Tanner's First Scout Camp

  Sending your kid off for a week is scary! I haven't been separated from my kids much, just a night here or there. I was slightly nervous having Tanner be gone for a week up at scout camp but not too worried. From what I heard the only thing I had to worry about was Tanner coming home with a bad sunburn. Well sadly that just wasn't the case for us.

   So the boys met Monday morning at 7am, Dave was recruited to drive a bunch of them down in our van. I didn't take any pics because I asked Dave to. I mean he could get a pic of Tanner at camp but nope he forgot. Dave left right after drop off since the state tournament for baseball was starting.

   On Wednesday after work Dave headed down to camp. One of the leaders had to put in some work on Thursday. He's works at the state prison and had to pull a 10hr shift Thursday. So to maintain 2 deep leadership Dave came down for Wednesday night and Thursday. This time I sent Dave with the big camera and he took some pictures.

    It was nice to be able to check in with Tanner mid week and see how he was doing. Wednesday morning Tanner had had a bit of trouble. While swimming in the 'pool' he suddenly felt ill. Guess he was about a 100 yards out and got dizzy and nauseous. His leader said he was cold too but by lunch time he was doing better. Other than that he was doing great and having a blast.

The 'Pool'

  So Dave went to merit badge classes with Tanner and I guess T got upset with Dave a couple times. He didn't like Dave telling him what to do. So as Dave put it Tanner was happy to have him there half the time and not so happy the other half.

   They got to do all kinds of fun activities. There was a rope course that the boys all loved. They also told me all about a wall they had to climb using teamwork. Just seemed like they all had such a great time.

   Well Friday was family night. We brought the whole family down to eat dinner with our troop and go to the campfire program. Well we hike up to camp and the boys start asking us if we've heard what happened to Tanner. Turns out Tanner had had quite the scary experience.

   That afternoon they were playing a game of  staff chase. Another boy Tanner didn't know approached him and his buddy. He was accusing them of knowing where someone was. He wouldn't leave them alone so they tried to run away from him and find one of their leaders. Well he chased after them and was able to catch them. He put Tanner in a headlock. He kept asking where so and so was hiding and accused them of helping them hide. Jackson who was with Tanner first kept saying "Dude let him go" he then tried to play along and told him that they were hiding in the amphitheater so the kid would leave. But he wouldn't. Then he pulled a knife out of his pocket and flipped it open and held it at Tanner. He then said to Tanner "Tell me where they are or I'll kill you". Fortunately one of Tanner's leaders came up at this point and called out to the boy not knowing he had a knife on Tanner and got his attention. He was then able to disarm him and get him to release Tanner.

     Okay so before this all happened another scout in Tanner's troop had gotten hurt so some of the other boys had gone and gotten Bro Tucker to help out. So then he was nearby and saw Tanner and Jackson run by and then this other kid following them. It caught his attention since the boys aren't supposed to be running. He was thinking he needed to go talk to them about it. When he did start over to find them he saw the kid holding Tanner and thought they might be doing a little horse play and got too rough. It wasn't until he called out that he saw the knife. He also saw the boy whisper something to Tanner but didn't hear it. Later when he asked Tanner what the kid said and Tanner told him, he was really upset and demanded a little more attention be given to the situation.

    We are so glad that Tanner's leader was nearby, thanks Simon for getting hurt ;) Simon was proud of his part though. And then I'm so happy that it was Bro Tucker. . He told us all the things he said to the boy and sounds like he scared him pretty good.

    So the rest of the night was great. We ate dinner and then hung out around camp. One of the other boys Stephen did a little devotional. Okay so while Stephen was doing the devotional he suddenly points out that Grayson is eating dirt! So Grayson had been playing with a stick and he sucked on it and then put it in the dirt and went  to suck on it again. Dave decided Grayson had made his own fundip!

  After that we headed to a flag ceremony with all the other troops. So Grayson wanted out of the stroller and was cruising around it. Then at some point I was holding him then I put him down standing up and he just walked over to his stroller like he was a little walker!! Luckily Dave saw it too! So Grayson took his first steps!

                                              Tried to recreate his first steps for video but no luck!


   Next we went to the campfire program. It was a lot of fun. The staff did all kinds of skits and stories and had everyone laughing. Grayson was Mr Friendly and was getting everyone's attention and saying Hi to them, it was so cute! Tanner got to go up in front of everyone because he was elected to join the Order of the Arrow. I'm really glad we made the trip and got to see Tanner at camp. After the campfire Dave and Landon stayed at camp while the girls, Grayson and I headed home. Landon was super excited to spend the night at camp!

    Tanner had an awesome time at camp! He has been going on and on today about how much he loved it and how it was the best week of his life! He also mentioned that he missed me and was homesick at times which is sweet! I'm so glad he had the opportunity to go and that the one bad thing didn't ruin his time.