Maroon Bells, CO

 September 18 - 20, 2015

One last amazingly beautiful camping trip of the summer!  We headed up towards Aspen to take in nature's fireworks!  Wow!  The leaves were at their peak!  We spent the first night at Mollie B, a sweet little campground near a lake.  A nice crisp night and we woke up to ice and frost covering everything outside of the tent!  Brrr!  28 degrees!  The funniest part was when Jadeyn set his hot chocolate mug on the metal table and whoosh!  It slid all the way off the table! There was so much ice that nothing would stay on the table until the sun came out!
 
Off to the Maroon Bells.  Again, we were blown away by the color of the leaves and a light dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains accenting the rocks made for a beautiful picture!!  We have decided to stop and talk to any park ranger we come across because you never know how much you can learn.  There was a park ranger discussing insects and plants.  She pointed out so many of the different ways that little insects can find branches and leaves to make their homes.  All these little abnormalities we have seen are their little homes.  Pretty cool.  The hike was pretty awesome with a destination of an amazing view, and then a lot of rock chucking into the lake!
We decided to take a 4x4 road to find a campsite.  Taking the Jeep onto the dirt was pretty fun, not quite like the RZR of course, but we bumped and bounced into the valley.  We found a nice place in the trees and again enjoyed a nice evening in beautiful nature.  While we set up camp, Jadeyn entertained himself by chucking rocks into a creekbed and seeing how many he could shatter! 28 degrees again last night. Jadeyn was pretty excited to have earned 2 "frost points" for Cub Scouts! Great weekend!!
 

A New Cub Scout

Jadeyn started Cub Scouts at the end of the summer.  I can't think of anything more perfect or more right up his alley!  It fits everything he is the most passionate about: taking care of nature, adventures out in the wilderness, building things and following rules!!  He LOVES it!!!!

His first introduction was to join the water cannon blaster night!  The boys got to build their own rockets out of 2 liter bottles and decorate them with paper and tape.  Then they mounted them on the launch pad, pumped the air into them and then let 'em fly!!  So much fun!  Jadeyn's paper wings shredded and fell down on us like confetti! 

His second activity was the Bike Rodeo where they learned about bike safety and maintenance and then got to participate in different obstacles and skills at each station.  Jadeyn's Wolf pack is huge!!  There are at least 22 boys!  Wow!  His buddy Finn has decided to join as well!


Family Campfire night. All the Wolves and their families gathered around a campfire at Union Reservoir in Longmont to enjoy the boys performing skits and the roasting s'mores!

Popcorn Fundraiser.  The boys only have one fundraiser for the year and it is selling yummy popcorn!  Jadeyn was so excited to reach his goal and set right out selling away.  It was excellent for him to get past his shyness and really talk with people.  Everyone was so nice and he did really well!

Every few nights we have been working in his scout book and marking off the acheivements as he reaches them. 
He was so excited to be able to report all his hiking and camping trips too!  Last weekend when we camped near Aspen, he even earned two Front Points for camping when the temperature reached below freezing!

 We even took him out to target practice with Kevin's old BB gun.  He was a pretty excellent shot!