Tuesday - The second full day

We had another early start today - 6:10am. No Polar Bear swim, so everyone showered and managed to get up to the parade field on time (7:45) for the flag raising and breakfast. Merit Badge classes are going well. All the scouts know where to go, what time to be there and are well organized. Today is designated toothbrush day, since I have not seen anyone brush their teeth since we got here, we're going to have a group session. See pictures

The camp store is proving a popular meeting place. I'll have to take a survey on what the favorite treat is, but the frozen Charleston Chews seem to be popular, judging the the empty wrappers Mr. Lauriero is constantly reminding everyone to pick up around the campsite. Most of the boys have Camp t-shirts, which already are going to need a good washing.

The dam building has stopped due to some over zealous scouts not being able to control where they were tossing their buckets of water. We had to come up with a creative way to keep them out of the water, so we told them the stream was a result of the runoff from the dining hall septic field (ITS NOT, so don't worry). I don't think anyone has gone in since.

We had one inductee into the Order of the Oar, since his birthday fell within our visit to the camp. Congratulations Billy. Unfortunately a technical malfunction prevented us from having any digital pictures, so we'll have to wait until Matt gets his film developed over the weekend to see the documentation of Billy being smacked with the oar by his Scoutmaster.

As I'm writing this, Henry is at the soda machine trying to feed a dollar in for a soda, and holding a Milkyway bar. I'll have to remind him that there are no sweets allowed until after 11:00am (its 9:45). Maybe he'll let me hold them for him.....

It started raining around 4:00pm. and continued until well after midnight. The good thing, we have all new tents in our campsite and none leak, so everyone slept dry. The rain prevented us from Rock Climbing, since the rock faces are wet, we'll try and reschedule. Instead some of the Scouts participated in the pie eating contest. We didn't win, since the winning technique consisted of flipping the tin over, dumping the pie (pudding and whipped cream in a pie tin), onto the table and eating it off the table with your face (hands are held behind the back). I guess our scouts have better manners...

Mr. Lauriero and I had a leaders meeting with the Merit Badge Counselors last night to see how the boys were doing and make sure they're all showing up. All received good reports. While we were gone Chris C. decided to tell the ghost story of the local murder who killed his family and two brothers. Chris insists the boys wanted to hear it even though they knew they were going to be scared. Of course when we got back to the campsite, we found all three of the four first year scouts sleeping two to a bed, with four scouts in each of the two person tents. Benton slept through the story, so he missed the whole thing. Thanks Chris, Kristian and Steven for providing the evening entertainment. We woke everyone up and got them back to their tents and the rest of the night was uneventful, with no nightmares, everyone woke up well rested.

Wednesday looks to be a good day, the weather is supposed to clear, we have a dutch oven cooking contest, ice cream social in the evening, and a triathelon, silver bullet, and robin hood competitions.