Today was a full day! Bill and I went for a nice long walk along the river. We had a great time talking and catching up on how our weeks went. We ran into our friends, Kristy and Brian, and exchanged updates on life and our kids. Our boys are classmates with theirs, Ethan and Blake. Since the pandemic has limited contact with people at school and church, we enjoyede this chance meeting.
On our way back to the car, we walked along Jennings Street so we could get a better look at this Christmas cottage. How cute it was!
After lunch it was time for the Ad Altare Dei Court of Honor.
Captain D gave a brief summary of the timeline for how the boys earned this religious emblem. We had our first meeting September 15, 2019 and had roughly 12 sessions in total In the beginning we met once or twice a month and made good progress. Starting in December, we met only once a month and in March we attended the Diocesan Catholic Scout Retreat. Shortly after that, the pandemic was declared and our sessions were paused. We had one virtual meeting in April and then everything really went on hold.
Finally, in August I suggested we try to resume and wrap up. At that point, Captain D, Karen and I reviewed all the scouts’ books and Brad began to have mobile scoutmaster conferences at each scout’s house. Following that, we had a Board of Review outdoors at the Scout House in preparation for the official Diocesan Board of Review. We were almost finished but again hit a speed bump when we tried to schedule the Court of Honor with our new pastor. We decided to ask Deacon Garrett Braun, a former Eagle Scout from our troop, to present the medals. He graciously agreed but wasn’t available until now.
Garrett had come to speak to the boys for the Holy Orders session and Mason said that was his favorite part of the whole experience. He blessed the medals and the scouts and presented those to the boys.
On a knitting front, day seven’s turquoise helps balance out the crazies of the bright mustard and that dark green.
Day eight was a lovely, soft pink. I keep throwing more color at this “canvas” and pray that the random colors balance out.
Joel has been working (or not working) on his religious emblem for SOO long! ugh. I think they actually changed the book since he started. He isn’t really “doing” scouts anymore, except helping with Eagle projects. He signed up for another year though….still hope that he might finish, sigh! I don’t think he is working on anything else. I guess he wants to be enrolled in the troop in case we are able to do his Eagle Court of Honor in 2021. (He finished right before the pandemic.)