Woodbadge from Dawn to Dusk

 We arrived at Wood Badge on a beautiful morning.  The sun was bright but it was a little cold.  Our stuff was quickly thrown on a trailer to be brought to our campsite.  We walked across this bridge with the sun in our eyes, promised by this sign that the next 6 days would be well worth the time.  My mind was fresh and I was anticipating good things but also dreading the pile of things that was building up as I was going to be gone.  As I walked across the bridge with the sun in my face, it didn't matter, as I knew that I would be blessed for my efforts.  The sun was bright, a symbolism of great knowledge and light.  Look how it invites and beckons.  This light and knowledge can be spread to others, just like the rays of sun are spreading and radiating out in this photo.  It is just like the pebble that is thrown in the water making ripples that radiate out.  The effect can be felt and magnified to all people surrounding the individual and the resultant generations.

There is something that I've always noticed and I feel like I should share.  Anytime I take off time from work for a worthwhile event, my business does not suffer.  Other than the large pile of things to catch up on, it is like the time lost never existed and the business picks up from where I left off as if I never took the time off.  The business seems to just stop in time, while my life goes forward and doesn't restart until I'm back.  The bank account seems not to waiver even a fraction.  I do believe that Heavenly Father gives us back blessings for helping him try to save our youth.  There are fewer and fewer people involved in good causes and we need more than ever to teach our youth good things and hard things.  They will have times later in life as they are hit with storms to make decisions on which path to take.  If we have been effective, they will take the right path.  As we learned in Wood Badge, we are training our replacements.  We have been given a huge amount of trust by our Heavenly Father and we should endeavor to work as hard as we can so that those under us will return back to him.

The bridge on a hot day at midday.  

The bridge is hot, we have now come back for a second time.  Wood Badge is like this hot bridge.  The bridge is collecting lots of heat from the sun.  We do that as well at Wood Badge.  During the middle of the course we have collected a lot of information and it feels like your  brain is overheating.  It can be hard and it can be fun, but notice the sign is still there and the saying means the same thing.  If we persevere the meaning behind the sign will become  clear.

The sign at dusk.
The bridge has now cooled down.  This is how it is later in life after we have been away from Wood Badge for awhile.  Maybe our memories will dim or our abilities will become less as we age.  But the sign is still there, we still need to persevere.  The meaning will still be the same even though our minds and bodies will age.  Let us all mentally cross this bridge every day or every time we find ourselves in a teaching situation with youth.  Let us always remember and mentally "Run the 12" no matter what situation we face.

I invite all who read this to Wood Badge, to take the time as I did and find the meaning behind the sign.  The man on the sign is Lord Baden Powell, who started this as well as the Boy Scouts.  You will feel his spirit and the same inspiration he felt.

Canvas is on the Kayaks

The first kayak to walk out the door was Chase's.  He reports that his is all painted like a shark and has named it the Sushi Searcher.

Just a report on the progress of the kayaks.  The canvas is on all of them.  We just need to paint them now. If there is anybody who has not taken their kayaks  home to paint, it must be done this week.  We are going to try to put seats in them this week and build the paddles.  Thanks to all the leaders who have helped. 

Don't forget Scout Camp is coming up quickly and we will want to get them in the water the week before for a test run.

Wood Badge.... Stay tuned for a full report

My Wood Badge experience started at 5 am on Thursday June 16 when I woke up to take a shower and load my gear.  I picked up Andrew at his house and us two tired fellows left the valley heading for Krupp Scout Hollow close to Rigby, Idaho.  Ryan, from my same troop in Teton Valley, and the Scoutmaster Tom Barry met us bright and early as we arrived about 7:20 am.  We threw our stuff on a trailer and was ushered right into the program.

Ryan was going to be the Senior Patrol Leader which is some of the reason why I picked the June session.  Unfortunately Teresa couldn't make it as we ended up having a lot of plans fall through and nobody to take care of our kids.  It turned out for the best though as some of them came down with strep throat which we would not want to spread to our poor would-be babysitter.

Like a dummy I didn't take any pictures until the last day of Wood Badge this week.  I do plan on remedying that this next week as we are going back on Thursday.  The staff have been taking tons of photos so I am wondering if by chance we can get copies of those.

For now I am just posting a few photos and will write more as the week progresses.  This little bit is just a primer for what I will eventually add.  I can say that it has been a great time so far and I have learned a lot.  A good majority of this has been turning the light bulb back on and letting me know that I have been slacking in my duties as a Scoutmaster.  I will shortly remedy that as well as I have a lot of things to consider and improve on.  One good thing that I will mention right now is that one of our assignments is to create a vision of something we want to accomplish over the next course of a year or so.  We create specific goals to accomplish this.  I will expound on what I am doing later but I promise it will make these boys great men and leaders.  I also promise to do my best to not fail them.

I've only known a little about Lord Baden Powell and have learned a lot more here.  I can say he was a fantastic man and leader and probably inspired by God to form the Boy Scouts.  I think I will find a book about him to learn more.

We have played a lot of great games, all with meaning.  I wish I would have at least taken a photo of our rocket we built.  It shot pretty far but wouldn't hang in the air as long as we would have liked even though it went way across the field.  I think it was too aerodynamic with the amount of  weight we had in it so it didn't waste any time letting the air push it around.  

We learned to set up camp stoves and tents and to work as a team.  We have learned how to hold proper non-denominational meetings with a wonderful simulation (which I was always curious about). Communication and team building exercises are predominant among many other important things. We had a good discussion on productivity and morale in a team.  We watched great movie clips and even a full movie all with a purpose. We are making good friendships that will probably last a lifetime.  

Some of the games will hit you in the gut.  I was actually a little mad at the situation after one of the games.  I felt like my integrity had been compromised and that people were looking at me as if I was a traitor.  You could tell by the way other patrols would groan as we progressed through the game.  At first I didn't recognize that the groans were directed at us.  I had an idea that maybe we weren't doing something right toward the end but I did not take time to look at the scorecard to figure out why it was going bad.  We thought we were actually winning and as we had been kind of the butt of a few jokes, it felt good to be ahead for once.  In the end we found out we had not won at all and if this had been a real life situation, would have let a lot of people down.  I was definitely upset and I had to go out and call Teresa and talk it over with her to kind of sort it all out.  

I have never quit anything in my life  and am ashamed to admit that the thought crossed my mind to just leave.  I said my prayers that night and read my scriptures and it just happened to be a section of Isaiah that talked about hardships and that God gives you hard things because he loves you.  I have done a lot of hard things in my life, things a lot harder than Wood Badge.  I have patients that sometimes think I am a traitor and call me names on the internet.  They call me names because I won't give in to a request that would affect my integrity or harm them.  They do not understand sometimes that they could be harmed if I give in or that I could potentially be breaking a law or break the ethics of an Optometrist.  They will then put a bad review on the internet.  It makes me sad, but I feel ok because I know my integrity did not break down.  This game was different and I did not feel ok because I felt like it was an attack and a deception and my integrity was harmed and a lot of people saw it.  In reality it was a really good game and after thinking it over I realized I had learned a lot about myself.  I was apathetic to the situation and found out the reason why apathy is bad.

Anyway, tune in to more stuff later as I have a lot more to add.  I am actually not sure if I can be specific to what we actually did so I tried to make this more general and not specific.  

Tent building exercise

Some of my patrol, the Bobwhites

Class Time

We had great food and it was surprisingly more healthy than most scout camps

Staff did a great job.  Notice Ryan to the far left over there.

Progress on the Kayaks

Frosty Dripface and Yeti Boy Blue aka Dalton and Kaleb

 Yesterday it was a race to get the kayaks painted as a big storm cloud was looming over us.  Any time it looked like it was going to dump rain.  We painted fast and furious and sanded the remaining kayaks as fast as we could.  Dalton and Kaleb were heroically running kayaks back and forth supplying freshly sanded kayaks to be painted and then running the painted ones back into the shop.  Andrew L. painted most of the kayaks and we were lucky to have a paint sprayer provided by Ben and Jeff and the paint provided by Jeff J.  Everybody else sanded and for the most part stuck with it.  Those present were leaders Aaron, Andrew and myself.  Fathers were Tom and Mike.  Boys were Dalton, Kaleb, Chase, Andrew, Carson, Zach, Kiowa, Josh, and Gabren.

The last kayak was painted in the rain as it started to downpour but luckily it wasn't a big deal.  Thanks to the great leaders that I have to help, Andrew and Aaron.  I don't have as much carpentry like knowledge as they do so its a perfect bunch of leaders.  Also thanks to the dads that come and help, (Mike, Tom and Shane).  Tom was released as an 11 year old leader and we are thankful for what he has done.

Mike and Andrew

Are we ready to run get another?

Most of the kayaks.  We put them here to dry

Carson and Zachary

All the kayaks are done now.  Josh, Chase
Andrew, Kiowas, Alex and Logan

Kiowa photobombs while I'm taking a picture of Chase's painted face.

Kiowa, Josh and Chase

Campout at Mike Harris

On May 20, 2016 we assembled at the parking lot at 5000 S. at 5:00p.m. We were going to go to Teton Valley Lodge to do their annual fly fishing campout, however, just before we left I discovered it was cancelled.  I had thought I ought to text Brian B. and ask him details about it and he told me it had been cancelled.  We decided then to go to Mike Harris canyon as we thought it might be a little more protected against the wind and rain.  It turns out if we had gone to Teton Valley Lodge that we would have been much wetter and muddier.  If you want to scroll down and look at my post last year you will see how wet we were then.  I think this year would have been worse.  We had our share of rain at the campout but we did not have hardly any wind which helped.  

We had 10 boys including Alex K., who came along with his dad.  Those present were: Kaleb, Chase, Zach, Andrew, Antonio of the 12-13 year olds and Kiowa, Josh, Bowdy and Gabren of the 11 year olds.  Just a quick note on these blogs.  One of the reasons for writing this blog is so when we have forgotten what happened a long time later, we know what we did and most importantly, we know who was present.  That way it will be clear who did what and how many campouts they were on.  The leaders that came were me, Aaron and Andrew.  I really appreciate them coming because its hard sometimes to be away from family, especially when all it does is rain.

Camp is set up and there's a pause in the rain so we get some snacks out.  From the right, Alex, Chase, Gabren, Josh, Kiowa, Bowdy and Andrew in the foreground.

Andrew, Zach and Aaron

Bowdy and Andrew

Kaleb and Antonio coming back from running 100 yards.  I told them I would give them a buck if they would run it.  They never did get their buck though.

I sent them back again to run another 100 yards.  A little later a bunch of deer were spotted on that hillside behind these two and off they ran again to catch the deer.

For dinner we each brought a can of stew or soup or whatever was in a can that they wanted.  We then built up the fire to get some coals and we put our cans on the coals to cook them.  Before placing them on the fire we poked a hole in them of course.  I've done this a few times in the past and a few times we've had a can explode.  Luckily everybody was diligent in getting a hole in their can so we had none of that.

It rained off and on and some of the boys got soaked.  A few of them waded through the creek with their shoes on.  Some of them were cold.  Some of them were better prepared.  About 10:00 pm we got them to their tent and in bed.  The usual chatter was going on and things seemed normal.  All of a sudden I'm hearing "Get Chad!" "Get Chad".  So I go down to their tent and lo and behold Gabren had puked and most of it had hit Bowdy's blanket and sleeping bag.  That was a fun time helping to clean it up.  I went up and got a bowl that they could puke in if needed.  Andrew got a bucket of water and some paper towels and we tried to get them to clean it up but they were gagging and almost puking at the same time.  It was going nowhere so I took the blanket out and dragged it on the wet grass which got most of it off.  Then we used the water and towels and got most of it off the sleeping bag.  It was funny and nasty at the same time watching them hold the puke bowl to their mouths and gagging while they tried to clean it off.  While I was dragging the blanket in the grass I noticed there were a lot of nite crawlers and a couple of the boys came out and caught them while the other boys were gagging.

We finally got that done the best we could and poor Bowdy had to sleep in a puky blanket or be cold but it turned out ok.  The usual chatter went on until about 2-3 am.  I had put my tent up higher and not far from the creek so I could barely hear them.  I slept pretty well but then the birds started chirping around 5 am and I laid there for awhile and couldn't sleep.  About 5:45 I gave up and got up and put my gear away.  I got the fire going and rousted them all up.  Aaron and Andrew were not far behind.

Breakfast was the usual eggs, sausage and hashbrowns with tortilla shells.  We got it cooked, eaten, and cleaned up but the boys took a little longer on the cleanup than they should have.  We had a brief discussion on what they learned and most of them agreed that they had let themselves get too wet.  The realization of being prepared sunk in a little more.

We had told them they could fish if we got things packed up fast enough but it turned out they took so long we only had a half hour to fish.  It was fairly decent fishing with 3 being caught and a few biting, however.  Alex caught the first two and then Zach caught one as we were reeling in to go.  We got in our vehicles just as a drenching storm hit and it really poured then.  When we got to the church parking lot it was like buckets being poured on us as we distributed all the stuff.  Despite me harping on them all the time to get their stuff I still ended up with coats, shirts and gloves in the back seat of my truck.  All in all a good day and despite the hard weather I still wouldn't miss it.

Alex catches the first fish.  Chase, Josh, Alex and Aaron

Whoops its slippery

Get it before it goes in the water

Ok now we got ahold of it

Andrew and Antonio

Gabren way back there, Kiowa, Josh and Chase

"Look at this beeauteeful fish.  I'm going to love it and take good care of it." said Chase  Gabren's leg on the far left, Bowdy, Zach, Kiowa, Chase and  Josh.  At the far upper right I believe its either Kaleb and Andrew S. or Antonio and Andrew S.

Ahh never mind I want to live up to my name!  Chewy Chase!

Alex catches the second fish and its bigger.

Whoops there he goes!  He almost got back in the water like the other.

Chase claims Alex's second fish as well.  I told the boys hurry up its time to go as the parents were waiting for them at the church.  Zach catches one at the last minute and here he is trying to dispatch it.  Zach, Chase, Gabren and Kiowa

Maybe a rock will take care of it

Look at my prize!  Nice job guys.  Zach, Kiowa and Chase