Cub Scout Winter Campout

Hi all, this is Sam! When Elijah joined the cub scouts at the beginning of the school year, I was probably more excited than the boys to start going on more campouts. For the winter camp, we went to the Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation and stayed at Camp Pollock, which is just outside of Lake Arrowhead. They had lots of snow prior to coming and I was a bit worried about the roads being closed, so we bought snow chains just in case. Luckily, the weather was great (although cold) and we had a blast! Joseph, Elijah, and I went while Kiley stayed home with the younger two children. I had to drive in rush hour traffic unfortunately, so the 2-hour car ride turned into over 4 hours! Luckily the kids did great in the car (we even watched half of Big Hero 6 on my phone during the ride). 

Having fun at our cabin when we first arrived on Friday evening

The cabins had four bedrooms each, with plenty of bunks to sleep lots of people! Unfortunately, after we unpacked, we were told that we were accidentally told the wrong cabin, so we had to move all our things to a separate building (but pretty much identical)

Snow!

Watching Yogi Bear and having pizza and ice cream for dinner on the first night

Morning fun in the snow!

There was non-stop hot chocolate with every meal - no better way to stay warm

Trying to make snowballs - unfortunately, the snow was too frozen. Eli was rocking the ninja look!

Joseph was pretty proud of these "snowmen" he made

After breakfast on Saturday morning, we started a rotation through lots of activities for the kids. They had archery, BB guns, a climbing wall, handicrafts, a "rage room" (where they threw tennis balls at obstacles that were set up), and a STEAM station (making bouncy balls from chemicals). Here are a few of the photos that I took throughout the day:

Excited to start off with some archery!

On to the BB guns - glad they had safety glasses to not shoot their eyes out!

Lunch time - rice and tater tots, yum! (they had better food, but this is all he wanted)

Playing Connect 4 in our down time

Finally time to rock climb - Elijah did great! Joseph decided to play in the snow and do extra crafts instead

Lining up for the rage room

This sticky mess eventually became a bouncy ball (that quickly split apart when we got home... too bad!)

Craft creating - can you tell who made which crafts?

The second evening the kids really wanted another movie, but the plan was to have skits and things after the BINGO gift exchange. Well, after the gift exchange, the kids were completely worn out, so we went back to the cabin and finished watching Big Hero 6. Lots of other cub scouts also seemed worn out, so they joined us for the fun. Look at them all crowding around the phone.

Overall, I think the campout was a big success. Way to go cub scout leaders! Next up is the Spring Campout, this time Joseph says he doesn't really want to go (since he's not too interested in the activities they have to offer, and he'd rather stay at home and have a movie night with his mom, Eden, and Noah). So it will just be me and Elijah, hopefully it's just as fun!