Lenten Goals

I may not be Catholic, but I really like the idea of Lent.

I like the idea that I can change.

I like the hope that my will and spirit can triumph over the horsepower of the merely mortal.

For lent this year, one sweet niece is giving up Facebook.  I can understand that.

As for me, this lent, I'm giving up my snooze button.

George Washington Slept Here

Question:  what is an excellent way to celebrate George Washington's Birthday?

Answer: By camping out at Valley Forge in the winter, just like he did!

I'll bet camping with Boy Scouts (7 boys 4 leaders this trip) is similar to camping with the Continental Army.  I bet we had fewer discipline problems.

Senior Patrol Leader Michael, and new scout, Fred, work on dinner...

...under the coaching eye of Scoutmaster Greg.

Meatball sandwiches, with green beans and potatoes.  The green beans ran out first, by the way.

Fred, first time camper, thought the food was great.

Michael tries on warm boots.

Sitha dodges the camera.

Breezy is chilling.  "Cold?  I don't feel the cold"

It was a bit chilly, though.  That denim bag in the front is actually a black nylon bag.  We got a bit of frost overnight, but everyone slept pretty warm.

No camping is allowed in the Valley Forge National Historical Park, except Boy Scouts, and only once a year at Pawling's farm.  This was the 100th annual sleepover.  It was a big deal: 2000 campers, and about 4000 people for the day activities.  It takes a lot of tents to Occupy Valley Forge.

After a pretty good night (lots of stars) we had a hearty breakfast (good eggs, Derence!)...

 ...and headed to the amphitheater for opening ceremonies.

 

 This shot is apropos of nothing except to note that in the right light, scouts can look like zombies lurching down the hill.  

I don't know, if they had colder nights that we did, they might BE zombies.

After that, we got demonstrations and history vignettes on cavalry,

 manuevers and muskets, medicine,

and field artillery.   This little chirping cricket made some chest-thumping noise.

 It's usually hard to tell Nathan apart from the other boys.

 Good-looking bunch of good campers.

We came, we camped, we got another patch!

(not actual patch, that comes later...)

Personalized Valentines Cards

In no particular order, here are some useful cards for Valentine's Day.  Collect them.  Trade them with friends.  Share them with someone you love. 

Thanks to nephew James for starting the creativity ball rolling with this one:

I select you, naturally.

You're the gorilla my dreams. 

(I know this isn't really that clever, but it's the first one that made me laugh.  Probably in the third grade.)

I'm crazy about you; I'd be crazy without you.

(Obligatory psychology one for my soon-to-be-PhD wife)

Sending you Love waves for Valentines!

(In case anyone wants to send this to our geologist son.  This could also be captioned, "The earth moves when I'm with you," or "You rock my world." Your choice.)

I'd search the universe to find you.

(In honor of Bethany who is spending her last Valentine's Day in New Mexico.)

 You make me glow. 

(In honor of granddaughter Grace AND New Mexico's radiological past--a two-fer!)

I will hold you as tight as baby toes.

(In honor of soon-to-be-walking granddaughter Alice.  It's not that clever, but is there anything as cute or grippy as baby toes?)

I scream, you scream, we all scream when we see the Good Humor man.

(In case anyone wants to send this to our son-in-law, Kit.  There's probably another caption in here about being so hot he melts ice cream, or something about a warm heart, but I'll leave the derivation of those to Lynne...)

 You keep me balanced. 

(In honor of my daughter who works in accounting for a group of NY charter schools.  Could also read, "It all adds up if you'll be mine.")

As for me, this one seems most nerdily appropriate:

Be mine, you will.

(For those of you that thought the previous one was clever or amusing, you might need to use the Jedi mind trick this year...)

Happy Valentine's Day.

You're welcome.

Klondike Derby, Pennsylvania Style

No winter activity can strike more fear into the heart of a scout leader than the Klondike Derby.  Scouts from the local district gather at a scout reservation for a weekend of winter camping.

Camping.  In. The. winter. 

The guys started out pretty enthusiastically.

 

And fortunately, we had mitigating circumstances:  a cabin with a wood stove.

We had dinner.  We had s'mores.

We had the iron-fisted drill sargents.

And we got through a pretty good night's sleep.

Next day we had spring-like temperatures, and not much snow.

A bunch of troops showed up.

Our enthusiasm ran high.

As did our camaraderie.

There was some posing and swaggering.

And a pretty cool cheer:

 The starting line was muddy.  This is not an actual picture.  We had more mud.

The scouts hauled the sled to different stations and had teamwork and campcraft skill competitions.

Here is the four-man ski race.

Here is crossing the volcano.

Here is the valley of fire and brimstone.  It is actually where we had to start a fire and boil some water and cook some lunch.  We were scored on everything.

You may not be able to fully appreciate how muddy it was.

We finished the day with weapons.

Oh, and mud.

It was pretty fun.  

We had four new campers, and no one who fell into the creek 

(they know who they are) got hypothermic.

We came. We conquered. We got the patch.

(Not our real patch--we get that later...)