Scouts started strong in August 2025 with Robert leading a campout to Montgomery Whitewater! The boys got to white water raft and do the zip line! fun…and hot!!

Spencer was working hard to fulfill cooking merit badge requirements!

September Court of Honor!

In September I also lead the swimming merit badge and it was funny to see how many of the boys couldn’t float!

September river rafting campout…

Spencer’s dutch oven pizza!

Cooking and camping is exhausting! ha!

In October Spencer went on the backpacking campout and hiked the Walls of Jericho. It was hard, it was rainy, it was not fun but I am so proud of him! He completed his backpacking cooking and hiked all of the elevation changes he needed for the camping merit badge.

November service hours helping out at Lancers on the Lawn…

and that’s enough for today! Proud of all the hard work these boys have put in!

As Maxwell heads off on a big scout adventure for the next 10 days, I thought it was a good time to catch up on scouts. Apparently I haven’t done that since October of 2024! Oops! That is hard to believe because I do feel like scouts has been such a big part of the boys’ lives the past two years. I am so proud of how both of them have ranked up – Maxwell is now Life working and working on his Eagle project and Spencer is now Star well on his way to Eagle.

Throwing it back to 2025….

Maxwell went on the troop ski trip over MLK weekend and it was an adventure filled two days that got cut short because of massive snowfall and the dads thought they were going to get stuck. Fun nonetheless!

Court of Honor from January 2025…

Something in February 2025 – I’m not even sure what this was for but it’s a cute pic!

Camporee in February 2025!

Judge Borden speaking to the troop…

Leading the Citizenship in the Nation badge at Vulcan…

A new class of scouts that Casey and I worked hard to recruit! She took the lead on this group as James was joining that year.

Spencer cooking and cleaning the gargae for various merit badges!

Our scouts are famous!

In May 2025, Maxwell and others went down to Coosa Lodge for the Order of the Arrow initiation known as “the ordeal”. The weather was terrible and they had to work in silence all day and sleep outside with no tent. No pleasant, but they did it.

With their hard earned sashes!

and that is 2025 scouts in one feel swoop! Of course this whole time I was Troop Committee Chairman working behind the scenes to keep the troop running along with the Scoutmasters. Hard but rewarding work for all!

Lots of Scout stuff since the school year started!

Climbing merit badge!

Maxwell is serving as Senior Patrol Leader this semester which means he leads all meetings. He’s really so good at it and is a natural up there!

August campout at Scout Mountain – lead by Robert!

Court of Honor where both boys were recognized for the MANY merit badges they earned in the last semester as well as for rank achievements – Spencer earned Tenderfoot and Maxwell earned Life! Maxwell also earned the camping portion of the Outdoor Award.

This past weekend both boys went on the September campout. It was a rafting campout and it was a little touch and go with Hurricane Helene making its way through! But, the campsite was fine and the river was flowing and the boys had a great time. Spencer went up with the group on Friday afternoon and Maxwell joined Saturday morning. Because he’s still 11, Spencer had to kayak the Hiawassee but Maxwell got to raft the Ocoee.

I am so incredibly proud of these boys.

Most of the scouts went out to Stockton Farms in the evening to complete both Horsemanship and Animal Science.

Maxwell did these badges last year and we still laugh about the experience! They learn all about castration among other things and the man himself, Mr. Stockton, is quite a character!

Spencer rocked it all, of course. I’m not going to say he liked it, but he did it!

Some of the info was…less than thrilling.

But it wasn’t all so bad!

By the end of the week they were a bunch of really tired Scouts that were very happy to get to stop at Waffle House on the way home!

These boys accomplished so much during the week and they should be very, very proud of themselves.

I know I am proud of them. Eagle bound!

Both boys spent a week in North Carolina at Camp Daniel Boone for Boy Scout camp in July. I can’t say either of them were super excited but they made the best of it and ended up having a pretty good time I think! We had a large group going this year which was awesome…

and we had lots of dads that stepped up to attend as well. Robert went for the first half and came home on Wednesday. He’s a trooper for sure.

They had a good campsite – Maxwell shared a tent with Hugh and Spencer shared a tent with Henry.

Maxwell served as Senior Patrol Leader for the week and apparently he did an outstanding job. No surprise there. They had a campsite flag ceremony every morning and night, they got 100s on all their campsite inspections, and Maxwell made an effort to make sure everyone was included in all they did. I’m incredibly proud of him.

Days were spent in merit badge classes and the younger scouts spent a day doing Going Great which checked off a lot of rank advancements for 2nd and 1st class. They were busy! Maxwell even caught a fish and cooked it up to complete the fishing merit badge.

I think the food was pretty terrible so there were lots of purchases made at the Snack Hut!

Maxwell did cook up some jambalaya one night that was a hit!

Even better when follow by s’mores!

They had some excitement when there was a mouse inside Maxwell and Hugh’s tent one night! The boys decided to try and set a mouse trap…

ha! There might have also been a mouse that had mice babies inside of Harrison’s shoe but I can’t even talk about that. Proud of these boys…

More to come tomorrow – Stockton Farms!