Boy Scout Camp

On Friday June 15th, Jimmy & I attended the closing ceremonies of Boy Scout Camp at Camp McKee. You can read about our visit last year HERE. By the time we parked our car and trekked our way back into campsite #7 it was supper time. We arrived almost an hour early, but by the time we registered at the camp as guests, bought our meal tickets and made the long hike back to Brandon's campsite it was time to hike back to the mess hall. Below is a picture of the front porch of the mess hall. The mess hall is inside those windows and is very large. The porches wrapped around the whole building. It was very beautiful and I really loved all those rocking chairs & picnic tables on the front porch section. Of course they also had picnic tables all around the outside porches.

They must have had 100 rocking chairs and each chair had a small plaque with either a troop number or a name and I'm guessing that these were the names of the people, or troops, who donated each chair...but that's just a guess. The meal was simple with a nice salad & dessert bar, but was very filling and most of all very GOOD. It was wonderful seeing all those scouts laughing and enjoying their meal together with their guests. Each scout troop was also in charge of the cleanup of their assigned tables.
Here's Brian back at camp. After our meal we all went back to camp for about an hour until the last nights ceremonies would begin and all of the boy scouts would leave the camp and go back to their homes.
While we were at the campsite, Brandon showed us the walking stick that his dad made the first two days they were in camp. Brandon proudly said, "My dad is famous. Everybody knows who my dad is here at camp." And...in a moment or two another boy scout, from another troop, led his entire family to our camp and walked up to Brian and asked him if it would be alright if he showed his walking stick to his family. They all "oood & awed." And Brandon said, "See I told you my dad was famous!"

The last nights program has begun and here the boys are tossing a very large beach ball in the air. There was also a green/yellow one being tossed at the other end of the bleachers. The program was full of fun and laughter and the boys were very silly at times. The staff encouraged silliness because they usually started the different silly chantings and the ball tossing, and they would also get up front and do silly, "reinforcing teaching," and everyone would laugh hysterically.
Here everybody is seated watching as awards are being given out. One very small boy received recognition for swimming one mile non-stop across the lake, a feat that was also accomplished by another older scout and a scout master who also both received recognition.
The scouts spent the week earning badges and taking classes. This is EmmyLou and her mother said that she should have left EmmyLou down here at camp for the week so that the scouts could try to earn another very difficult badge called, "Taming EmmyLou." heheheh.

EmmyLou is just a very active cute little girl who is full of so much energy and is never still for very long. She is the baby sister of Brandon's best friend Matthew so we get to see a lot of her, and EmmyLou and I have a VERY special kinship...we both love the same brand of hotdogs & watermelon and they'd better be part of the cookout menu if anyone wants us to attend!

Watching the scouts perform their funny skits.
Here's Brandon's troop performing one of their three funny skits in front of all of crowds in the stands. This was truely the highlight of the evening. The skits are voluntary and each troop can perform as many skits as they like. They were all very silly of course and lots of them were directed at the scout masters or activities of the camp. I can't wait to see what they do next year and I'm already making plans to be there.
Brandon & Matthew both were inducted into the Order of the Arrow. The ceremony was held as the fire was winding down and the darkness had set in. It was the last ceremony of the program and I don't have an infrared camera, so I didn't get any pictures of their induction which was done in the darkness with only a flickering of fire light. All of the scouts went home except for the remaining boys that were honored by being accepted into this order. These scouts had to remain for one more night & day and had to camp alone. You can read about what the Order of the Arrow is HERE.

To his surprise, Brian was also recognized with a plaque for instructing classes on navigating with a compass . I'm sure it's more detailed than that, but I know it had to do with a compass and also with navigating at night.