May 11, 2007 by jon.

Brad and I went camping with the scouts last weekend. Our Three Fires Council hosted a Camporall with over 5000 scouts attending. There were only a few families that went from our Pack 111 but we still had a good time.

It was really just an outdoor carnival. We went from activity to activity and got to pick and choose what we wanted to do. Brad was a little dissappointed because a lot of the “Cool” activities were reserved for Boy Scouts and he won’t be one until next year. So he couldn’t do the rope bridge or the Tomahawk throw. But we still found a lot of things that were fun like the Trebuchet, Ham Radi0 and especially the National Guard. Brad really liked them.

Oh and the Naval Reserve Training Center Drill Team was there. I enjoyed that and was able to show Brad what I used to do in NJROTC.
This was a good exposure to some of the activities that is available in scouting and we enjoyed it.

There are more photos on our Photo page.

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January 13, 2007 by jon.

Brad and I spent Friday night and Saturday at the Lifetime Fitness club in Bloomingdale.  This was a Lock In for our Pack.  We ended up swimming, rock climbing, playing basketball and staying up late.  (Actually I didn’t do all that due to my back, but Brad sure did)

I was quite impressed with the place.  It’s more like a rec center than a work out gym.  While it has all of the machines a gym does (And more!) it was family friendly.  The pool had some slides, the day care had it’s own basketball court and best of all Brad loved it.  May be a membership in the future…

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September 30, 2006 by jon.

Our den went on a Webelos campout this weekend. For some of the families it was the first time they went camping. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and even said that we need to do a den campout in the future.

I had a full turnout in that all scouts at least stayed the night. One had to leave for a football game but the rest completed 4 activity badges. Athlete, Showman, Geologist and Outdoorsman. A great start to the year.

This was a true scouting campout. Bugle calls for gathering, lights out and waking up (7:00). Plus all cooking was outdoors. Breakfast scrambled eggs were cooked in dutch ovens. For lunch we cooked foil packs in a long trench filled with charcoal. The packs had hamburger & fries and some veggies. Very good. Reminds me of when I did scouting. I’m liking that we are getting to the age where we can do some of the more fun events and activites.

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September 9, 2006 by jon.

Last night we went to Dick’s Sporting Goods to try our hand at climbing the wall. Our scouting den met there for our first meeting of the year.  A number of the kids made it all the way to the top.  Over three stories!  And guess what, Robyn was one of them.  She did great.  It was her second attempt and she just kept going.  Never really looked down and impressed everyone.
Oh, and did I say I’m the new den leader for our Webelos den? You can read about our den on our new website.

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