Roughing It

This past weekend was the Scouts' District Camp, which 1st Waterloo was in charge of running this year.  This meant days and days of very little sleep for Leo in preparation for two more days of even less sleep.  It may take weeks for us to catch up, but overall I would say that the camp was a success...at the very least, I know that Noelle and Simon had a good time.  In another year, Sophie will be old enough to join - I guess I'd better get used to the idea of sleeping in a tent.  At least with the British Scouts, one can always be assured that a good cup of hot tea is always readily available!

I do love that Leo found a way to share something he enjoyed so much as a child with all of his children.  I remember talking as newlyweds about our future and having kids, and the things we hoped they'd enjoy.  With a lot of regret, we had both mutually agreed that they would NOT be involved in the American scouting movement, due to the policy of discrimination against homosexuals in the BSA and the aggressive focus on cookie sales within the Girl Scouts.  While we are both aware that there are individual troops out there that have taken a stand against these policies, we did not feel comfortable associating with the parent organizations.  This was not a big deal to me, but Scouting was a HUGE part of Leo's childhood and, for him, it was painful to have to make such a choice.
Who knew that, by the time our kids reached scouting age, we'b be living an ocean away, in a country with a hugely active scouting movement of its own and access to both the British and American scouts through the local International school. Neither the British nor the Belgian scouts discriminate based on sexuality and both are also co-ed, which meant that is would be something ALL the kids could do together.  Since our kids were already in local Belgian schools, we decided that scouts could be something for them to do in English and choose the British scouts for that reason.  How sad to think that this is something they would have missed out on if we'd stayed in the US!!