Making Rank

Evyn and I made rank last night. We had completed our Board of Review a couple days ago, and due to BSA's belief that boys should be recognized immediately after earning rank, Evyn and I would not have to wait until the next Court of Honor (which we rarely get to attend due to the fact that they are on Thursdays and we are busy all day on Thursdays.)

I had achieved Star Scout, which leaves me with one rank between now and Eagle Scout. Evyn earned Second Class Scout, the second official rank in BSA.

Woodland Park Zoo Merit Badge Clinic

Yesterday was the Woodland Park Zoo Merit Badge Clinic. There, Evyn and I worked on our Pathfinding merit badge. It is a Centennial merit badge, so it is only offered this year.

After the merit badge clinic was over, we met up with the rest of our family to go looking around the zoo.

One of my favorite exhibits was the Poison Dart Frogs. Since I was little, I have loved frogs. The ones below I thought were really cute.

The snow leopards were awesome. I love their bushy tails. When Evyn and I walked around at lunch break, we saw them lounging around, but apparently, the others saw them playing with each other.

At the zoo, there is a bird area where you can go into the building and look at/feed Australian birds. My favorite were the Budgerigars, like the one below.

They were so small. I kept trying to feed them with a bit of feed on a stick of feed I had found. The sticks cost like a dollar, but I got lucky and found one on the ground. I couldn't convince a budgie to come eat, but another bird did.

This is the picture we took as we were leaving. I stood in the shade of a tree so I wouldn't be squinting. We had such a great time at the zoo.

Camp Parsons

It was that time of year again . . . SUMMER CAMP!!!!!! It was awesome this year. I packed 2 backpacks full of stuff. Luckily, we weren't going backpacking.

Me unpacking for the pack inspection.

The day of leaving, we accidentally forgot to pack a lunch, so Mom took Evyn and me over to Albertsons where we picked up a Lunchables each and a piece of fruit. Afterwards, we goofed off with our friends and joked about what we were going to do at camp.

This is Evyn and me with our friend Aiden.

After about an hours drive up to camp, we were all pumped. We got our stuff unpacked into tents with our buddies and got ready for our swim test. Unfortunately, the ocean was choppy that day so I had to retake.

Evyn and Aiden in front of their tent.

Alex and me in front of our tent.

This is a picture of one side of our campsite. We were sharing the entire thing, about 20 - 30 tents and 2 cabins for the leaders, with another troop, who we had a friendship fire with at the end of the week.

The next day we started the merit badges we signed up for. My mornings began with getting up, doing the early morning activity the camp had planned (there was a polar bear jump off the pier, an early morning hike, a mile run, and a few others), going to breakfast at the dining hall on the other side of camp, and then doing merit badges. Luckily, my first merit badge I signed up for, Oceanography, was right across from the dining hall. After an hour of Oceanography, I ran to the other side of camp for a half hour of Woodcarving and then a half hour of Nature, which was in the middle of camp. My last merit badge of the day was First Aid, which was back next to Oceanography.

This is me doing CPR on a dummy.

As is this one.

The camp was very well decorated. There were a lot of American Indian woodcarvings and paintings on the camp's buildings.

This is the totem pole by the dining hall.

On Thursday and Friday, there were three major things going on. On Thursday, we had a Beach Bonanza. Everyone either chose to be a pirate or a ninja that day. I chose ninja. There was a dance party in the craft lodge (good time for showing off), beach volleyball, and a Scoutmaster belly-flop contest.

Friday was the Hullabaloo Race and the Octopus cup. The Hullabaloo Race is a relay race that goes over the entire camp. I was originally going to be the long-distance runner, but it was given to Joel, one of the newer scouts. He hadn't asked to do it when we were handing out positions, but then he wanted to since everyone else was doing something, so Mr. Eric (our Scoutmaster) gave him the position before asking me if it was okay. So I went with the Octopus cup, I canoeing race that went from the beach to Octopus point, a rock out in the Hood Canal. I was glad in the end that Joel managed to get his way, as canoeing is a lot more fun.

This is a picture of our canoeing team for the Octopus cup.

(From left to right) Alex, Ian, Evyn, and David

After the activites were over, we all went back to camp to hang out and goof off. Considering the fact that we were all pretty tired from a week of action, we had a good time doing nothing.

This is Evyn and me goofing off with Aiden and Brad. Aiden is on my shoulders and Bradley is on Evyn's.

As much fun as camp was, I was glad when the week was over. It was time to pack up, go home, and play some electronics or something.