On Sunday, my oldest daughter, Christina,  finished her Girl Scout Gold Award.  For those of you that don't know, this is the highest award that a Girl Scout can earn.  It requires much planning, some money and 60 hours of service on the project.  I have been her GS leader since she was in the 1st grade. She is now in 11th grade.  Most people think that GS end after about 6th grade, but let me tell you after that is when the fun begins.  The opportunies for this age GS is endless.  Our troop has gone to Minnesota for the GS Jamboree. They stayed at St. Olaf College wtih GS from around the world.  Last year our troop took a trip to Tampa, FL to Busch Gardens on an Adventure camp.  That was one of the most incredible things I have ever done.  We got to shadow the zookeepers in carrying for the animals.  I got to hand feed girrafes, throw a melon in a hippo's mouth and I had lemurs all over me at one point.  The tuition for the camp is $375 for 5 days, 4 nights.  It includes lodging and all  food, 2 t-shirts and a fun day at the park.  We went through Spirit Airlines and got in the $9.00 airfare club and got round trip tickets (Detroit to Tampa) for $74.00!!  We did various fundraisers for about a year and we managed to get most of the money that way.  If anyone is interested in checking out the adventure camps here is the link: 

 http://www.seaworld.org/adventure-camps/index.htm.

 Our girls finished builidng wood sheds for camp Hawthorn Hallow for their Gold Award.  We decided to do this as everytime we go to camp and have a campfire, there is wood but it sits out in the open and is usually quite wet.  So we decided to build these sheds for other GS to have the benefit of dry wood. We built 3 sheds that are 4x4x4 feet, shingles and all.  The girls got to work with chop saws, electric drills, hammers, nails, the works.  It was quite fun watching them pound nails and getting frustrations out. The sheds didn't give us enough hours so we also built benches for a fitness trail (that the girls built for their silver award as cadettes).  We placed these benches at various locations on the trail.  Here they worked hard.  We had to dig holes 3 feet deep.  We borrowed someone's auger, but we managed to get that stuck in the clay for about 2 hours.  It was frustrating at the time, but now we laugh.  These girls are quite the builders now.

We have done a lot with our troop.  Some of my very best memories are with these girls and I will miss them very much.  We are done this year as some of our girls (and my other leader's daughter) will be graduating on to adult scouts.