Scouting a la Scofield, part I

The day after we arrived home from California, Rob and Will had to sift through the wrinkled clothes and pack up for scout camp. They left around 2:00, but not before Maddie and Fabs had taught the scouts some lifesaving skills and freaked them out roundly (Maddie assures me that the element of fear is important in teaching lifesaving -- she and Fabs would know, since they went to a pool party with the  lifeguards last Friday night and watched Jaws in a pool dyed red and a guy floating around in a shark head). They drove down to this idyllic spot.

 This is Kirt, intrepid and hardworking scout leader (which is really the only flavor scout leaders come in -- anything less just doesn't last). He and Rob and Len wrangled the boys for four days and had to make all of the merit badges happen too. Rob found he could get phone reception if he sat on the tailgate of Kirt's truck. He texted to say "send umbrellas! and my rain jacket! and an extra fleece for each of us!" It was 90 in Provo, but beastly cold at night in Scofield.

 This is Phatty McFattenstien, the first crawdad that Rob caught. After Phatty pinched him but good in the finger, Rob learned that you catch them behind their pinchers. Life lessons abound at scout camp. They managed to catch 21 of these babies and then Rob boiled them up red and stuck them in jambalaya. My Will would have nothing to do with the catching, but he did eat some.

 Among other activities like the environmental science merit badge, they worked on wake boarding for their waterspouts merit badges. This was Will's first time to try wake boarding. Third try and he was up. I love this picture because he is grinning his new braceless grin.

 Rob said Will was the most improved wakeboarder, starting there from scratch and getting to the point where he could cross the wake (that was the most I could ever do on water skis, so I'm impressed).

It's a loud video, but there are 7 seconds of Will.

 And here was Rob's brief moment of glory, getting up on the wakeboard.

 Here are the boys in a brief moment of respite before those big black clouds you see opened up and poured all over the lake for hours.

Thankfully, in addition to the boys' tent, the leaders had a magnificent, palatial cabin just behind them. So when it started to thunder, they could escape underneath that deer head.

Or play downstairs in the rumpus room.