A Bear Scout

Last month at pack meeting Ashton earned his Bear. Not only did he earn his Bear, but also his whittling chip, 1 gold and 7 silver arrows. If you are familiar with cub scouts at all, you know that to earn a Gold arrow you need to have 10 of the elective projects completed and then for every 10 additional electives you receive a silver arrow. That is 70 electives completed! So this was quite an accomplishment for Ashton. We are proud of him and the hard work he put into earning this rank.

Ashton receiving his Bear from Bro. Giles our Cubmaster and me receiving my mother's pin.


Now here is the funny part. In November, Richard and I realized that Ashton only had 2 months left to earn his Bear Rank. So we set to work making plans each Sunday of what electives or requirements we could help him pass off that week. We continued this way throughout December and most of January.
Ashton receiving all his awards!

Two Sundays before Ashton's birthday, we were looking at his book trying to figure out how we were going to complete everything before his birthday. I was dismayed. There was too much to do and not enough time with everything else going on. I figured we would just do our best and I went to bed.

Sometime in the middle of the night when I was up with one of the kids, Richard informed me that Ashton had earned his Bear. I was skeptical and asked how. He told me that after I went to bed, he got to looking at the requirements a little more closely, and found he did not have to complete every section of his book like we had been working toward! He only needed to complete 12 of the 24 sections! Ashton had completed that and then some! Stupid Parents!!! It always helps to look at the directions! Needless to say, I went to bed and slept a lot better.

So this is proof, that just because you have a lot of boys, it does not mean you know everything about Cub Scouts or the Scouting Program!!! Thank heavens that we have awesome scout leaders in our ward who love the boys, love scouting, and keep things simple and fun, thus keeping the boys interested. Being the primary counselor over scouts I thank the good Lord for the privilege of working with these amazing people and for their making up for me, when sometimes I fall short.