heat? 

We arrived as evening color ceremony was taking place.

The bugler played the National Anthem, and then invited us into the pavilion for our meal, which was luckily not around a campfire!

That’s Jack’s good buddy Shay behind him and that is a half a chicken on his plate!  Two bites into the chicken, Jack noticed that there were some leftover PB&J’s wrapped up on the table behind him.  He grabbed one, and ate that instead of that gorgeous chicken, can you believe it?  He gave me a bite to try, because he wanted to share the PB&J joy with me, and I thought it tasted a little stale and not nearly as good as my own amazing PB&J’s at home, but I told him it was delicious.

After dinner, the kids put on skits for us!

And even the counselors put on a skit.

And then it was time to go. The counselors line up to do a High Five Tunnel with the boys.  I looked at Jack as we started to get in line for our turn to high five the counselors and realized that he was holding back tears.  He turned to me and stuck his head in my shirt and started to cry.  He didn’t want camp to end.  But he high-fived the counselors through his tears.

I tried getting a shot of Jack and Shay before we left, and Jack has stopped crying, but is giving me his “I’m only smiling to be nice” smile.



He was really just so sad.  He cannot wait for camp next summer.  He cried for the first couple of minutes on our gorgeous drive home.

And then Dave remembered the Radio Game. 

Mm-hmmm.  That’s the way to work the radio.

You turn down the volume on the radio, someone asks a random question (“What will I eat for breakfast tomorrow?”) and then turn up the volume to hear the answer.  Sometimes the answer is a bomb (“1-800-555-7711”) but sometimes the answer is hilarious (“bugs, bats, and rats”)  and that cheered Jack right up.

Before camp, Jack had decided to quit Scouts this coming year, but camp has changed his mind, and he will be rejoining again this fall.  He’s only joining again so he can go to camp though.  He wants to make that point clear.

Scout camp rocks!