Center Grove Orchard

Fall is our favorite season. This year I thought we should go to one of the local apple orchards. We went to Center Gove which is about 20 minutes away from our house. The orchard is family owned and they had a lot of different activities that adults could also participate in. The admission wasn't to bad and there was a lot of different activities that you could participate in. They had a storybook area with the classics. I really enjoyed seeing the 3 little pigs houses. In the stick and hay house there was a little fox painted on the window. I appreciate the attention to details. They also had a one room school house that you could walk through.

The old women who lived in a shoe

Peter Piper Pumpkin eater

At the one room school house

Guy being a cowboy and roping a calf

Bouncing on the pillow

There were little bouncy horses that you could also play with, but we skipped those. Guy's favorite part were the tractors that you could peddle around on the dirt track. One thing we both enjoyed was the giant inflatable bouncing pillow. There were a few younger kids on the pillow we bounced on, so we tried to not bounce too high and bounce them off.

There was also a slide that you could go on. So naturally we had to play on it. The orchard had apple trees and a pumpkin patch where you could pick your own pumpkin. In order to get out there you needed to take a hay ride. On the hay ride they had little sights along the way. I enjoyed seeing some of the animals they had decorating the route up to the trees and pumpkin patch. Next to the pumpkin patch was a corn maze.

Neither of us realized that you were suppose to pick up a map that had clues and markers on it when you first entered the park. So we had the map of what the overall corn maze looked like on it, but no idea on where to go. Guy loved that this created a fun and different challenge. He took the map and led us through the course in about 30 minutes. Not bad considering the corn maze was over 4 acres.

Allison riding the pedal tractor

After the large corn maze, he had me lead us through the kiddie maze. I can successfully say we didn't get lost and I navigated us through.

We then walked over to the pumpkin patch and started looking around. We weren't planning on getting a pumpkin but we found some sweet looking pumpkins. Guy really liked this big green one, but we decided on the perfectly orange round pumpkin. However, we saw another couple with this awesome white pumpkin.

Guy with our pumpkin

We rode the hay ride back to the main area. We toured and looked around the gift shop/store. We tried apple salsa, peanut butter and apple butter. It was all good but a little interesting. Center Grove makes their own cider doughnuts and cider slushies. We decided that we should try it and we split one of each. I loved the slushie! The doughnut wasn't bad either...just to much sugar for me. We ended up not picking any apples this year since we already have a ton left over from woodbadge at home.

In the corn maze

Center Grove Orchard 2015

Later that night we came back and watched the second movie in the divergent series; Insurgent. Guy was a little lost since it's been a while since he's seen Divergent and he didn't read the book. We both enjoyed the movie though.

Woodbadge Pt 2

We went back for Woodbadge the first weekend of October. The weather was cooler but I wasn't sick so it was much more enjoyable. When we all got back to Gilwell field we presented the flags that we made while we were on our 2 week break. Guy designed the totem (the drawing) on his flag and a different member of his patrol put it together. Someone else in my patrol designed and put ours together.

Guy's Patrol Flag

During the second weekend each patrol was responsible for cooking their own food. I was responsible for cooking the purchasing the food for my patrol. To be honest, I was worried about having enough food. Turns out we had more than enough and Guy and I have been working on finishing some of the left overs. Both of our patrols ate well. I now have a reuben dutch oven recipe as well as cornbread and did I mention...ribs!

Buffalo Patrol

Friday night we had an outdoor fire. Each patrol preformed either a skit or a song. Guy's patrol sang and led the camp in the closing song. My patrol did a skit. Our skit is known as "pick pocketer." Basically the audience is observing a pick pocket in person. The last attempt of pick pocketing, the pickpocket is caught and flipped over by the person they are trying to pick pocket from. Since I was the smallest person in my patrol, I was the one flipped over. After the campfire my patrol was trying to finalize our presentation for the next day and the SPL and our troop guide came to get us so that we could work on writing our ticket. The ticket is 5 goals you go home to work on to finish and complete the course. We spent most of the night writing them but then at least we were done!

Fox Patrol

Saturday when Guy and I were both Patrol Leaders (we're on the far side)

Saturday was one of my favorite days of the entire course. Guy and I found out that ironically we were both the patrol leaders that day for camp. (Wasn't planned just fate). In the morning all of the patrols presented their group projects. The projects were interesting. One patrol presented about 7 of the original merit badges that are still in use today. Another patrol talked about the Maytag Scout Center ( I learned a lot ), another presented about the various awards you can learn. The antelopes presented and walked through all of the scouting programs from cubs to venture. Another patrol presented about woodbadge courses in other parts of the world. Guy's patrol presented about uniform changes through scouting. My patrol presented about some of the major changes to merit badges through out the history of scouting.

That afternoon we participated in the leadership/team building games. My patrol did great! We completed all but one of the activities. Guy's patrol had a little tougher time. One of the activities was trying to get your team through a rope barricade. His group struggled with it because the holes were smaller and some of his bigger patrol members wouldn't fit through at all. I really enjoyed the activities!

Trying to flip the island without touching the water

Directing my patrol in how we move in the game

Balancing the ball on a ring by using ropes

Buffalos trying to figure out

My patrol on the island

Saturday night was patrol night. So we spent the rest of the evening with our patrols doing our own thing.

Troop Guides having finished their skit

It was hard to believe that it was already Sunday. Sunday went by pretty quick. My patrol had everything torn down and cleaned up before flag ceremony at 8. The troop guides had a great skit. They had choreographed this chair/drill routine.  We also did the scout own service on Sunday. Afterwards we had the final presentation and the hanging of our patrols in the lodge where they will stay from now on. We had potluck style lunch with each patrol bringing a different dish to share. It was delicious!

Now Guy and I are working on our ticket trying to finish by the end of May.

Getting our "ticket" punched

The staff of C5-177-15

 We had a lot of fun at Woodbadge and we both learned a lot! I would highly encourage anyone to attend regardless of your position in scouting. 

C5-177-15 aka WOODBADGE!! Part 1

Guy and I at woodbadge (I really like this picture of us)

Woodbadge for those of you who do not know, is adult leadership training for BSA leaders. Think of it like the top most leadership training and experience you can get. It's one of the best leadership courses you can attend. Woodbadge doesn't just apply to your life in scouting you can use the same tools for all areas of your life. You learn different communication styles, teaching styles, how to plan and organize a project, what goes in to having the best bonfire/campfire, mentoring others and much more. Every activity you participate in is designed to teach you something. For years, I have been dying to go and this year I finally got my chance! My family is a huge scouting family and I've been waiting for this (4th generation to attend). When I found out the information for when they were offering the course I talked to Guy about it, and that he might also be interested in attending. He agreed to go since it was an ideal time for both of us to attend.

Some of the courses are a week long, others are 2- 3 day weekends, or you can have 3-2 day weekends. Our course was 2-3 day weekends.

When we arrived at camp they split us into dens (like cub scouts). Each den had 6-7 people in it. The morning of the first day of camp you simulate being in a cub scout den.

My den was den 7

Guy was in Den 5

After lunch we participated in the Arrow of Light ceremony and "bridged" into Troop 1. Each den then became a patrol; and each patrol was assigned a different animal. So the big deal with the animals is that at any scouting event you go to, if someone sees you with the woodbadge beads they ask about it. The animals are: beaver, bobwhite, eagle, fox, owl, bear, buffalo and antelope. In my family, we have the bobwhite, beaver and bear covered. I was excited to become a fox, and Guy became a buffalo. (Yay!)

Moving into Troop 1, getting our neckerchiefs 

My patrol (Fox)

Guy's patrol (Buff

The first day was kind of miserable. It rained pretty much all day and I had a cold so I felt like crud the whole time, and with no voice. Our cook is the head cook for Valley High School in DSM so our food was fantastic. It was also on time which was important because we only got 45 minutes to eat. (They kept us on a pretty tight schedule the entire course). That first day we ended with an indoor campfire where we learned what goes into planning a campfire and how to make a stellar one. We also played different getting to know you games, to help you better interact with your patrol. By the end of the day we were suppose to come up with a group cheer and a group name. Guy's patrol name was the "Noble Buffalo" with their cheer being "TATONKA!" My patrol is the "Fantastically, Feisty, Funky, Friendly, Fun, Fast Foxes! Yip, yip, yip!" (our name was our cheer).

The rest of the weekend procedure in similar fashion. We had different presentations about various topics, games that taught a different leadership aspect, activities and etc. Saturday we had 20 minutes to design and build a bottle rocket.

The Troop Guides blasting their bottle rocket

Playing memory

Learning to tie the famous "woggle"

Attempting to tie the woggle

Guy's real focused on the lesson....

I'm focused too...

And the next assignment...

 On Sunday we did participate in a scouts own service, where we learned what all goes in to planning a service for those of different religions. It was interesting seeing how one is done, since most of the ones either of us have been to have typically been LDS specific.

At the Scout's own service on Sunday

At the end of the 1st weekend you leave with a few different projects to accomplish. Each patrol had: to make a flag representing their patrol, design their totem, complete the outline for the conservation project assigned to them, and complete a patrol project that covered some aspect of scouting. We were given 2 weeks to complete these activities. We also had to come up with what meals we wanted to eat because the second weekend each patrol was responsible for making their own food (so you got the camping aspect of it as well).

Lunch on Sunday was dutch oven style. Each dutch oven was a different dish

Date Night

September was beautiful here in Iowa, so one afternoon for our date we went disc golfing. Guy was pretty stoked because he got a hole in one!

Throwing the hole in one!

Next to his hole in one!

 Later that night we made kettle corn. Our first attempt resulted in a bunch of burnt popcorn. Guy remembered that his mom use to make kettle corn when they were growing up, so he called her and figured out what she used to do. The second attempt was MUCH better. We took the popcorn to movie night with some friends from church.

Hard at work

YUM!