Nut Rally

It is that time of the year again, Fall Product sale. As the service unit product lead, I feel like it is my duty to make sure that everyone is informed and that the girls do a good job. I also feel like so much focus is on cookies, that people forget about nuts or they just don't want to do it. But the truth of the matter is, that the troops make more money with nuts than we do with cookies. I ask my troop to really focus on this. If they sold 100 nut products (which I know is a lot) not only does the troop get 100$ but they can also earn 90$ in product gift cards from council which can be used for camp! I will tell you, knocking 90$ off of camp can make it affordable.

This is my second year running a nut rally. This year we had 3 troops participate and about 25 girls attend. Which is a really nice number. It keeps the volume down and it makes sure that each group gets to do things. Sure I would love to have a huge nut rally, but I am happy with what we get.

Planning this started after my training, at least some part. I knew the stations that I wanted to have, but I did not know how to exicute them. I also knew how much time I wanted to spend at each activity.

What I figured out was that we would have a hour and a half for the event. 6 stations at 10 minutes each, and that would leave 15 minutes in the beginning and 15 at the end for announcements and a little over view of the sale.

My stations were-
An Activity called Jump in/Jump out which is in the rally handbook
Pictionary with words from the handbook
Scribe badge interview station
Lip Gloss making
Paper bag otter puppets from the handbook
Puzzle from the handbook

Plus I had a snack table with the new orange almonds, pretzels, cheese curls, apple juice and water.

We got off to a slow start, as we waited for people to arrive but then I did my little talk. I tend to goof around and I probably talked to long for the girls liking. I split the girls up by troops and split my troop up in those troops. This way when it got time to get to the scribe station, someone in my troop could interview them.

A few things, with only 3 groups switching, I only needed 3 volunteers. One leader asked me in August what could she do to help, which was so nice! And never happens. I gave her the lip gloss station and she did a great job with the girls at that one. The jump in station was a hit. My CO took care of that area and I heard lots of giggling so I knew she was rocking it. I bounced between the stations, depending on where the troops were going next. Pictionary was lots of fun and the time went really quickly there. The otter puppets were cute but I do not think the Juniors really liked doing them. I think that would have been great for Daisy's but I only had 1 of them there. The puzzle making was a bust. They did not like that at all. The scribe badge was fine depending on which troop was there and who was asking the questions. No adult over saw that one, because it was badge work, the girls had to do the questions on their own. Some troops just answered and then it was silent and some had so much to say that the 10 minutes was not enough time.

We ended up running out of time, even with a timer running and switching pretty efficiently. I just don't think you can ever schedule them where it runs perfectly, time wise. At the end, the girls were able to have a snack.

Surprisingly the nut samples were a huge hit! The girls loved it and so did the parents. I was really surprised by that. And I did not buy enough cheese curls. I never buy enough cheese curls. lol

The cost of the rally was under 30$. I charged 1$ per girl, which was to cover the cost of the patch and pay for a bit of the rally. Turns out that they raised the price of the patch from 0.50$  to 0.75$. Which means my troop ate a lot more of the cost than I wanted to. The snacks can really add up. the only craft that I had to purchase items for was the lip gloss. We bought small closable containers, Vaseline, cocoa, mint extract, and koolaid.

I will do it again next year, if I am the Fall Product person again. I had a good time.
And I have no pictures, because I forgot to take them. :( You just get busy and forget. lol

Kick Off Camp- Camp Wood Haven- Day 2

It never fails. If you are going Girl Scout Camping, it will rain. And boy did it. We woke up to a low 50's temperature and right after breakfast the skies opened up. And it rained till 4pm!

 We all had some breakfast and some caffeine and I went to find out where I would be setting up my station. I was doing science experiments with the kids. I had found on a Facebook group, a link for a Girl Scout fun patch from the PBS show Fetch! I knew that these would be activities that my girls would like, and I thought that others would as well.

I would be spending the day at the Shandy Wood pavilion, so I packed everything back up into my car and we proceeded to get lost. Seriously, I get lost everywhere I go. When we found it, I was impressed with this site as well. Of the two sites, I think I would take my troop to this site. It was back pretty far and way from the other sites. I like to be alone with my girls so that if they start acting like monkeys, they wont bother anyone.

The pavilion was very nice, and they also had a fireplace and refrigerator. With our small troop, I think we would be comfortable there.

Like I had said, I am organized. I set up each experiment and put them in separate bags so all I have to do is pull out the bag and everything is right there. I would have Daisy and Brownie girls first, then Junior's two groups of them, and finally Cadette and higher.

We started off with building tin foil boats. Originally the instructions said to use pennies, but I was using pennies for a later experiment and my darling husband decided to cash all of my pennies in, 3 days before camp! However, the paperclips were not heavy enough so Miss B proceeded to use the pennies we had and prayed that there would be enough.

The girls built some nice and sturdy boats. One looked like a turtle. Some built some really pretty boats that held nothing. The big winner of the day was a boat that barely looked like the girl worked on it. It looked like all she did was halfheartedly bent the foil edges up. That boat held 50 pennies.

The next experiment was one all about balance. The girls had to stand up against the wall and try to lift their legs or to bend over with out bending their knees. Every group had girls who were thinking that it would be super easy, but once they tried it, they were confused about why they could not move. We talked a bot about balance and what the body does to compensate for your movements.

Third experiment was with the pennies. We had to see which household solution would clean pennies better.We used vinegar, water with baking soda, cola, lemon juice, ammonia cleaner and ketchup. The girls soaked the pennies in the solutions and drew conclusions on what they thought would happen.

I did this experiment at home before we left, and I was totally surprised about the outcome. You should definitely try this at home! When we did it at camp, the first group had three groups and each group had a different solution that worked best because of variables in the experiment.

 

The last experiment that we did with the Brownies and the Daisy girls was to build catapults out of pop sticks, rubber bands and spoons. The girls had a blast with them. And after a day, I have a whole arsenal of spoon catapults. 

For the Juniors, we still had two more experiments to do! We followed the directions on the Fetch site and build soda bottle rockets. They were super simple and the girls put them together really quick. The ones who paid attention to the instructions had theirs going right away and it took some others a few more minutes, but it was a simple project. 

 

 

The last thing that the Juniors did was to test the ph of the solutions that the pennies were in and to talk about the ph scale. We tried to figure out what was on the penny based on what type of solution cleaned it. So if we had a penny that really got clean because of the acid it was in, then there was a good chance that the stuff on it was a base. I had purchased litmus papers from eBay and it was so neat to see it all change colors. 

For the older girls, I had purchased a csi dna kit and we did three different punnet squares and figured out who belonged to what parent. I thought it was interesting and I was so looking forward to doing it with the girls, but they weren't having it. I feel like that was my only fail moment during the day. But what the girls really wanted was to make the spoon catapults. lol I guess I should have just continued with what I was already doing and let them do all of the science the young ones were doing. Live and learn, right?

Around 4 o'clock we were done with all of the girls and we headed back down to our tents. It had finally stopped raining. My parent volunteer had to run home quick to check on her ill husband and on the way back, she stopped to get us some BK! It was so good, and I hate that food. But lunch consisted of pb and j sandwiches so, junk food looked so good. 

I made sure that we ate somewhere private just so that other girls were not feeling left out.  Then we plopped ourselves down in front of the fire. The ladies who stayed at our were trying to get the fire started. After a while, I got my things to build a fire and helped out. I get possessive about my fires. Don't mess with them, I am trained to do it and gosh darn it, I froze my tush off in October to be certified to start the fire. BACK OFF! lol Within 5 minutes the fire was roaring to life and the girls had sticks with hotdogs on them. They ate in shifts, as certain things were done before other things. 

My princess took care of me and made me a hot dog. She is a good girl. It was so nice to be warm and semi dry. We decided to pack it in and head into our tents around 9. The girls stayed up till 11 and then it was lights out. The community lead was teaching whittleing to the other girls but knowing my girls, we would have been making a trip to the ER so it was good they were in bed. 

The next morning,OMG it was only 45 degrees out at 8am, we ate a quick breakfast, packed up, cleaned out and were on our way home to shower before 11! They also had a really quick re-dedication ceremony. We will be doing one at a troop meeting, since some of the girls in the troop did not come to this camp.

Despite the weather we had a blast. I can not wait to camp again!

Safety award/brownie first aid

This badge we did the first year but I wanted the girls to earn their safety awards. Good thing my #2 has a mom who is a nurse. Nurse Linda, as the girls called her, agreed to come in and talk to us about camp safety.

I was so happy about that because not only are we doing our troop came at Echo Trail this year but some girls will be camping every month till October! She went over some basic first aid but more importantly poisonous plants.

Now I grew up in the woods. My sister and I made playhouses in the trees. I spent my summers equally outside or in my room. I made it 33 years without getting poison ivy. The first time I got it I was at a festival and it clearly had posted to be aware of the poison ivy. Sat in a field listening to music and the next month was itchy as all heck. I swore I would never do that again.

Next year, I went to the same festival but avoided the ivy field. Still got it! This time it was worse and took a long time to heal.

I am going to the festival again this year, but hopefully my little brownie will be able to point out the plants before I get itchy!

The girls listened intently to her and asked a crazy amount of questions. Then we made small first aid kits for each girl to take to camp.

Halloween Parade

We participated in two Halloween Parades this year and the costumes came out wonderfully. I had to do a bit of the work myself because I canceled a meeting due to family issues. Each box had a picture of the girls doing something at a Girl Scout function.

The first parade was at night, and I don't have any pictures of them! We bought 30 dollars in candy and would you believe that they threw out all that candy in about 2 blocks. And we had about 10 blocks left to walk.

A little girls brother and my son held the banner. I love when the brothers help out.

And the girls walked great. It was a bit chilly and it was a bit of walking, but there was not a complaint among them. I just love these girls!

We did not win or place in this parade, but that was OK as long as they had a good time.

Then we did a parade in our home town on Saturday morning. The weather was fabulous and the girls were in such a good mood. They stayed together and walked so well.

At the end of the parade, they stood before the judges and rocked the Promise in sign language.

We ended up winning first place inn the group category!

We are hoping that they won enough to help them go to a reptile zoo.

Halloween Prep

The last two year we have been in the local Halloween parade. For us it is a way to celebrate scouting and JGL at the same time. When we started scouting there was no real presence in the community. It has since grown to several different troops for the same age group and a definitely a bigger presence.

The first year the girls were still Daisies and we went as the Flowers from the journey. Each girl made a face mask and we marched behind the Brownie troop.

Last year we wanted to do something a bit more. My co-leader of the time and myself came up with the idea that the girls would dress up as something the represents the badges they were working on. They would then make a sign to carry that has their badge on it. We won second place in the group category.

My daughter as Billy the Exterminator for the bugs badge.

This year we wanted to do something better. We had originally thought of doing a float, but that is a big no-no and a lot of work!

We settled on the girls being boxes of cookies and when they are in front of the judges, they will do the Promise in ASL.

Last night we started on the costumes. We have 6 girls now in the troop. (Yay, we added one officially last night. She tagged along for the hike.) We are going with these cookies, Samoa, Tagalongs, Thin Mints, Dosidos, Savannah Smiles and Trefoils.

Did you know that trefoils are nut free and produced on equipment that is nut free. Making it perfect for those with nut allergies. I have a little girl in the troop with an allergy and we are making her the Trefoil. Plus as a mom of a kid with food allergies, it is so nice that there is something that an allergy kid can have without worry.

The colors of these boxes are pretty straight forward. Purple, red, green, orange, yellow and blue. I bought the big bottle of acrylic paints for the girls to use and sponge brushes.

We only meet for an hour, which translates to about 30 minutes of work time. Some of the girls got 2 coats of paint on their boxes, and some girls used a whole bottle of paint and only did one coat. But that is what you have with young girls.

After they painted the girls had to wash their brushes out and clean up. This is where stress for me and my co-leader, Miss B, came in. There was no way that I could put 6 wet freshly painted boxes in my car and neither could she. We needed a place to store them at our church. She found a spot, kind of out of the way, and we layer garbage bags down and then proceeded to transfer wet boxes to the bags. Needless to say that we got covered in paint. I get stressed out at the end of scout meetings because I have to leave right away. My husband works third shift and we have one car right now. I need to be back in time for him to leave. As I am seeing the mess, I am starting to worry about getting out of there in time.

But then, like always, I get shown how my girls are truly amazing. Two cleaned the kitchen, where they were washing brushes, two scrubbed the tables clean, one gathered the garbage and then they worked together to clean the floor. I was so happy that these girls took the initiative to "leave a place better than we found it". I did not have to ask them to do it. They knew that we were done with the project and it was time to clean.

That is what scouting is all about.

Today my co-leader is meeting with our council rep to have her adult training done. Here is the problem with that statement.
1. She has been a volunteer for 2 full years.
2. She has been in some form of leadership for those 2 years.
3. It was done before.
So I guess my problem or complaint is two fold. First, if it wasn't done before this point then someone wasn't doing their job for 2 years. Her back ground check was done, so her training should have been done then. And Second, I know it was done because the rep before this came to our meeting (2nd year Daisy) and did the training for all the volunteer parents. Why wasn't it put into the system?

We have been working with this rep for over a year. She has never once been at a meeting. She doesn't come to our mini service unit meetings. We have no support at recruitment events unless the council sets them up. When we have our sign up nights, they are not there. We have no support at all from this woman. It is so frustrating.

 I am hoping her meeting goes well. My co-leader is a bit more outspoken than I am, and has no problem speaking her mind. It will be interesting to hear how it goes.

Hiker Badge

We had so much fun! We went to Rickets Glenn State Park in North Eastern Pennsylvania. It was quite a drive for us. I did not realize how far it actually was. We set out for the hike in a caravan. However every little town that we went through seemed to be having their fall festivals or fireman's boot drives. So not only was it a long drive, but now it was long with traffic. I do not think kids at any age a patient in traffic.

We headed to the visitors center and picked up trail maps. Then parked the cars and regrouped at the picnic area. We then proceed to make trail mix. The girls each brought an ingredient. Ours consisted of pretzels, goldfish crackers, honey roasted peanuts, raisins, and honey nut Cheerios. They all got to pour in their ingredients and then shake the bag.

We then looked at the trail map and came up with a game plan. We also laid out some ground rules with the girls. No running was a big one. Get girls in the fresh air and they almost always want to run.

We got to the first part of the trail and they had a big rule sign and trail map. This was a perfect chance to go over the park rules (not just our troop rules) and for them all to see on a big scale where we were going and what we were going to see. We also went over trail markings and what we should do if we got lost in the woods.

We walked for about a mile and all of a sudden the terrain changes. These trails are marked as mostly difficult and they were. The park starts off at a high elevation and you walk down hill to the falls.

The girls were dying to get into their trail mix and we agreed that they could break into it at the first fall. The girls walked great and then spotted a mini-fall and enjoyed their snack. This is the first time that most off these girls were seeing waterfalls in person. This one was about 5 feet tall.

After our snack we continued on. They found lots of wild life and bugs including this white caterpillar. The girls said that he was poisonous, but I am not sure on that.

At this point, I am thinking wow these trails really are tough. I am not in shape at all. We turn a bend, the sound of water gets louder and then another steep incline followed by stairs.

And the reason why I now refer to the first fall as a mini.

We continued walking along the path and saw three more huge falls. My co-leader got to the next set of steep stairs and we agreed, it was time to head back up.

We originally wanted to walk only about an hour and it turns out we walked about 3 and a half hours. The girls were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Not one complaint from them. Me, I was beat and at the point of whining, but these third grade girl had no issues. They just kept walking. At one point, they even broke out into song.

At the end of the day 3 girls earned their hiker badge and all 5 had a great time. (2 already had the badge.)

My daughter and her friend were asleep in the car before we were 20 minutes into the drive home!

Getting ready to hike!

After over a year from when this idea first came to mind, we are going on a hike. We picked a state park with waterfalls. I am so excited. I went there when I was in 6th grade and still remember the good time I had. I also went with an adult friend about 3 years ago. I am hoping the girls are prepared to hike, because it is not easy. Sometimes we "hike" and it is more like a walk. This is an actual hike.

We are making trail mix and planning the route when we get there. I will share pictures when we get back.

Community Camping weekend

I am not sure I like the new buzz word of community instead of service unit. Especially when our community is very big and not at all friendly with each other. Our service unit was combined with another service unit last summer. The first meeting that was held with the large group, we were referred to as "the other group" and were not given a voice. Our representatives left feeling like we were the red headed step children.

Since then we have functioned as two units under one name. Cookies and fall products are split, we hold our own meetings. We don't go down there or participate in their activities and they do not come up here.

Yay! Communities!

Anyway... where was I?

Camping. lol  We held our first community camping weekend. It was supposed to be a re- dedication camp. My daughter Lex and I love to camp together. A weekend without boys, doing things that they don't believe we would ever do.

We were the first ones at camp. I took her and her friend out of school early so that they got the most out of the weekend. We found our cabin and wiped down the beds and swept out the cabin. For sites that are supposed to be cleaned out every time someone stays in them, they sure are gross. We found a towel and a pair of socks. Some where someone is NOT doing their job.

The girls and I then walked around the camp. They were so happy to be there. We found beaver evidence and tracks. Pretty flowers and plants.

We started the fire and waited for everyone else to get there. They giggled around the camp fire, ate hot dogs and then we hiked back to our cabin. We were actually a bit away from the group fire ring and it was getting dark. You don't want to be walking in the woods, in the dark, with two young girls.

We had 4 bunks in our cabin, with only 4 people. I thought for sure that the girls would love to sleep on the top. For some reason they could not figure out how to get out of the beds. It was actually something that was hysterical to watch. I am a firm believer in allowing them to try to figure it out with out rushing to help. But after about 5 minutes of them acting like turtles on their backs, we rescued them and they decided to sleep on the bottom beds. 

The next morning was a bit rough, but what morning at camp isn't. Our camp leader tried. I will give her that. Something just went wrong between plan and execution. Breakfast took twice as long as it was supposed to. What was disappointing was leaders who were making sure that their own kids were fed and even giving them seconds, before other girls had even eaten. I walked away with out eating and went to the archery range to set up with another leader for the day. We had both been certified two weekends before.

We had a steady stream of girls all day. They love archery. That is not something that I thought girls would. Every girl tried, and some did not want to leave.

We had a bagged lunch and after 5 groups of girls, we headed back to the group ring and started on dinner.

And then I saw the most appalling thing ever at a girl scout function.  A woman who is a leader of a troop, lost in on her child. I want to preface this with, I can not tell you how to raise your children. If you think spanking is ok, then go ahead. I do not spank my children.

Back to this woman. She grabbed her child by the back of her jacket, dragged her to a log and slammed her down on it. Then proceeded to scream at this girl.

As soon as it happened, my daughter and her friend had this look of terror on their faces. I had a rough child hood with physical violence and I can not handle seeing the same thing happen to other children.

We packed up our chairs and mess kits and left the group ring. My co-leader went over to talk to the camp host. I do not know what the outcome was personally from hearing it myself, as I was walking the girls back and explaining why we were leaving to them. From what I gather, the host asked in my co-leader thought something should be said.

YES!!! This is a woman who is in charge of other children. Of course something needs to be said. Regardless of how you discipline your children, you do not do that in front of others. If you need to use physical punishment on your child, walk away from the group. Do not scare a group of children by putting your hands on someone. Blah!

The girls though, understood and were happy to be going back to the cabins and to have a fire of their own. I was a little upset that they would not be part of the ceremony, but since my whole troop was not at camp, we would have to do one anyway. So they will still get their rededication.

We got a great fire going. Let me tell you, a year ago I went to Outdoor Skills Training and I could not get a fire started. I ended up using so many matches that when the fire finally did start, it was the matches that caught fire.  I learned that a long cabin fire produces super hot coals, perfect for smores! And that is what we did. The girls gathered wood. They are so different, but hard working. My daughter brought over a downed tree and her friend brought tiny pieces. One was good from starting the fire and the other was good to keep it going.

We were sitting for an hour when the others from our camp site came up. Turns out, that the host has decided to not do the ceremony, but sent mountain pie makers and ingredients up with them. Now the party can start. They sang songs and made mountain pies. It was a good end to the day.

In the morning we cleaned up and left early.

We had a great weekend and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Next time, I would like more of my troop to go!

10/1/13- 2nd half of Potter badge

My troop of 5 is currently in our second year of Brownies. The troop goal is to earn every badge that is offered in the Big Book. That means we have about 18 badges and 2 pins two earn this year, plus to journeys. It is almost enough to make my eye's twitch constantly.

At our meeting on Tuesday, we finished up work on our Potter badge. I am trying to separate the badges and do them in 2 weeks each.

The plan was for them to finish their beads, that we made out of oven bake clay. Then we were going to paint some plaster pumpkins and go for a short walk to find some pottery in the area.

But seldom do my plans actually happen the way that I want them too.

I started off by heading to Micheal's craft store. I knew from earlier in the summer that they had a whole section of plaster designs to paint, my daughter had picked out a owl and a gnome. I thought that they were bound to have some fall plaster items, after all it was just barely October. My co-leader had mentioned that she would like to paint pumpkins, and because we are working well together, I suggested plaster pumpkins.

I get to the store and they have nothing!

Ok not nothing, but the only option was ten dollar skull, which I a) didn't have enough money to purchase one for each girl  and b) didn't think skulls were appropriate.

I send a frantic message to my co-leader, what do we do??

The small things that they do have is tree ornaments and snow men. We were not doing snow men in October.

After a half hour searching, I went with plaque ornaments.

Next up, we needed to turn the clay beads into key chains. This is totally out of my comfort zone. I can sew, crochet, decorate a cake, hot glue like a crazy person and draw, but jewelry not so much.

Wow, let me just say that there are millions of little things in those two jewelry making aisles. I picked up what I thought were rings that could be opened slip a bead through and clamp shut. I think they are called jump rings. Don't quote me on that. :) And I picked up big split ring key chains.

(On a side note, why is Micheal's the only place that does not have automated checks? I had to write out the whole thing. Which is a PITA when they only have one register open and there is a long line of crafty women behind you. Makes me feel guilty for not swiping my personal debit card.)

I get home. Start making dinner. Kids come home and all hell breaks loose. I have a 3rd grader and a 6th grader. 3:30pm is like a mad house.I get homework signed, lunch boxes emptied and snack in the kids, I sit down to see how the beads will work tonight.

I have that pre-crafting high. When you see in your mind how it will turn out and the crafting angels are singing a choir of praise and you think, this is going to be pinterest worthy. 

I set everything out and realize, I bought the wrong thing! I wanted the jump rings and what I got was mini split rings! Oh no! There is no way these beads were going to work with mini split rings.

Time to run to Walmart.

Fast forward to meeting time! Surprisingly everything went well. We practiced the Promise in sign language, and then we started to work on our plaques. The girls are super creative. Some just used the colors to make patterns and others made shapes, like hearts. I love seeing what they come up with. Then we worked on the beads and key chains. They were seeing the end product for the first time.

Given how the day started, I was so pleased with the result.

Next up, Saturday we are going on a hike to a local state park with waterfalls to earn our Hiker's badge.