Last week, Ryan and I went to the Orange County Scout Camp at Lost Valley.� A Google satellite picture of the Schoepe Scout Reservation at Lost Valley – Grace side.� We had 34 boys from our Stake go to camp, which had a special LDS week.�We had Elder Dalton speak to the young men for Sacrament meeting and we had 800 boys from 16 stakes attend.� The LDS week had some extra events going on during camp.� Some of the�stakes created patches for the week and when the boys went to camp, they were able to�trade the patches.� There were also 16 trading cards that talked about Duty to God and the Methods of Scouting.� The boys all started with 16 of the same card and during the week, they were to meet other boys and try to collect a whole set of cards.� When they did, they received a souvenir coin for the week.� The boys could also receive a Duty to God patch for doing�7 items at camp that were requirements for Duty to God.� Our Stake Scout Chaplain had to leave camp early for work, and I was able to talk with boys about “Being Prepared with a Purpose”.��

The camp site is very large and the camp is divided into two sections, Grace and Irvine.� We camped in the Grace side, fairly close to the Grace pool.� The normal camp attendance is 500-600 boys.� Since we had 800 boys for LDS week, the camp had two dinning shifts for breakfast and dinner.� On Wednesday night, some members of the Mormon Battalion came by to show the boys what it was like to march and eat with the Battalion and at night they talked about what life was like for the Battalion.� On Friday, they had “For Strength of the Youth” games.� They had 16 different events for a stake to participate in and our Stake came in 2nd place.� Our stake hosted a catapult / trebuchet tournament were teams of 3-6 boys were to build a catapult, fire tennis balls, and tear down the catapult.� It was interesting to see that a lot of the boys need to practice their knots.

Here is Ryan waiting for Priesthood meeting to start.� Priesthood meeting was taught by Bishops from the stake and a member of the Stake Presidency.

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Here is the entrance to our camp.� We had almost 40 bikes parked.� At night you had to have a flash light so you did not trip over a bike.� Ryan had his three wheeler bike parked next to his tent.

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Here the boys have their stake camp shirts on.� Since we are in the Orange Stake, we have orange shirts.� The boys are playing baseball with a tennis ball in the camp site.

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Ryan and I are practicing to be solders in the Mormon Battalion.� Ryan is on the far left as the drummer.� I am second from the right in the orange shirt.�� They did not have enough muskets for everyone, so I had a shovel.

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Ryan received the Cupeno Pa’ Axwe (Honored Camper) Award for showing the true spirit of scouting for our campsite.

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Here is Ryan and Dillon, his tent mate, in front of their tent on the last day of camp.� The picture is dark because this was taken at 6am.� Some of the leaders and all of the boys were ready to leave camp and they got up at 5:30am to start packing.

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After I posted the pictures from Esther’s Birthday party at Goofy’s Kitchen, I wanted to talk about our experience there.  Becky wanted to take the boy’s to a character dinner, but it is very expensive to do that with our family.  So we ate the the least expensive time, breakfast.  After checking in, we sat down at our table, were told it was a buffet, and we were off to choose our breakfast.  They have everything you could want for breakfast available, as well as a lot of other deserts like cookies, gummy worms, pudding, etc. 

The first characters that came by were Chip and Dale.  They were very nice and came up slowly when they saw Esther.  We went to a character meal with Ryan when he was young, and he cried when ever a very large character came by.  But Esther did not cry at all, which was a very different experience than with Ryan.  After we ate breakfast, we let Esther open up some of her presents. 

 One of her presents was a small Little Mermaid doll that you could dress up.  To get the clothes on the doll, you had to struggle because they were made of plastic and they were very hard to stretch around the doll’s hands.  The cloths were so hard to get on, that by the time I had an outfit on, Esther was ready to have me put a different outfit on the doll.  During this time, Alice from Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter came by to say hi.  Alice was very interested in the Little Mermaid doll, and she spent a whole lot of time trying to get the cloths on the doll.  She was having just as much of a hard time as I was.  After a while it was getting to be funny that the two characters were talking and dressing the doll more than Esther was.

While they were playing with the doll, Ryan went out and picked up a cup of Gummy worms and was eating them.  The Mad Hatter saw this and he went over to Ryan’s place at the table.  He picked up a marker and wrote on the paper table cloth in front of Ryan “Eats Worms”.  It was very funny.

There was a lot of good food and being there at 8 am in the morning was great because we did not have a lot of people around us.  By the time we left at 9 am, almost every table in the area was filled and you had to wait to get your food.
 

We had Disneyland passport passes.  Here are some pictures of our family at Disneyland.

James and Russell at the Jellyfish ride at Disney’s California Adventure. June 2005.

All of the Hunters on Flick’s ride at California Adventure.  Russell, Esther, Keith, James, Ryan, and Becky.  June 2005.

Esther’s Birthday at Goofy’s Kitchen with Chip. January 23, 2006.

Esther, Keith, Max, and James on Esther’s Birthday.

At the Disneyland Hotel on Esther’s Birthday. Ryan, James, Keith, Russell, Esther, and Andrea (our exchange student from Italy).

Here is a post with a family picture.

This is the start of the Russell Hunter Family blog.  I will be posting notes and pictures as they are available.

Russell