Battling Chaos!!

I know. It probably seems like our family fell off the surface of the planet, and I apologize. It's amazing how little information gets out to everyone else when I'm the source of the information and I'm already busy... So this post is the last two weeks in a nutshell. I will do a separate post for our trip to Silver Creek Falls, because it was just too amazing not to, but this one is just a general overview.

On Wed (Oct 8th) our den meeting included the gracious services of the past cubmaster as he came and taught the boys several basic things about Dutch oven cooking. And we made an apple cobbler dessert. The boys loved it, although I'm truly not certain which part was their favorite!

On Saturday (Oct 11th) we gathered for a popcorn blitz. That means that the boys arrive in shifts and do their best to sell popcorn to anyone passing by. We were hoping to catch football fans driving this particular road to a game in Eugene, but that didn't work. We got lots of supportive honking, but very little purchasing. Oh, well. It was a learning experience, and the boys maintained excellent attitudes the entire time (3-4 hrs).

On Monday (Oct 13) we drove out to the water treatment plant, which also happens to have a wetlands area, and the boys got to learn a lot about how the water can be naturally cleaned and filtered and what measures the city had taken to keep the area ecologically balanced. It was a great afternoon out.

On Tuesday (Oct 14th) we were invited by our local Boy Scouts to join the Troop for a Dutch oven cook-off. To entertain the kids, while coals were heating and food was cooking, they got to make a little tin foil dessert to be cooked in the coals. You take a plain donut and place it in the center of your foil. Then smear it with a bit of butter, slap a slice of pineapple on, and put a spoonful of brown sugar in the center of the pineapple before wrapping it all up and placing it in the coals. I would hazard a guess that they were in there for 15-20 minutes, but that's a guess. Anyway, when you're done you essentially have a pineapple upside down cake, camping style! And our den participated in the cook-off itself with a sloppy joe mix and an apple cobbler.

Friday (Oct 17th) we drove up to Silver Falls State Park (known to the locals as Silver Creek Falls) where we had reserved a group campsite for the night. I won't say too much about that in this post, since I'll be doing a separate one later, but we stayed the one night and then did a 5-mi hike past quite a few of the falls. It was fabulous scenery and a lot of fun!

Just yesterday evening, we had our Raingutter Regatta Pack meeting. The boys, for the most part, had a great time! Kellen ended up pouting for a while because his boat kept falling over and that meant he lost races. I'm personally not sure that it's possible to make the boat so that it doesn't fall over, but he was initially blaming it on me because I'm the one who put his rudder and keel on the bottom of the boat. Oh, well. Once he had calmed down, he managed to make his stand for his boat (hooray! there goes another requirement, I think) and then participated in the pie throwing.
Our cubmaster came up with a marvelous motivator for the boys in the den to sell their popcorn. For every $350 in popcorn that they sell, they get to throw a pie in the face of the leader of their choice. Steve decided it was a really good idea and, although not technically a leader, volunteered himself as a target. Wouldn't ya know, Kellen was the only one who decided that Steve needed a pie in the face?! Our cubmaster got the vast majority of them, and two others besides Steve received a little "recognition". All in all, a very fun night, although it did run rather late since we didn't get home until almost 9pm. Oh, well. Everyone had a great time!