Adventures in Scouting

Friday night, Randy took the scouts on a winter camp out. He LOVES the winter camp outs. He was actually somewhat disappointed that it was only going to be 22 degrees...last year it hit 8 below (Fahrenheit.)

They departed for the mountains around 3:30 PM....4 adults, 10 boy scouts from two different wards with numerous backpacks, sleds, shovels and snow-shoes.

Arriving at the Snow Basin Road, they snowshoed about 1/2 mile and started digging their snow shelters.

I was home with the four youngest kids and Hailey was at an Activity Days party. She got home around 10:30 and I headed for bed around 11:00. Around 1:00 AM I was startled awake by Randy. I was confused, "What are you doing here?"

Randy: "I guess you could say I had a little incident with the candle and my sleeping bag."

Thankfully, he wasn't inside at the time....They light candles in the snow forts for 10-15 minutes before they go to sleep. This is supposed to warm them up a little and help seal the roof of the snow fort so it doesn't collapse. So Casey placed the candles on little 'shelves' they had built inside the fort, and Randy placed their bags and pads inside and they went to tend the fire while everyone else slept. A while later, Randy thought he'd go check on the candles. He saw black smoke pluming out of the entrance of their fort. His entire sleeping bag and pad were on fire. He was able to grab Casey's bag and save it, but his was a loss. In order to put out the fire, they had to collapse the fort because they realized that the bottom of the fort was actually on top of a wooden bridge. They couldn't just let it burn- not to mention the toxic fumes from the burning polyester and plastic.

Casey slept in another Scoutmaster's fort and Randy tried wrapping in a tarp in a make-shift shelter. After deciding that wouldn't work, he headed to his car for the night. It wasn't long before he thought better of it and headed for home to try and gets some decent sleep. According to him, he COULD HAVE survived, he just didn't feel like spending the night huddled in a tarp in his car.

He arrived home to tell me of the event and showered and went to sleep...or so I thought. He didn't' sleep well, feeling like he had abandoned the scouts up there (even thought there were three other adults with them.) He left our house around 6 AM to head back up there before they woke up and discovered a burnt shelter with nobody inside. When he arrived, He took a little nap in his car before snow-shoeing back to camp; thinking that everyone would still be asleep.

Little did he know that shortly after he left around 12:30 AM, some scouts woke up. They left the comfort of their snow forts to play around like only 12-13 year-old boys would do. They saw a collapsed, smoke filled snow fort with charred remains of a sleeping bag. They started digging. After not finding anyone inside, they panicked and woke one of the leaders. He was unaware of what happened, but told them not to worry. So they woke up another leader- the same on that Casey shared a fort with. Casey heard the commotion and informed them of what happened. They stayed up the rest of the night burning all the troop's wood...nice....

Randy was pretty bummed that he lost his new sleeping bag, but we are both so glad nobody was hurt. What hurt Randy the most was that this story was the brunt of a ward-wide joke in the other ward. I guess things like this are funny when they don't happen to you.

The remains of the fort...

What was left of his sleeping bag, pad and tarp.
(notice how the silver side of the tarp didn't burn much-
luckily, that saved the bridge from catching fire.)

Happy Birthday, Randy!

I haven't posted in a few days because we have just been having too much fun...

Friday was Randy's birthday. My day was pretty busy. I had a lot of things I needed to do. After getting the kids off to school, I made his fudge. A great big pan of it to stick candles in. He is not a big cake guy, so I usually do something else- like a pie, or chocolate chip cookies, or fudge. One of Randy's presents (the best one, in my opinion) hasn't arrived yet. I got looking at what I had for him and it was pretty sad, so I wanted to go shopping. But Hannah needed to be at school at noon, and she didn't' wake up until 10. So, I didn't have time go before school. No big deal, I had some things at the school I needed to do. I had wanted to take Randy out for lunch, but it just wasn't going to happen...maybe another day. After getting home from school, I had less than one hour before I needed to turn around and pick up Casey for a physical. (He wants to be a Navy Sea Cadet. It's kind of like a Jr., Jr. ROTC.) I did a little straightening, and I was off to get Casey and take him to the doctor. Casey hasn't made a performance like that since first grade when I took him to get an immunization. They are both good stories, so indulge me a minute and I'll tell them...

2003: I arrived at the school to pick up my darling son, only to find that the teacher didn't know where he was. You see, I made the mistake of telling him where we were going. Never again, I learned. I finally located him...in the boy's bathroom, hiding in a locked stall. I'll spare you the details of how I removed him from the stall....I then dragged him, kicking and screaming, all the way to the car. I opened the van door to shove him in there and he immediately did a spread eagle. His arms and legs were now pressed against the outside of the vehicle. As I would free one appendage, he would immediately fling it back out. After a good work-out, I finally got him in the car and slammed the door as quickly as I could. He cried the whole way there. I once again dragged him into the building, kicking and screaming. He repeated the spread eagle routine as I tried to hold open the office door. It was sure a good thing I didn't have other little kids with me. Or did I? It doesn't even matter at this point. Nobody could focus on anyone but Casey. Once inside, the nurses, yes, more than one- helped me get him into the room...and hold him. I held him (so there are three of us total, holding him) on the chair, my arms tightly wrapped around his torso and my legs crossed over his. He was screaming and squirming hysterically. The nurse pulled down his pants as best she could and stuck the needle into his leg. He didn't even notice. When she announced she was done and asked him if it hurt, he thought for a second...after the performance he gave, he couldn't possibly give it all up now and admit that it wasn't a big deal. So he stood up and instantly fell to the floor, "My leg! I can't use it! It doesn't work anymore!" He limped and dragged his leg behind him the whole way out of the office. That was a proud day, let me tell you....

So, here we are, five years later...He's matured so much since then...

As we were driving away from the school, I asked, "Do you have clean underwear on?"

Casey: "Why do I need clean underwear?"

Me: (Uh...because it's good hygiene...) "You are going to have a physical."

Casey: "What do they do at a physical?"

Me: "Trust me, you want clean underwear."

Silence.

Me: "Casey- do you need to go home and change first?"

Casey: "I don't have any underwear."

You know, I'm not so sure making him do his own laundry is a good idea. He really doesn't care if he has clean clothes or not...

Me: "I guess you'll have to wear some of Tyler's"

Nathan: "He can wear some of mine!"

Me: "Thanks, Nathan, can he wear your Thomas underwear?"

Casey: "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"

Me: "How about Lighting McQueen?"

Nathan: "No, those ones are too small for him."

Casey ran into the house to change, and we left for the doctor. The whole way there, he was complaining about the impending embarrassment.

Once inside the doctor's office, he made it known to everyone there that he was not happy about what was going to happen. The nurse took him back to the examination room and apparently informed him to put on the lovely paper gown. She left, and he cracked the door open.

Casey: (loud enough for everyone to hear) "Do I have to take off my underwear?"

Nurse: (silence....pure disbelief, I'm sure)

Me: (from the waiting area..)"Casey, be a man."

I got a sympathetic look from the lady sitting next to me.

Casey: (cracking the door open again.) "Do I have to do this?"

Me: "Only if you want to be a Sea Cadet."

Casey: "I never said I wanted to do it." (Whatever! This is his DREAM!)

Me: "Or if you want to go to Scout Camp."

Casey: "UGH!"

He put on quite a show for the doctor as well. Unfortunately, the doctor was amused by his performance, which only made it worse. All I can say is, it's a good thing Casey's not a girl.

After the excitement at the doctor's office, we headed to the store, and then home for last minute birthday preparations.

We had a fun time playing the Wii and watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3. We had pizza, and fudge and ice cream and Randy opened his presents.

Saturday, I had a list of things to do and Randy was dying to build another snow fort with all the snow we got. This time, he buried his Jeep, and then backed it out to make it extra big. There were some very confused people driving by!