On the Road (or Air) Again

To ask what is going on in our lives, is somewhat of a boring story, unless you are us. I have been on a series of job interviews this week. I am excited about some of the possibilities, not so much about others. It is odd to think about leaving the comforts of what you know with this job and look outside the company. Many of you who read this will understand exactly what I am thinking about.

We are flying to Amarillo this afternoon. We have a family weekend planned. We will eat dinner with an Aunt and Uncle who have moved to Amarillo tonight, then Holly’s parents will pick us up in Amarillo and whisk us off to the nice flat plains of the panhandle. It is always so nice to get away and visit them. Tomorrow we have a family birthday party bash planned. We are excited to get to see all of the extended family. Sunday will be church and back to Dallas.

Next weekend we are looking forward to our annual anniversary trip. Holly and I have made it a tradition to go somewhere for our anniversary. Last year we spent a long weekend camping on Padre Island on the Texas gulf. It was a great trip. This year we have rented a cabin in the Ozark Mountains in northern Arkansas. We are heading up Saturday morning and coming back on Tuesday. Good times!

There is the update from Dallas!

Febreze Monkey? 

Am I a good friend or what?

http://www.hapaculture.com/life/kids/raishapa/mnky.html

Mission POSSIBLE, if you have the cash.

Pay it forward?

I love kids. I hope to have some soon. What is amazing about kids is their ability to infect you with off the wall viruses that you never even knew they had, all while smiling and laughing. Such is the case with Holly and I this week.

We truly enjoyed our time with our nephews, Tyler and Jared. We laughed till we hurt and played till we were tired. Up comes the sun on Tuesday, two days after our fun weekend. Holly wakes up with a sore throat. That afternoon she is running a fever and not feeling well at all. I wake up on Wednesday with a sore throat and a headache. Wednesday afternoon I get a fever and my headache is greatly debiliating. I stayed home from work yesterday with so much pain and aching in my head and chest, you can't imagine. Holly toughed it out by nursing herself through with medicine and warm liquids. We are basically useless and doped up.

Who knew you could have so much fun and pay so dearly for it just a few days later? Oh well the truth be known, we would do it all over again just to see the kiddos.

3 AM, a Boy, a Snake and Counseling

For those of us who have had the honor and privilege to serve on a Twin Arrows staff, you understand that given enough time you will experience some of the most amusing things. Pardon a few inside jokes, but I can only think of ‘cobbler’ as a perfect example. Well I honestly thought I had experienced just about anything and everything one could until I was Scoutmaster. This story is entitled “3 AM, a Boy, a Snake and Counseling”.

After two hefty days of course prep, I was already running low on sleep. Tonight was the first night with participants in camp. My tent mate and I went to bed sometime around one AM. I laid there looking up into the night sky that is wonderfully dark inside a canvas wall tent and thought ‘man that is in focus’. Yep, I forgot to take my contacts out. Couple that with the fact that I left my contact case inside the lodge, and I decided just to sleep with them in and deal with them in the morning. It was also a nice muggy night, so I asked my tent mate if he cared if I slept with my tent flap tied back. He agreed so we were all set.

Those of you who know me know that I am an astronomically light sleeper. Simple noises wake me throughout the night. So I laid there and suddenly wake up. The first thing that goes through my mind is what time is it? So I look up at my watch, hit the light and see 2:58 am. The next thought is truly odd. I think, what is that noise? It sounds like someone talking.

You know that split second when someone is trying to wake you up, and you think that you are coherent, but you aren’t? I was there. There was a whinny, youthful voice talking to me asking me if he could sleep in his tent. Sleep in his tent? Where was he sleeping, now? Then he is talking about snakes. SNAKES? That woke me up.

I then realized something. A youthful voice was talking to me and I was sleeping on top of my sleeping bag in my underwear. Those of you not current in your Boy Scouts of America policies will not know, but there is a huge push and major effort underway to comply with the very strict principles of the ‘Youth Protection’ policies. I quickly realize that a conversation with a youth at 3 AM in my BVDs is not Youth Protection compliant. I asked the young man his name and patrol. I will withhold that information for his protection, but I swear he told me his name was Jonathan Ramsey. I asked Mr. Ramsey to kindly step to the side of my tent and I would be with him shortly.

My tent mate did offer to assist me, but being 3 am, I let him sleep. This is what the Scoutmaster is paid for right?

I got dressed and started walking the young man back to his patrol site. In doing so I was told the following story in the most amazing whinny voice: “I have been awake since midnight. Each time the wind blows I hear something in the leaves. I think it is a snake so I get up with my flash light and look for it. Can I set up my personal dome tent and sleep in there tonight. I am scared. When I was at Sid Richardson for summer camp I woke up at a snake was three feet from my tent.”

It is 3am and this boy is scared of a snake crawling inside his tent, up a pallet, up a cot that is three feet off the ground to get him. Are you kidding me? He wants to set up a dome tent that is on the ground to protect him from the snake that is on the ground. I was very confused.

I now understand why some fathers go nuts. There is no rationalizing with a thirteen year old who is scared at 3 AM. So I did what any other Scoutmaster would do, I helped him set up his tent.

The next morning I went to check on the young man. He was in as good as mood as you can expect, until I informed him that he was not allowed to sleep in his tent tonight. With all the amazing transformations of Hudini, he suddenly became homesick, scared and wanted to go home. An hour and a half later of counseling about dormant snakes, irrational fears and a change of tent mates, he was convinced to stick it out.

Those of you who are not familiar with the new syllabus for Twin Arrows will be confused, but the new course has a overnight outpost hike. For that matter, the old course had one but we didn’t do it. As a part of the prep for the overnight the Scoutmaster gives a speech about emergency procedures. Do you know this young man, four nights after this event, asks me what to do if he gets bitten by a snake? It was all I could do to keep from cracking up.

There are several event of special blessing that I see in this. First, I never wear my contacts to bed, and had I not had forgot to take them out I would have been stumbling around since I left my glasses at home. Second, I rarely sleep with tent flaps open. He picked the first tent with flaps open and it just happened to be my tent. Lastly, I learned valuable lessons in counseling youth at irrational times.

And who says Boy Scouts isn’t good for instilling character?

The Lovely Couple 

Strippers and Stripers

Well my fishing for strippers didn't go so well. For that matter neither did my fishing for stripers. I did catch a few sand bass, but only one was a keeper. For the weekend, the whole family was short of catching fish. It seems they were on to us early on Friday and never really bought the whole eat the psychedelic colored fish with a hook story.

We had fun anyway. Holly and I greatly enjoy playing the fun uncle/aunt role. A three year old and a one year old will wear you out quick, that's for sure. Besides being all over the place they never seem to stop eating. Jared (the oldest) is always wanting 'toke' (Coke) or 'suse' (juice). Tyler (the youngest) sees any food in anyone's mouth he thinks it is time for him to eat as well. Besides all that, they are a fun bunch of kiddos to be around. If you don't want sleep, that is, which I desperately wanted.

I did take a nice long six hour nap on Saturday afternoon while my father and brother in law went fishing. It was a greatly needed catch up from a week of sleep deprivation. The women and children played a domino game called 'Chicken Foot'. It seems everyone had a good time.

Now it is back to the grind. Ten days with no work makes it hard to step back into that routine. The traffic this morning was gruling. It is days like this I wish I was back in Lubbock. Ok, so Scott and Laura win the traffic award every day, but I think I deserve a close second place on occasion. Ethan and I can trade it off.

Well that's the news from Justin and Holly's Urban Adventure today. I promise my 3am snake counseling story is forth coming... the anticipation builds.

As We Go Marching....

And the band begins to P-L-A-Y. You can hear them shouting, the Staff of TA's on their way.

Wow, what a week. Their are precious few things I would rather do with my Spring Break than be at Twin Arrows. It stinks that it runs through our wedding anniversary, but I really do love just being apart of TA.

The week started good. The new ranger at Sid Richardson (whom I have termed 'Captain America') actually helped us, instead of hindering us. You see this new guy is ex-military. His whole life has revolved around rules and following rules. Now he is running a Scout camp. He loves to say 'BSA policy states... and you know what the 7th point of the Scout Law is don't you?' obedient for those of you unfamiliar with the Scout Law. Besides that he is one of those people who is always backing up his points with smiles, like that really helps. I choose to appease him then scorn him when he wasn't around. Anyway I digress.

I couldn't have ordered up any better weather than what we had. The first two days were a little warm (80s) but absolutely stunning. A bright full moon made flashlights unnecessary. It then cooled off and we had perfect 70 degree days the rest of the time. TA is notorious for rain and weather shifts, I am glad to say we dodged that stigma.

I had, NO, absolutely, NO discipline problems. One kid went home for medical reasons, but other than that, I didn't have a single problem. That was a great blessing. I had a few minor staff issues, but nothing dramatic. So that was great.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that I was extremely humbled to be apart of history. It seemed all week someone was thanking me for my service, or congratulating me on my honor. Being the first Honor Scout, SPL, SM was a great source of pride for me, but I really worked hard over the past year to not let it get to my head. It is not about the honors or accolades, it is about the kids and teaching and leading them to greater successes. Others felt the need to constantly bring it up.

Scott is dead meat.

Scott showed up under the premise of just visiting my course. I was excited to see him and greatly enjoyed the hour or so we spent catching up. But as any ex-TA staffer knows, the last day isn't for the faint at heart. It wasn't long before he was out of his class A shirt and off to load chuck boxes, tents and the like. He was a work horse, and I was and am grateful.

So now I am enjoying my few hours without kids, Scouts and a wife. I tramp off to Lake Texoma this afternoon. I am excited to see the nephews and play fishing. I do apologize on the stripper comments. We all know that I wouldn't know what to do if I actually caught one, so I will just stick to striper fishing. I know that I can hand those off to Holly's dad and he will cut the head off for me!

Remind me to tell you the story entitled 'A boy, 3am, counseling and snake removal'

Day One

So Armand talks me into doing this somehow. How many times in life have I been talked into doing something by one of the boys? That is what I want to know. So here we go.

I confirmed with my lovely wife if she would like her own blog. She had to ask what a blog was. That's ok, that is why I love her. So I will teach her the ropes, and share this space. I have greatly enjoyed catching up and keeping up to date with everyone else. Good call Armand!

Update 101
Well there is a lot going on right now, I guess. In the immediate future, I leave tomorrow to be Scoutmaster of Twin Arrows troop 160. Do you realize that I started Twin Arrows with troop 127 (I think). That is a lot of courses. I am in the last minute, have I forgotten anything, phase. I am excited, but I know that it will be over quicker than I want.

Holly is stuck behind for the week working. She is going on a Scrapbook retreat this weekend. She always gets pumped about those. She is a Scrapbook-aholic. It is a good and rewarding hobby.

With the new course, I get back home late Thursday night. Friday afternoon we are leaving and going the Oklahoma side of Lake Texoma and going Stripper fishing. We are going to meet Holly's parent there. It is always fun to go fishing, especially with her parents. Her mom is a good southern mom who is all about hospitality. She always has our favorite drinks, food, etc. Her dad is a great man who has all the right tools for the job, as any farmer should. Plus Holly and I both got fishing poles for Christmas that are aching to get wet!

Well that is the short news. I will try my best to keep up to date, but keeping up with the Johnson's may be hard. Our life isn't near that exciting! Talk to you next week guys!