Frost Family Faces

Charles and I got the awesome opportunity to go to NorthStar. It's a scout camp for adults that teaches outdoor leadership skills. It was at Ben Lott's ranch up in Leeds. He has a huge property. It was amazing!
I will admit I had my doubts in going. I'm a girl, I've never been to scout camp, I have to leave my kids, I have to hang out with strangers...ya know, the basic worries. No need for the doubts, from the second we got there, we had sooooooooo much fun! Basically, we got to be 14-15 year old kids again, and the people on the Northstar staff were the scout masters. It was a lot of fun acting like a kid again.
Charles and I were assigned to the Purple patrol. Now...the color designated for purple was closer to Lavender, but then we decided, as a patrol, that lilac was even closer to the true color, so we dubbed ourselves the lilac patrol.


Here are a couple of the Lilac Patrol David and Mandi. The guy in the red is actually on staff.


First thing, we had to come up with was a cheer and a yell. After much deliberation, we became the LILAC ATTACK! and then ended with a big Arrrrggggg!! It morphed into a couple of different things like LILAC!....BEEEES AAAAAAH! and then we'd run around in a panic, We're not the purple pansies, we are the lethal lilacs, and Lilac... we smell gooooood.
The Cheer ended up being: Lions and Tigers and Bears...OH MY!
Lilacs, and tulips and Pears...OH MY!
It's a fact, Lilac ATTACK...we FLY!
(and then we'd put our arms out like air planes and fly around)

We gathered for the opening flag ceremony and for staff and patrol introductions. I must say there were a lot of creative cheers and yells, but nothing as cool as the Lilac patrol...


Getting ready for introductions...



Introducing the staff...

This is just one example of how wild and crazy our staff could get.



Here's the final point of the flag ceremony. The clouds stayed until about an hour before dinner, then the sun came out (hallelujah!) and things got a little warmer. Sadly, it didn't stay that way because as soon as the sun went down, it got COLD! (well, for me anyway)

We had courses starting immediately before the flag ceremony. We had a course on flags. For the first time in my life, I raised and lowered a flag, folded a flag and participated in a flag ceremony. (Our patrol did the evening flag ceremony) I also learned that there is a difference between retiring a flag (That's where you burn the flag in a ceremony) and retrieving the flag (that's what you do in a Flag Ceremony.) Then we had the official flag ceremony with all three flags. (picture above)

After the ceremony, we had a quick course on choosing a campsite. We had a race between patrols to see who could put up a tent, take down the tent then run back to the center square first. Lilac patrol got there first, but the orange team finished zipping the bag first, so they won. GRRRR!

Then we started the course on how to sharpen knives and axes and the proper ways to handle them.
I have sharpened knives before, but they never get sharp, so it was really nice to actually learn, and then be able to sharpen my knife. My knife got sharp.


Charles is teaching and then demonstrating how to sharpen axes.

And I also learned how to sharpen an ax, something I've never done before either.

Next was fire starting. We learned "leave no trace" fire preparation. Pretty cool actually. And we indeed built a fire that left no trace. It was built using one match too! Very cool.

How many scouts does it take to start a fire? Well, in this picture...3! HA ha! And when we were done, there was no way to tell that there had been a fire there.


Next was cooking...Oh it was soooo good. The meals were so good. Susan, the quartermaster, taught us how to care and cook with dutch ovens, how to plan meals on your troop budget and how to pack. Lots of awesome ideas. She had each patrol choose a recipe (she provided the recipe and ingredients) and we each made a dessert. Oh my! They were goooooood. Or troop made turtle brownies. Then we had dinner. We had Navajo tacos. I ate way too much, but hey! we were supposed to be 14-15 year old boys again, right? Just playing my part.

After dinner, we had the closing flag ceremony, then we had skits and songs, and run-ons. All soooo funny. Then we went on the honor trail, which talks about the 12 points of the scout oath. Very cool.

Sorry the picture isn't better, but I guess it's better than nothing ;)

Then it was time to try the deserts, and then we went to bed. Those more robust (not me) stayed up for an astronomy lesson.

Here are our tents. The light blue one, almost green is ours. It's about 35 years old!


That night. I FROZE!!! And so did Charles. We weren't expecting it to be that cold, so we didn't pack enough blankets. (hmmm a scout is supposed to be prepared) I think it got down to 35-ish. Anyway, night ended (thank goodness) we did get a little sleep (not much, but I did sleep) and then it was up for opening flag ceremony and a whole new day!

Staff is trying to wake up. At the same time, they are trying to wake us up.

New day. Before breakfast we went on a nature hike and identified some plants and animals (the staff held up pictures for the animals) I learned some new plants on that trail because I was walking with a group that had a retired ranger among them and he knew a lot about the plants.

Then it was breakfast...Breakfast burritos. Oh boy! Best part is, I learned a new way to cook eggs. Crack them in a ziplock back, seal it good, then boil it! You just stick the whole bag in a pot of boiling water and 10 min. later...voila! cooked eggs!

Then we did knots. I have NEVER been good at knots and today was no exception. If I could have a week to practice one knot, then I could get it, but we learned like 4 knots and 4 lashes in about 15 min. OVERKILL!! Our patrol had to build a camp gadget using our skills. Here is how it turned out...


We called it the Lilac Rack Attack. The middle part you can use to Rotissery style cook your meat. That also doubles as a catapult. There is a place to put your pot of stew over a fire (tripod) and it also doubled as a tool holder. And then it prominently displayed our cool lilac flat. Sadly, we didn't win, although we should have. ;) I did learn a lot about how to lash. Very cool stuff.

Next was Backpacking info. We learned about the types of backpacks for long and short hikes, what to take and other fun stuff. Very informative.

Next was 1st aide. Learned a few new things, but nothing I didn't know before. We had a relay race to test our skills. My job was to treat my hypothermia by drinking warm chocolate milk that was really watery. It was nasty, and I kept spewing it all over because the people around me and my patrol kept making funny comments. Anyway, I survived that relay race and WON!! whoo hooo!

Next was navigation. I'm proud to sey I officially know how to use a compass now. It's not as hard as I thought it was. We mapped out out own orienteering course, which took us up a mountain, whereupon, we yelled out our awesome Lilac Yell to the camp. Which was received with cheers back!

Then it was time to pack up and have our closing flag ceremony. We did our Cheer (the lions and tigers and bears one) and wowed the whole camp, thank you very much. It was so much fun!

Here is cool Lilac Attack Patrol. From left to right...Eric, Mandi, Jeremy, Charles, Rachel, and David.

And here we are doing out Lilac attack...ARRRRRGGG.

It was a fun weekend, we all learned new skills and made a lot of new friends. It's something I wouldn't mind doing again.