To the Bridge

I don't really follow my kids' progress in the Girl Scouts.  Not that I don't like my kids or anything, but I just can't bring myself to being super-excited about every, last thing they do in life.  I'm involved in a lot, but if occasionally I'm out of the loop with regards to something they're doing. . . I'm okay with that.

Girl Scouts, case in point.

I don't mind my kids going to weekly meetings.  Whatever, I get it.  Anything beyond that, though, starts to become an annoyance.  My life does not revolve around you, Girl Scouts - chill out already.  The cookies, the outings, the field trips, the ceremonies. . . it's taking up more and more of our kids' time as we get further into the summer.

And now there's this thing called a 'bridging ceremony' and 'day camp' that the kids had to go to today.  Two big events in one day.  On a frickin' Saturday, no less.

Thanks a lot, Girl Scouts. .

The night before the "bridging ceremony," Alayna's troop was all going to stay the night at some church on the other side of town.  This would end up being Alayna's very first sleepover, so she was pretty pumped up about it.

The girls start staking out their positions for the slumber party. . .

Kris and I would end up giving Alayna her own sleeping bag later on in the weekend, as one of the girls' combo birthday presents (more to come on that later), so in the meantime she used one my mom let us borrow. . .

I don't know what's happening here.

The next morning, we returned to the church, where the bridging ceremony was to take place in the courtyard.

Is this a stork?  I'm not a birdologist.

The troop lines up for the ceremony (Alayna's troop is a combination of Brownies and Daisies, but next year she's enrolling in a different troop with some of her better friends from school, and it'll be all Brownies.)

(You see a lot of this whenever there's large numbers of children about.) 

Hitler Youth-ish pledges of fealty.

Not sure what's up with Alayna's samurai hairdo this morning. . .

Alayna's turn to cross the Bridge.

Excepting some kind of award. . . or something.  Every scout got one so it can't be all that impressive.

Yes, Alayna's crossing her eyes in this nice, group picture.

Hitting up the refreshment table. . .

Later that day, Yours Truly returned home to start prepping presents, decor, cameras, etc. for tomorrow's big combo party (more to come on that later), while Kris took the girls up to Harrison for some big Girl Scout Day Camp. . .

Alayna feels the effects of last night's sleepover. . .

Kris couldn't find the rest of the girls' troops up there (I guess it's a pretty big camp facility, and kids were spread out all over the place), so she took the girls around and tried out a few different activities with them.  Not surprisingly, the archery range was a big hit with the girls.

(FYI, if I was really into archery, I'd construct targets that looked like Orcs from The Lord of the Rings movies.  Just sayin'.)

- Brian