Saturday afternoon

Tanner attended Cub Scout Day Camp for 3 days this past week beginning on Thursday. The camp (held at Heard Pueblo Scout Camp in Phoenix) began each day at 3:00 pm and ended at 9:45 pm. Scout leaders and parents are required to attend the camp to help the boys and the camp leaders. Camille has attended the camp as a volunteer for the past 3 years. When it came time to sign up to volunteer this year, she volunteered me! I cannot tell you how excited I was - I mean who wouldn't want to spend 7+ hours with 11 cub scouts in 100+ degree weather. But I couldn't argue too much since Camille did have me by 3 years to none.

We met at our church building at 2 pm in order to carpool and get to the camp on time. There was a little confusion about who was attending but we ended up with 3 parents and 2 leaders. One of my good friends, Matt Rasmussen, was the other parent volunteer who was assigned to the cub scounts. They say misery loves company so I was glad to have Matt along for the ride.

The temperature that was perfect for the lake was suddenly very hot and a little bit humid. Fortunately, the sky was overcast which helped to keep the temperature lower than expected which in turn made the experience better than anticipated. Once we arrived at the camp, the wolf and bear scouts (my assigned group) were separated from the webelos scouts. Of course, Matt and I had 9 scouts to account for while the other 3 parents/leaders had to keep track of the 2 webelos scouts. Makes sense to me!!

All the cub scouts including Tanner were so pumped to be at the camp. The theme this year was Outer Space so everything had to do with ... Space! For example during the opening ceremonies, some of the leaders dressed up like aliens. The day's activities included 8 stations including archery, bb gun, crafts, pool, games, potpourri (not what you think), dinner, and den time. My job consisted of getting the boys to their activities on time and then either watching the activity or, if needed, helping out with the activity. Because of the high temperatures, there is always a concern of heat stroke or dehydration. Therefore, the camp encourages the scouts to bring squirt bottles and water balloons. Thus, pretty much everyone is wet all day long. Our scouts were always looking for opportunities to have water balloon wars with neighboring troops (Tanner claims that we always won).

The day was actually not as bad as I thought. When we first arrived, Camille called and I indicated that I might rather be watching "Sense and Sensibility" then attend cub scout day camp. Matt said that was pushing it. I agreed. The boys were fun and the camp leaders were...interesting. I've come to realize that it takes a very unique person to be a "professional scouter" - funny that they all seem to come from the same family line in Kentucky. I'm joking - it might be from Alabama. I really wish I had brought a camera.