Week 3 Summer 2009 ~ When WORK is Adventure -

Okay, so it’s not a great hike in the outdoors or a wildlife refuge but the Week 3 adventure with my children ended up being Work projects. That’s right. What one of my twin 11year olds said to me during one of the work projects got me to realize that work can count as an adventure and has to this third week of summer as we just didn’t get to do the original adventure we had planned (going to the fountains).
My garage has been bugging me for a while and so one day during week 3 of summer I just could not stand it anymore and I began taking everything out of one half of the garage. What started it is, we could not find a certain pair of boots for one of my children. So, I dumped out all of the boxes where the boots are stored in the garage to search for them and one thing led to another.
Then as I looked at our garage walls I realized they looked terrible and had spider webs all over them and the walls had never really been painted. So I thought, one way to clean walls of cobwebs is to paint them.
So, paint we did.
All three of my three youngest boys helped me.
First, though, we took everything out of the garage. Some things I am guessing had not been moved, and I am embarrassed to admit this, for 20 years. As long as we have lived here.
Paint cans and tarps and shoes and sports gear and tools and sleeping bags and old roller blades and broken toys and and and. The garage becomes a storing ground for a lot of things.
After the prep work we got out the paint brushes and whatever paint I have had the past 20 years and we got to work. My three boys, 11, 11, and 6, were so enthusiastic to paint. That creative impulse perhaps.
They each took a certain section and we tried to keep it from getting too messy but because it was the garage I was not as worried as you are in the house.

When we got one wall completed, we took a break for lunch and Mickael Josef, one of the twins, said to me, “This is so much fun” and that is what made me think of work as an adventure. I have heard of the saying, "work as prayer" and in a way this is the same idea.

Looking at work as adventure - the kids were doing something new and different and somewhat creative and maybe most importantly, together with me. All qualities of an adventure. And, a bonuse of course- learning a skill and feeling good about being important in the family to help with work.
It wasn’t outdoors as my goal for outdoor adventures was, but it was something new, painting.
Yet, as I think of Week 3 of summer, there was another work project my kids were involved with and this one was outdoors- my 17 year old’s Eagle project which all of the boys were part of. Three of my four boys are Boy Scouts and they all helped Ryan with his Eagle project. The Eagle project was to build a new trail off Pimlico Court. The goal for Ryan was to put in 600 feet of trail and they got so much done that first day last Friday that they ended up putting in 1000 feet of trail, making it all the way to the bridge. Which the City of West Linn had hoped for!
It was great fun to see my boys working so hard with a shovel in their hands and a pick ax and the camaraderie amongst the boys and adults helping in the hot summer air.
You could just see and feel the reward of work.Indeed, the adventure of work!

Boy Scouts Cross-Over Event - Here come the boys. . .

My husband and I went with our older son Ryan and two very excited fifth grade twin sons, on a weekend adventure called crossover weekend with West Linn Boy Scout Troop 149 to the Crooked River.

The twins were just so thrilled about this weekend as they start their years in scouts. They were so excited to be here and it may be one of Ryan’s last campouts with the Scouts. This was my first, though I wish I had gone before. Life in a larger family with younger children.

When we arrived that Friday night, it was pitch black and as we stepped out of our Astro Van, the twins immediately gazed up and noticed the stars.

“Oh, look at the stars,” Wesley said.

“I see the big dipper,” Mickaeljosef added.

Back to nature. And simple joys and the beauty of the outdoors. It felt so good to be there with them.

They were setting up tents by flashlights at about midnight and waiting in line to use the one portapotty for 65 people – this was no holiday inn vacation, trust me.

The fire light was glowing and the boys still full of energy.
I finally crawled in my tent about 1 am to the symphony of a snore fest. Okay, where were those earplugs.

After waking up [or did I ever sleep] on Saturday morning, it was amazing to see the beauty of the Crooked River along the high banks and the surroundings. Adult Scout leaders were flipping pancakes and simmering sausage. Boys were whittling by the fire and throwing stones into the river.

The weekend would be about nature. Flowing river. Dust. Great food. Enthusiastic boys. And no neon lights or computers or electronics. I loved that about it.
The crossover weekend is a tradition to initiate boys into true Scout hood. Up until now it has been Cubscouts and webelos.

I’m the mom here but the boys are on their own. At the beginning of the weekend, Wesley thought I was going to give him a hug and he quickly said, “no hugs mom.” And he is my hugging kid.

Another time during that first day, Mickaeljosef was stretching his hand back and forth after he and some boys had been wrestling on the banks of the river. I asked him if he was okay and he said, “I’m fine mom.”

The camping trip planners kept everyone busy on this weekend. New scout parents had to set up a tent that was missing parts we found out later. New scouts were going through various stations learning skills like whittling and building a fire. Earning badges. And learning life skills.

Seasoned scouts went away for a special project – to build a symbolic bridge for new scouts to cross over. I joined them to watch. Again, amazing what these boys can do, designing from scratch a bridge using only sticks and ropes. I finally figured out what lashing was.

As I watched these boys, I thought how glad I was that I came and that my boys love this, the outdoors. Nature. I wish every boy could come on an outdoor trip like this. No electricity, no I-pod, no high tech life.

After lunch, the new scouts and parents went on a five mile hike- two and a half up hill to the reach Chimney Rock. We all waited for one another along the way. No scout got left behind.

In the evening, all the groups were commissioned to write a skit of some sort, including the new parents, which we later performed in front of everyone at the evening campfire. The seasoned scouts used ketchup and mustard and other food items to simulate an operation. In true scout fashion. Our skit was a spoof on the tent we had to build. I was Diane Sawyer investigating the Scout master’s plot to forget parts to tents on purpose. You had to be there to get it.

Then the desserts, cooked over fire filled our tummies – peach cobbler, berry cobbler, chocolate cake never tasted so good.

The evening was capped off with the ceremony of walking along the candle lit path to the river where the crossover bridge was located.

Each parent there with their sons crossed together and it was total silence. The only time during the weekend that it was quiet.

Sunday was pretty much a packing day before chapel along the river and caravanning home, with a stop at a DQ along the way.

I thought I would have tired boys in the car. Instead, the twins, with a friend sandwiched between them, played their Nintendo DS’s.

Back to high tech city life and neon lights.

But the weekend was not forgotten. When the twins got home in the early evening on Sunday after we picked up their 6 year old brother Augustin, they got their Scout books out and began planning for next month’s campout and what badges they were going to earn between now and then.