Our weekend as Cub Scouts

Our friends, Bobby, Sarndra, and Ethan, invited us to go camping with Ethan's cub scout pack at Wente Scout Reservation in Willits, California during the Labor Day long weekend. The children had so much fun, trying many outdoor activities for the first time.

It was about a 4-hour drive North from San Francisco. The reservation was quite secluded. We had to drive a few miles along a dirt road and around the lake. We camped in the woods near the beautiful lake.


Charlotte's favorite new activity was horseback riding. As she has previously been very afraid of animals, we were not sure whether she would enjoy it and cautiously signed her up for one lesson. She loved it so much, and cried when she thought the second lesson was full. A bit of determination on her mother's part found her another spot, and she thoroughly enjoyed the second lesson as well.

Here is Charlotte walking the horse during her first lesson.

Alexander was too young to take a lesson. I was concerned that he would be bored waiting for his sister, as I wanted to stay close to the corral during her lessons. I needn't have worried. He sat so still both days, just watching the horses. I think he was looking forward to riding them in the future, although not quite ready yet. He was happy just to watch.

Here Charlotte is learning to control her horse, making it turn, stop, and walk backwards. She had a chance to let it trot, which startled her a bit, but she did not get scared.

Here Charlotte is leading her horse to water after the lesson. She looks like this is something she does each day. As her mother, it was heartwarming for me to see her so comfortable with a large animal.

Alexander's favorite new activity was archery. A couple of the older boy scouts gave them some lessons with the bows and arrows, and then both Charlotte and Alexander spent hours at the archery range.













After a while, I tried to get them to take a break from the archery to go swimming. The response was, "we can go swimming in San Francisco, but we can't do archery there." So we spent more time doing archery.

Here is Alexander with one of his shots that hit the hay bale. He did hit the target several times, getting in the blue and red circles. Charlotte won two beads for hitting the yellow bull's-eye.

We did find time to enjoy the lake as well. Charlotte enjoyed swimming from one dock to the next. Alexander stayed in the shallowest water, but still had much fun.

Here he is "swimmming" in water that is so shallow that his hands and knees are touching the lake bottom.

Sarndra took some of the older children boating as well. Here they are in a canoe. In this video they are all working together to paddle the canoe, but in most of my footage Sarndra is doing all the work while the children enjoy the ride!

The tooth fairy made a tent visit after Charlotte lost a tooth at camp!

There were many tears when it was time to leave, but smiles remain as we remember the fun times we had.