First Class Scout

Last night was a Court of Honor.
Son #2 received his rank advancement award to First Class.

He also received his first three merit badges ... Music, Genealogy & Fishing.
He's off to a great start!

**Note to self:  need to locate/purchase a sash for the merit badges.

Here's the one and only pic I took last night ... 

son is seated there near the flag
that's the back of his head that you see

There was another parent paparazzi someone else there standing at the back with a humungous DSLR camera so hopefully I can share/post some of her shots later.
I was planning to take more photos because the event was supposed to be held in the gym, but at the last minute the location was changed to the chapel and photography is not usually something that happens in the chapel, so I felt a little awkward (maybe that other parent did, too?).  The colors (flag) were retired at the meeting's end and refreshments were served so that means all the scouts, including son, made a bee line to the goodies.  No photo ops for me.

I am pretty excited for son to be part of this troop.  He has a great Scoutmaster and all together the boys in the troop earned 16 rank advancements and 36 merit badges this year so far.  One boy just passed his Eagle board of review a couple days ago (Court of Honor will be forthcoming for the Eagle award) and two others are close to finishing Eagle.  A group of about 10 boys and fathers went on the Alonzo Stagg hike recently, several finished the full 50 miles within the 20 hour limit. Impressive!

And one more sort-of related pic, for good measure ...

taken after a particularly long session of merit badge work
one evening ... on the Personal Management merit badge