Scout Lock In

Brandon and I attended the annual Scout Lock In held at the Linn County Fairgrounds in Albany. This was Brandon's second lock in, my first. Last year I was away at a model train show in Seattle, so Katrina had the honor of escorting Brandon.

We arrived at 7pm ready for an evening of the usual scout activities. Since this was a lock in, we brought our sleeping gear - air mattress, sleeping bags and pillows - all of which were stored in large refridgerator boxes during the activity portion of the evening.

This years theme was The Wild West. There were cowboys strolling the aisles, a jail, the Order of the Arrow teepee, two bounce houses, gold panning, bean bag toss games, button making, bucking barrel rides, crafts, and the usual assortment of scout activities - bb guns, archery, leather craft, knot tying, fly fishing, and other shooting games. Brandon had a blast and even tried a few new things, like riding the barrel. They also served hot dogs, chips and soda for dinner.

At 10:45 the activities closed down and everyone gathered near the stage for some musical entertainment while all the booths were taken down and packed up.

At 11:45 the partitians were opened again revealing one big empty expo hall. Everyone grabbed their bedding and found a spot in the hall. The hall was full of air mattresses, a highly prized item for an expo hall with cold concrete floors.

At midnight the movies began. They played movies all night until 6:30 when it was time to pack up and be gone by 7am. Brandon made it through most of the first movie, Brother Bear, before falling asleep. I watched all of Brother Bear and about half of the second movie, Toy Story 2 before I finally fell asleep. I woke up again as TS2 was ending and ended up watching the first half of The Apple Dumpling Gang before falling asleep again. I woke up as the final movie was starting, The Country Bears. I ended up watching the whole thing, and its not that great.

The lights came on at 6:30. Donuts, fruit and juice were being served but Brandon and I opted to just head home and go back to bed. I slept for another 2 hours. Brandon is still sleeping as I write this, 3 1/2 hours later.

Italian and Italy

I just finished lesson #9 of my online Italian classes. Whew, its a lot of work to learn a new language. I'm 'getting it' more and more each day. First I learned basic words...nouns...fairly easy to remember. Then we added the masculine/feminine into basic sentence structure. Challenging, but still ok. Then we added formal/informal to our sentence structure. Now its getting more and more challenging to remember all the variations. Its very challenging but I'm also finding it a lot of fun. It helps that I can go at my own pace and know that I am not being graded on it.

On the Italy front, new paperwork from HP and the vendor in Italy has been submitted to Olga, our immigration representative. We may get a 'work permit' answer this week or next week. I really feel like I need a final decision to be made, good or bad. If its good, then we can count on being in Italy by March 1st or so. If its bad news, then there will be a period of 'mourning' and frustration followed by 'getting on with our lives' in Corvallis.

Waiting

Since we arrived home from Colorado, the only times I have really thought about Italy have been the when others ask about it. I've been busy with other things and trying to live life as normal as possible, just trying not to be annoyed or impatient with the process.

Yesterday, as Brandon and I were getting ready for school, Brandon said "I am sad because I just don't feel like we are going to Italy." Since then I have had Italy on my mind. I agree with him. I am beginning to feel as though we might not be moving to Italy afterall. What will we do if we don't go? Where will I find work?

I am just so ready to move on and was looking forward to a bit of a life change. I just wish the Italian government officials would decided - issue the work permit or reject the work permit. At least that way, even if it is a rejection, we can go on with our lives.

BWCA Memories

I was looking at some photos on Facebook of summers long ago in Minnesota. For seven summers I worked at a youth camp in Orr, MN. Almost all of those summers were spent working in the canoeing department.

When I was in camp I taught canoeing classes. My favorite part of camp was not being at camp at all. It was taking 3-4 day canoes trips into the Boundary Waters Canoe Areas of northern MN. A great week would consist of an evening of packing for a trip, 3-4 days of canoe camping, returning in the afternoon of the 4th day and showering, doing laundry and packing up to leave again the next morning. It didn't get much better than that.

Well, when you live canoe camping that much, its bound to have some affects on you. One of my funniest, and most embarrassing, moments was a rare night spent sleeping in the college men's dorm. I slept in the bottom bunk with David Black on the top bunk. Apparently I was dreaming of a canoe trip. Specifically of portaging - carrying our canoes and equipment down a trail from lake to lake. When I got to the end of the trail I panicked because I could not get the canoe off of my shoulders to lay it down by the shoreline. I shook and shook it and tried to lift it off my shoulders. The next thing I know I am being awakened by about 14 college friends who were both concerned and laughing. I was trying to lift the top bunk off my shoulders with Dave Black in it.

Now, Dave Black was by no means a little guy. He wasn't overweight, but just a big fit guy who must have weighed 200lbs +. The bunks were old military style metal bunks. The supports for the top bunks fit into the tops of the supports of the lower bunks. I was lifting on the bed so hard that I almost disconnected the top bunk.

Well, its obvious that word of this incident spread among the staff that summer and I was reminded of it until the day in late August when we headed home.