Thursday, October 20, 2011

Girl Scouting in Canada

I was reminiscing with Johannes this morning and he suggested I share memories of times past on my blog.

Over the years of mom-hood I have done many, many things to be able to be active in my children's lives (training for becoming a Helicopter Mom?) I've been a soccer coach, church youth leader, school volunteer, PTO Secretary and President (middle school and elementary, respectively), cub scout leader and girl scout leader, many of these at the same time. This link is to an album in my picasa for Green Mania Ottawa. In May of 2009, my girls and I drove four hours to Perth, Ontario, Canada to join up with the Canadian Girl Guides for a weekend of fun and learning.

We have so many memories. From making breakfast casseroles in a home made outdoor oven to geo-caching (I still have the portable first aid kit we located.) We made friendship bread and, even though the starter didn't survive my move, I still use the jar for my own friendship bread. We learned folklore, ate grilled cheese sandwiches cooked over a tin can, and met some of the nicest people you could ever wish to know - it's true what they say about Canadians.

Click on the pic to head to the album


During the long drive we practiced the Canadian National Anthem out of respect to our hosts and sang it proudly while they raised their flag. When Old Glory - that I bought just for that weekend - was rising on the second flagpole, our Canadian neighbours sang the Star Spangled Banner like they had been singing it for years. Well, okay there were a couple of girls who must have missed the meeting and asked why they were singing our song but it was touching none the less. I still fly this flag proudly during special days and guard it like it's gold the rest of the time. My kids and I debate over the actual name of this flag. I believe that since it originally hung over Canada it's an Ameradian flag. My gang believes it would be called a Canadican flag. The debate continues...

During the silent auction I lost, but was given by Suzanne, the official green mania hat and it hangs with my other hats in my bedroom.

I always travel with bottle of Aleve, which is available by prescription only in Canada. I ended up surrounded by leaders as I passed these pills out like a drug dealer. ("How many do you want?")

My greatest memory is also my greatest fear:

Since the Girl Guides only sell two kinds of cookies, I was asked to bring some Girl Scout cookies for the leaders to buy as well as for the silent auction. I ordered extra boxes and then stopped at the council on my way out of the country for more and tucked these safely under our pillows and sleeping bags in the back of my van. When we went through customs they asked if I had anything to declare and I told them "no". It wasn't until several miles later that I realized that the nine (yes, 9) cases of girl scout cookies should have been declared. I'm still waiting for border patrol to show up and tell me they know what I did.

3 comments:

  1. Lol ! You are too funny !... Again I love Your Blog...Well done ! I followed the link to the pictures, and loved the shots... How fun, and how sweet for a Mommy to do all these things...You are a sweetheart and I'm sure the kids would agree....:o)

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  2. You...you...you drug dealer, you! LOL

    I can see that I'm going to be spending a lot of time reading back over your blog and attempting to catch up! It's not often that I find another single mom with a herd of children! ;)

    :)
    Amy

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  3. I just caught your comment, Amy. We are pretty rare :D

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