Eagle Scout Court of Honor

It happened! It was in serious doubt. When I sent out the first invitations, the Scoutmaster replied that we wouldn't get our regalia in time. We pushed on and decided we could borrow some items if we had to. Regalia is the neckerchief, the slide, and the pin awarded to eagle scouts.

Christopher passed his board of review on Monday July 17. 

We managed to get a ceremony planned in just under 3 weeks. That is a much shorter timeline than most ceremonies have.

We were under a lot of restraints for picking a date. C's best friend left for California and college on August 5th. His other close friends leave for Texas on August 12th. We really wanted his best friends to be able to be at the event.

First we tried to get the church where we meet for boy scouts. It wasn't available. It would have been a great venue and they don't charge a fee for scout events. We were able to secure the church building where our church meets for a minimal fee of 100 dollars. We considered holding it outside in the field behind the church, under a tent, but the rental fee for tents is very high. Slowly things came together. J worked on the ceremony and getting the roles filled. I worked on display boards, decorations, food, and drinks. A and I worked together on the slide show. 

There were a lot of roles to fill. Usually at an eagle court of honor, there is a scout representing each rank who lights a candle, seven in total. There was a troop white-water rafting trip that departed on the day of our ceremony. We managed to get 6 scouts and one lit two candles. 

My hubby likes to shake things up so he bought a mini blow torch to use to light the candles. 

I made six display boards. One for graduation (mainly photos from high school), one for cub scouts, one for boy scouts, for the eagle scout project, one for future plans, and one for Christopher's favourite photos. 

We had our programs printed at Fed Ex Office. We invited 125 people. Our final count was about 70. I did have a guest list I asked people to sign. I'm not sure if we missed some. It was a mix of Christopher's friends, our Scout troop, and friends of ours from church and other places.

I borrowed things from friends. A drink dispenser, two large coolers to store and serve cans of sparkling water. I had friends bring trays of cheese and crackers, fruit trays, and brownies. I also borrowed an additional crockpot. The fabric table cloths for the round tables belong to our church but are stored at my friend's house. 

There are several boxes of supplies for eagle ceremonies that is passed around our troop. It included a book that was very helpful for putting the ceremony together. 

I made the table centers. I bought wood slices several months ago that were used for a church lunch. I had some moss and trees. I made the tents using small popsicle sticks and leftover fabric. I also made the campfires using little rocks and sticks. 

I used a vintage suitcase case to collect cards. 

We asked our old friends Colette and Matt to be the greeters and let people know where the restrooms are.

I ordered cupcakes from Safeway. I found an idea online of forming an American flag with cupcakes. The first bakery I asked wanted over 200 dollars for 70 cupcakes. Safeway only charged a dollar a cupcake.

We had leftover cupcakes, by the way. I did meatballs in 2 crockpots. They were frozen, from Costco, and were put into the crockpots in the morning and warmed up during church and then were ready after the ceremony. The sauce is grape jelly and BBQ sauce. Those were gobbled up with no leftovers.

Here is the current Scoutmaster giving his talk.

Our special guest was Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney. We went to a fundraiser for him a while back (he's running for re-election in November) and really liked him. J got in touch with his staff and asked if he would come to our ceremony. He happily accepted. He had to leave early to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game. I thanked him and his wife for coming (before the ceremony) and they said they really enjoy coming to these types of events and they are encouraging to him. 

Christopher's good friend Eli was the master of ceremonies. His dad was our photographer. We had two men from our church do sound and video. 

Eli is in the middle.

Nick and Mr Bachmeier did the scout law in Scripture.

Our troop has a tradition that after a mother's pin is awarded (when a scout advances), the scout hugs their mom.

The mentor pin was a surprise to me. I didn't know who Christopher would give it to. I thought perhaps it would be J. He chose to give it to his former Scoutmaster Mr. Keen.

One of the elders at our church is an Eagle Scout. We chose him to do the opening and closing prayers. 

We didn't want to have an open mike but we wanted people to speak about Christopher. His peer spoke first. He is also named Adam. Then it was Mr. Said who was on the Philmont trip.

The man who was scheduled to speak about the eagle project wasn't able to be there due to a death of a staff member in the ministry. 

Here is C doing his speech. 

This was the photo that Jonathan really wanted. Sheriff Adam presenting Christopher with his gift. Note: the box is empty due to BSA rules.

We were very happy with our successful ceremony. We got lots of nice compliments from people.

One thing that was unique about this court of honor was the number of friends from outside of scouting that were present. It was a much larger group than is typical. Here are just a few of them.

This is a really close friend of C's who will be going to college in Texas.

The funny thing that we realized after the ceremony was over was that Christopher wasn't presented with his regalia! It was somehow forgotten by the Scoutmaster and/or J. We gave him those items and the later photos include them.

Another eagle scout mom told me that planning an eagle ceremony is like planning a wedding. I wasn't sure about that when she told me that months ago but I agree with her now. 

Note: the majority of these photos were taken by Mr. Nakanishi, dad of Eli, who was our Master of Ceremonies.

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A Day on Lake Washington

We "won" a day on Lake Washington at the Helping Hands charity auction last fall. We've never won a live auction item since those usually get bid up too high for us to consider. We paid 250 dollars.

When J spoke to the boat owner to arrange a date, he mentioned the possibility of seeing the Blue Angels from the water. I was so excited! That was something I'd wanted to do for years! We picked August 3rd which worked for all of us. 

We met the owner and his wife at Log Boom Park in Kenmore (near Kenmore Air) which has plenty of parking. We brought along Dawson, C's friend, since the trip was for 4 people and A was away in St. Louis. Here's a funny photo. J took this to text to the owner so he would know what we look like.

First we went along the east side of lake Washington to the 520 bridge. 

Here's a nice house:

Just south of the bridge is Bill Gates' house.

This was our 2nd time seeing that. We first saw it with my parents on an Argosy cruise back in June 2002. I noticed that it has more trees in front of it than back in 2002, better for privacy.

One thing I noticed was that several houses have a funicular (a cable railway) in order to get from their house at the top of the hill, down to the water.

We went further south and then our captain set an anchor. We had to stay 500 feet away from the I 90 bridge. We saw police from 3 different divisions: Seattle police, King County police and the Coast guard.  The boys went out in floats to enjoy the view and cool off. 

I wished that I had worn my swimsuit so I could've done the same. This was where we watched the Blue Angels.

Sometimes they flew directly over us and quite low!

We were treated to an onboard BBQ as part of the experience. We didn't need to bring anything. We were offered the choice of hotdogs or skewers with chicken and vegetables. We also had an appetizer of basil, mozzarella cheese and tomatoes on skewers. 

We saw this boat that was a charter for a group, designed like a pirate boat.

After the show was over, we went along the east side of Lake Washington. Then we went under the 520 bridge 

and headed toward the Montlake cut aka the Montlake bridge which is right next to the UW. Here is the football stadium.

Here is the Montlake Cut.

After that we stopped at Aqua Verde (a Mexican restaurant). It was cool to arrive at a restaurant by boat.

I'd like to come back and eat there. it seems like a fun place with a beautiful view. 

There are a lot of houseboats in Portage Bay (near Aqua Verde).

We went back to the main part of Lake Washington to head back. 

Our caption put his foot to the floor, as it were. One of the kayakers we passed didn't appreciate our speed. He shook his head at us. We returned to Kenmore at 4 pm. 

I should have taken a few more pictures. My contact at Helping Hands wished that I had taken a group photo with our hosts. She could use that for promotion for the next auction. I was concentrating on both being a good guest and enjoying this very special experience. Sometimes it is nice not to take too many photos!

One problem with spending a long time on a smaller boat is there is no bathroom! We did stop at a Aqua Verde in order to use the bathrooms. I bought a drink there since I felt that was the right thing to do since we used their facilities. 

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Graduation Party for 2023

Note: I don't have many photos. I was a chaperone and couldn't think about photos. 

I helped with the planning for the party. I was the only one on the committee who had previously helped plan a grad party. The planning committee was quite large. About 20 people. The two ladies who were the lead organizers are moms of C's friends (Micah and Eli). I was secretary for the meetings. 

The party went until 2:30 in the morning. I wasn't a big fan of this but I was in the minority opinion during the planning. The pool was booked from 10 pm until midnight, after it was closed to the general public.

First was check in at CPC. The graduates lined up. There were about 73 kids who came to the party. We checked off their name, they were asked to sign their name on a thank you card for the hosts, and they received paper wrist bands and raffle tickets.

Once we had our final count of kids, the two charter buses left. I was a bus chaperone. The bus company required two adults on each bus.

First stop was the property near Maltby. The moms and dad that were already there and preparing welcomed us with music on speakers and cheering and they videotaped us walking up the long driveway like we were a sports team. It was funny.

The kids could put away their bags and then line up for food which was Qdoba. Qdoba is Mexican food, build your own burritos. There was a caricature artist. We hired a DJ so there was dancing.

A blurry photo of kids dancing.

The DJ called names for the various raffle prizes. Some were large (an Apple watch) and some were small.  One gift was a set of towels to take to college. Prizes were donated or purchased with the ticket money. $175 was the fee for the party. This allowed us to charter the buses and pay for the food and the pool rental.

The outdoor games included corn hole, spike ball, and playing with a giant beach ball.

At 8 pm there was line dancing led by an instructor. I like line dancing because you are told what to do.  We also had some country dancing which is with a partner and quite simple and similar to square dancing. Back to more line dancing. I enjoyed watching this one girl who has been in ballet for years who danced so effortlessly. 

I forgot my jeans at home( I was wearing shorts and knew that I'd need something warmer once it got dark) so I asked A to come bring them to me. He was happy to have an errand since he was a bit bored.

Next it was time to get back on the buses and go to the Snohomish Aquatic Center.  I had never been to this facility. Lots of fun things to do there. The highlight was the Flo Rider surf simulator. I took lots of photos of the kids doing that and sent them to their parents. Here is C, first with the instructor and then alone.

There was also a water slide. C spent lots of time playing dodge ball in the water. For dry activities there was karaoke and a room in which to play board games. In the hallway was set up free popcorn and Italian sodas.

At midnight we loaded up the buses. We had to do multiple head counts since a few kids left and or changed buses. It was stressful for the main mom in charge. We went back to the property for snacks and hot chocolate.

Kids gathered around the fire pit. They recounted funny memories. 

The evening finished with a devotional from John Shorb which was a lot of good advice. Shorb (as we call him) was the Bible and drama teacher for many years. He is now the principal of the Lynnwood CPC campus.

At 230 am, kids and chaperones boarded the buses to go back to CPC.

C was planning on driving home but his contacts were bugging him so I drove. The Jeep needed gas so by the time we got home it was 3:30 am. I woke up and was able to go to church the next day even though I told everyone not to expect me.

Christopher really appreciated the party and said he had a really great time.

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Christopher's Graduation

My baby graduated from high school on Saturday June 3rd.

Early in the morning, I got my hair blown out and curled by my hairdresser. I took a selfie. 

We had some last minute scrambling. The dress pants C intended to wear were too short and the next candidate needed ironing. I did that at the last minute, even though I told him to get his clothes ready the night before. C forgot his tassel (for the cap) at home. I'm thankful that A could drive home to get it. 

We had to get there early (11 am) to line up for seating. A's graduation had assigned seating but that was a much smaller class size and it was still during Covid protocols so there weren't tons of people crammed into the sanctuary. J stood in line. Once the line started to move, we realized that the tickets we needed were with C and not with J. Luckily, a mom of one of C's friends had an extra ticket to give him. I was parking my car at the time. We got some good seats in the center section. Not super near the front but that was fine. Here we are waiting for the show to start.

I was surprised that C and B were the first to walk down the aisle. C's friend Brenden was the valedictorian and Eli was the salutatorian. B and E got to choose a friend to walk with and B chose C.

The speeches by B and E were excellent. I am proud to know these young men. One of C's friends was wearing bread shoes. Actual loaves of bread as shoes!

The graduates:

Here is the cap toss.

Afterward I tried to get as many photos as possible. There wasn't a designated photo location unlike in 2021. C was hard to nail down since he wanted to see all his friends. 

Here's an explanation of what's around C's neck. The yellow cord is for a high GPA, the blue and gold ribbon leis were for student leadership, the medal for STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) honours.  The orchid lei was bought by a friend's mom. She ordered and bought about 20 or 30 for other kids and I paid her back. The weather was perfect. This is me with the valedictorian's mom. 

We know them from soccer. C carpooled with her son B for many months this past year. Some more outdoor photos.

C and I went home to change and get ready for the big party. 

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