Big families or just a family full of boys?

So I was reading this article on MormonTimes (http://mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/tiffany_gee_lewis/?id=9209)about big Mormon families. After reading through the entire article I could have sworn she was talking about my family of 3 boys. In the article she lists 10 things about growing up in a big family:
1. Never a dull moment
2. Hand-me-downs
3. Humility
4. Laughter
5. Noise
6. Character Building
7. Abandonment
8. An audience
9. Low-calorie life
10. Healthy neglect

No big family needed around here, all these things come with multiple boys in a family.

Here is items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 all rolled in to one incident just last night. Jared (the 13 year old), searched for his Boy Scout uniform so that he could attend the Court of Honor last night. Really he didn't have a choice because his brother was at football and he was suppose to be in charge so that meant the responsibility fell to Jared. Anyway, we have not worn our scout uniforms all summer as we wear our scout t-shirts instead. When Jared put on his scout shirt it was so small he could not keep the buttons together. Never the less he wore it. When he put on his merit badge sash I about about fell out laughing. It seems to have shrunk from when he last wore it and barely comes to his waist. Literally this child looked like he was wearing clothes that his 8 year old brother could be wearing. He wore it anyway. He is the biggest comedian and played it off really well, and had all the parents laughing, of course. He could not bend over as the shirt would have come untucked, he had to keep his belly sucked in or the buttons on his shirt would open up, and he had to keep pulling down the merit badge sash or it would have been up under his armpit. I really wish I would have had a camera last night. I could only shake my head and laugh with everyone else.
You don't need a large family, you only need a couple of boys to make it feel like there are 10 kids in the household.

Nine days, 4 states, 2000+ miles, with 20 people but it ended in the Happiest Place on Earth!

Anything that ends in the Happiest Place on Earth can't be all that bad right? Well we just found out the answer to that question when we returned from our trip last week.

Lets start from the beginning. Last year I took over as Scoutmaster of the my older boys Scout troop. That year when we went to summer camp we had 5 boys and 2 adult leaders (me included). So this year I was determined to change that and give the boys an activity that they all wanted to attend. I posed the option to the boys of attending a traditional summer camp and working on merit badges, sleeping in the dirt, eating cafeteria food, etc or should we do something else. They all decided on something else. In doing some research for a afternoon whitewater rafting trip I came across a company in Moab, Utah (World Wide River Expeditions) who have a 4-day Scout trip to include merit badge work. This was perfect and the boys approved. After many changes to scheduling, re-routing directions, and planning extra activities, our final plan ended up being:
Day 1: Drive to Salt Lake City
Day 2: Spend day swimming and in Park City
Day 3: Drive to Moab
Day 4: Start whitewater rafting trip
Day 5: Whitewater rafting
Day 6: Whitewater rafting
Day 7:Finish whitewater rafting, Drive to Anaheim
Day 8: Disneyland/California Adventure
Day 9: Drive home

The day we left we had 6 leaders/parents, 5 Venturing Scouts, and 9 Boy Scouts. The logistics to plan for that many people was a nightmare in itself. Most of the logistics went off without a problem. One thing that did arise was a particular leader who wanted to make changes to the plans enroute. We had been planning this for over a year in meetings, the boys making decisions with input from the parents/leaders, and he decided to wait until we were on the trip to have an opinion. This was more frustrating than anything, but for the most part we were able to accomodate most of his changes. One such changes was on Day 3, we ended up seeing Arches National Park (since we were there anyway). It was a great side trip, but hot. After about the third arch stop, the boys no longer wanted to ooh and aah at the rock formations, they were done.

The whitewater rafting trip was a huge success with only 1 minor injury. We spent 3 days on the Fisher Towers section of the Colorado River rafting, and slept next to the water each night. I can't say enough great things about World Wide River Expeditions. The company plans everything and cooks meals for you every day. The only thing we had to do was put up our tents each night, raft, and then nap, and make new friends. I highly recommend them if anyone is heading to Moab and wants to do some whitewater rafting. They have 1 day trips (not sure on half days) that are fairly cheap. If you plan on going ask for any of the following guides: Suzy, Jessie, Steve or Mike, the kids loved them, especially when they started an ice cream and topping fight. We had kids with chocolate syrup all over them, it was great. Great trip we would do this again in a heartbeat (I think my husband is already planning a family trip for next summer).

Oh yea, for the one minor injury. Our group of 20 was put with an LDS Boy Scout troop of 23 for this trip. On the second day of the trip, I rode in the "Dry" boat to help the boys who were working on the Rowing merit badge. Dane decided to join me on this particular boat, but he decided to nap most of the day on the boats edge. Well the next day he was in a paddle boat, and at the end of the run for the day while the boys were out of the boat swimming he was naping on the edge. The boys decided he had been sleeping a little too much on this trip and decided to get him in the water. In the tussel, it seems one of the boys applied a little too much pressure to the ribs (with his knee) and the hubby got a little bruised up but he came out of it dry. This of course meant he couldn't roll up his sleeping bag or put the tent away, good thing we were with boy scouts.

Day 7 we arrived in Anaheim for a quick visit to the Happiest Place on Earth. We had 3 hotel rooms for this event which was a nice change from the dirt of the tent and sleeping bags. It also meant that all the boys could take showers before getting in the car for the trip home on the last day.

We haven't been to Disneyland as a family in over a year and a half, which is a long time for us. So it was nice to be back, even if it was only for 1 day. I expected it to be super busy since it was a Saturday in July, but the crowds were very manageable I think the longest line I saw was an hour.

All in all the trip was a success and we had 9 boys earn Whitewater Rafting and Rowing, and 5 boys earn Wilderness Survivial.

Several of the boys are already asking what are we doing next year. I'm not ready for next year yet.

Electricity and Water

Jordan learned a valuable (and scary lesson) lesson about touching electrical appliances when your hands are wet. The kids were outside throwing water balloons at each other when Jordan came in for some reason. He went in this bedroom and turned on the light and the next thing we know he is screaming and things are falling (him and the light). At some point the kids had broken their lamp in the bedroom, when he touched it with wet hands it caught on fire in his hand. Luckily he was able to drop it, but not before getting burned. When we got to him, his hand was black and the only thing I could think of is that he had 3rd degree burns all over his hand. We went into the kitchen and started water running over it quickly. By now we could tell that the blackness was just soot from the fire. He does have a large half dollar size burn on the palm of his hand and a large blister on the side of one finger. Luckily nothing else, but he learned a valuable lesson about water and electricity.