Varsity Biathlon

We decided to do the Varsity Biathlon Camporee this year for our winter campout at Fort Buenaventura Park in Ogden Utah.  Unfortunately we only had two boys that were able to come, so, since it was in town, we decided to give the other boys something to be jealous of.  We went to the camp and set up our site, then drove to The Pie Pizzaria to have pizza.

Map of the Fort

We stopped off and saw the newly remodeled Ogden LDS Temple on our way to dinner.

The next morning we did the biathlon and had fun doing the race and shooting black powder rifles!

Oh, and for breakfast we had "Tongan Pancakes".  They were really good!

The weird thing about this time, was that it was 60 degrees for our WINTER CAMPOUT!

Hot Springs Campout

For our annual Hot Springs Campout we camped at Diamond Fork Campground, then after setting up camp we drove to the trailhead and then we hiked up the 2.5 miles to Diamond Fork Hot Springs and soaked for about an hour before the night life started coming up so we packed up and hiked back down.  People have spent quite a bit of time creating pools to soak in so you can actually sit down in it!

On the hike back down we realized that one of our boys had done everything for his hiking merit badge except for one 10 mile hike (he'd already done a 20 mile in one day hike, and four 10 mile in one day hikes), so we asked if he would like to hike back to camp and he did!  So he and a couple of us leaders hiked down to the campground and finished his 10 miles!  Then when we got to camp the others had dinner waiting and ready for us!

Scoutbook Online Unit Advancement Software

I'm always looking for a better way to keep our scouting advancements and merit badges up to date and accessible.  We've been using a spreadsheet for quite a while, but this year I started using Scoutbook. (www.scoutbook.com) I love it!

It's all available online, accessible from a computer, tablet, or smart phone.  I can invite parents and give them access to their son's progress and info so they can be up to date on what their kid has done and what he needs to do.  They can also log information for a leader to then approve when he logs into the site.

I use it to keep track of camping nights, service hours, and leadership tenure.  It's easy to keep updated and now has individual scout printout that gives all the advancement and merit badges a scout has earned in one page.

It does cost, but it has a 30 day trial.  I used it for the trial, and then paid the $ to keep using it.  I still need to get all the other adults and parents involved and converted, but it's coming.

Oh, and you can import from some of the other scouting software packages out there to make it easier to switch over!

Check it out and let me know what you think!