Ahh, Scouts

This is back from the beginning of April. The Young Men had a Court of Honor. Darin earned his Tenderfoot and 2nd Class, his First Aid Merit Badge, Swimming Merit Badge, and one other one but I forgot which one.
We have totally terrible pictures because I asked Nathan to take them since Ken was the one handing out the awards. And I was also watching a friends 3 little kids (under the age of 3) for a couple of nights. So when I went up there to be pinned pretty much all 5 little kids followed me:-)
And when I asked Nathan to take another picture, which made everyone laugh since we were a pretty ridiculous sight, this is what we got. Lovely huh! We were totally the proud parents though.
I distracted the little kids with candy from my pockets, with my cell phone, and letting them torment two of the nicest people in our ward by snapping their picture like 50 times with the flash on! This is Darin's Deacon Quorum Leader.
And this is my beautiful 1st Counselor! She really is awesome, and you can see she is super beautiful inside and out because she looks this good when a camera is like 8 inches from her face.
Afterwards we took the boys and a few of their buddies out to Dairy Queen.
I LOVE that our boys enjoying scouting so much! I have always loved scouts but seeing my boys go through it has made me love it even more.
And here is one extremely tired 11 year old Scout leader, he definately earned his ice cream. Ken had a wave of about 8 boys that he worked with for the past year. They all moved on starting with Darin in February and with the last one leaving this May. About half earned all the way to their 1st Class and most of the rest just have like one or two requirements to get the rest. One of them being our son who was a little disappointed that his Dad forgot to update his last two requirements so he could have his Board of Review in time to get it at this Court of Honor. (Ken was traveling that week too, poor guy has alot of balls to juggle)
That's the terrible thing about your Dad being your Scout Leader and your Mom helping him stay organized. I'm hoping he will at least have his badges sewn on before scout camp:-) We are so terrible. But on the other hand Darin has had so much fun attending all of the events and Ken made his first year in Scouts a BLAST!

Now Ken is gearing up for Nathan's big first year in Boy Scouts! He has alot to live up to since he set the bar so high with Darin's group. Last summer they did a 5 mile Backpacking Overnight, Battleship Overnight, Swimming Merit Badge, and Canoeing Merit Badge. This summer he has plans to do alot of the same and add in a Day Camp so it should be lots of fun!

BTW- I should mention Ken has a rep for being a Scouting purist. He really doesn't believe in the boys getting their Eagle until they are 16+ year old, and he really wants to make sure they learn and progress more then just checking something off. For example: when it says start a fire from twigs or whatever, Ken actually hands them a little axe and a log of wood and has them make all the different types of tinder before they even build the fire. He also HATES Merit Badge Fairs with a passion! Ken sets the bar really high for the boys and they totally rose to the challenge and earned it. He was really, really proud of them and I am super proud of him!