Allllllllmost done with Cub Scouts!

Last week was pack meeting, and Adam was due to get his Webelos badge, finally! The Webelos badge is supposed to be the very first thing you earn. You only need three activity pins to get it... but it took us a looonnngg, long time to earn one of those pins.

About six months in to Adam's year in Webelos I realised that we hadn't done very much work on Scout stuff. He had earned a few pins from just going to Scouts but we hadn't done a single thing at home. After a conversation with one of his Scout leaders later that week I was utterly horrified to find out that we only had six months left! I had been thinking that he would be in Webelos for 2 years, but no, it's only one. Fortunately this was right before the summer holidays and so we were able to get a lot of things done just in the normal course of life. Our family vacation took care of every last hiking requirement there was, plus the Traveler pin. Going to see a play was the last thing on his Showman badge.... Shakespeare in Cedar City took care of that one. All our time in the pool this summer added up to the Aquanaut badge.

So at pack meeting last week, Adam not only earned his Webelos badge, but he earned his Arrow of Light Award, which is Cub Scouts' highest award and a pretty big deal. He earned his Religious Knot (he was in charge of just about every Family Home Evening through July and August getting those requirements done!). He got his Compass Point with two arrow points on it (representing the ten plus activity pins he'd earned this summer) and he bridged into Boy Scouts! So it was a big night for him. 

They told me to have a Boy Scout shirt ready for the bridging ceremony, and so I did (although we didn't use it). His Cub Scout shirt is loaded down with bling - there's things hanging off every possible pocket - and his Scout shirt looks very bare in comparison.  But it has his Arrow of Light and Religious Knot sewn on and I am immensely proud of him for both of those. Those are two big achievements!

He still has a month before his birthday and we're one activity badge away from filling in the Compass point completely... so watch this space. I'm leaving it up to him. If he wants it, we'll work on it, but I'm not going to push him. I figure it'll be a good life lesson either way, if he gets it or he doesn't. So we'll see!