Aww...February means Valentine's Day!
With all my yearbook deadlines under my belt, school has became considerably easier. In Minecraft I made a new world in Survival mode, and I've gotten really far in it. The only real potholes have been the occasional homework assignment that was exceptionally hard. But the ultimate challenge for me this month was...Valentine's Day!
Of course, Valentine's Day is all about love, and that's good. But for me, that's kind of akward. Why? Because in middle school, everyone expects you to love someone and get chocolates for them or whatever. But I'm not the kind of guy who's willing to do that sort of thing at this age, for reasons I can't put into words. But luckily, I managed to avoid a situation that would've had me pathetically at a loss for words and quickly getting cold feet.
Ben and Eliza apparently didn't encounter any problems with their Valentine's Days. Eliza made some valentines by hand, and Ben found these Minecraft-themed valentines on the Internet, and he printed them out. And of course, Blake had Valentine's Day at his preschool. But the major perk was that I got to go on a Scout campout!
See, we were going to Borges Ranch. Once we got there, we went through the whole procedure of setting up our tents and whatnot. Luckily, there was a fair amout of daylight left, so we set up our tents without any darkness problems. Then Josh and Michael cooked our dinner. One really memorable event was when I pitched in. See, Josh had brought some barbecue sauce for the beef sliders he was cooking, but he forgot to bring a can opener. Luckily, I had brought my pocketknife. But since I don't use it much, the can opener had somehow broken into its closed position, and none of us could get it out. But Josh had a genius idea. He opened the blade of the knife and repeatedly poked holes in the top of the can. And you have to admit that is one way to open a can.
After that mishap, dinner got cooked. The sloppy sliders were served on hamburger buns, and I got 2 of them. After dinner we lit a campfire. First we retired some flags. Adam said he thought it was kind of sad to see the nation's flag burn. I thought showing a flag that much respect as though it were extremely valueable was like idol worship (which goes against the 10 Commandments), but Adam's dad explained that god wanted us to show respect for the flag. So I can live with that.
The second thing we did around the campfire was-you guessed it-s'mores! Brother Crow had brought s'more stuff from the Scout closet in our church, plus some variatitions. There were oversized marshmallows, chocolate graham crackers, Reese's peanut butter cups, and Hershey's cookies 'n cream chocolate bars. I got a total of 3-2 with peanut butter cups, and 1 with cookies 'n cream.
After that I decided to go off to bed because I was so tired. I was sleeping in a tent on my own this time (everyone else had their own tents). The thing about the sleeping bag I have is that it gets really cozy, so it takes willpower to get out of it in the morning.
The following morning, we woke up to a large amout of dew that had gathered on our tents. If your tent gets all wet and you leave it all packed up for too long, it'll get all moldy over time. Whenever my tent gets wet like this, I always hang it on chairs in the garage to air out when I get home. And by the time I hang up the tent, it'll only have been packed in its stuff sack for a few hours, so no mold here. But my dad knew some people who forgot to air out their tent, and they had to throw it away because of the mold. No joke!
Anyway, we had to get up a little earlier than usual so we could cook breakfast in time for the big event. You'll hear about that in a minute. Me, Solomon, and Kyle were in charge of cooking the breakfast. We had ham, bagels, and eggs. And yes, there was cream cheese to put on the bagels. But I tried a better combo. I put cream cheese on the top half of my bagel, then sandwiched some eggs and ham between the 2 halves. It actually tasted better than it sounds.
After that we packed up all our tents and stuff and headed on out. Now, I've already mentioned a big event. Well, now I'll tell you what it was. Concord was holding a big tree-planting event, and my Scout troop took part in it. It wasn't bad at first. The holes were pre-dug, so all we had to do was flatten the bottoms a bit. Then a truck came over to give us a tree to plant. We took it out of its pot, loosened up the roots a bit, and put it in the hole. Then we filled it in.
But then the torture started. There were these big piles of tan bark we had to spread out, and it was hard. But that's partially because we were all tired from the busy day. After a while, though, we got it all done.
I'd been under the impression I'd be home around noon, but we finished early and I got home at 11:00. My dad was off with Ben, and my mom was taking Eliza to ballet. So for a while I was just stuck in the backyard. But on the bright side, at least I had Lily to keep me company.
That same weekend, Eliza was supposed to visit Virginia with my dad like I did a few years ago. But the plane flight there was cancelled due to mechanical problems. So their flight had to be rescheduled. Eliza was sad about the whole thing, and my dad had to wait for several hours to book another flight for next weekend.
So...that pretty much sums up what February 2014 was like for me. I guess this isn't starting to sound very family-ish with me purely stating my own opinions, but Mom did that too.
