blue and gold?

with a theme like chinese new year it was more like the red and gold banquet. i have been switching back and forth with the two cameras and when i uploaded pictures tonight i realized that i totally skipped over this part of my week. i am the webelos leader in my ward and was in charge of decorations. i realized that i am the only leader there without a cub scout now that spencer has graduated. is it just me or is pack meeting painful enough that you should only have to attend if you have a child in there? i haven't minded being the webelos leader, it's been a good calling for me because now i really understand the cub scout program and i have had some really great boys but i still hate pack meeting, it's such a waste of time! ok, negative rant over. i have this cute friend jen in my ward who just always makes me laugh and smile whenever i talk to her because she is so real and colorful. i just love her. while we were decorating for the dinner in the morning she decided that we needed a gong of some kind for the boys to ring when they earned an award. i thought it was a funny idea but where would she find something like this? a few hours later at pack meeting she showed up with a giant brass plate she found at the DI, drilled holes in, made tassels and used them to hang the "gong" from a big stick! what the hey? she also found a giant wooden spoon which the boys used to ring it! i couldn't believe it, i could never pull anything like this off! i love people like this! i didn't get a good photo of the gong, dangit, but you get the idea. speaking of awesome women, my sister in law jenny made this dragon. herself. with scissors. without a pattern. out of butcher paper! what the hey?because i wasn't blogging last year, i did not post pictures of the most fantastic hawaiian decorations she made out of butcher paper which were so great they were used at: our extended family "hawaiian" christmas party, her ward's blue and gold banquet, my ward's blue and gold banquet, another ward in my stake's b&g and a birthday party! (and i still have most of it down in the basement ready for the next hawaiian themed party that comes along.) the thing that makes them so cool is all the details she puts into them, like eye lashes and nails on the claws. i gasped when i unrolled this dragon! she always tells me that the only talent she has is making banana bread. whatever! this is the coolest thing i've ever seen and i kept getting comment after comment about it all night long. keep in mind in this picture that those are doorways underneath it to give you and idea of how big it is. the body and the head are two separate pieces, again it was the coolest thing ever! i'm hoping this will be my last pack meeting until ethan turns eight because of my new girls camp director calling. it will take a while to replace me but i'm trying not to "sit on my trunks" while i wait.

**do you hate pack meeting?

have you ever been the webelos leader?

could you make a gong in a few hours from things you found at the DI or a chinese dragon out of butcher paper?**