Scout Olympics

Taylor has been the cub master in our ward for the past 3 years.  He has grown into his calling a lot and so has the program.  The first year there were 7 boys, last year 11, and this year a whopping 19.  That's a lot of little boys just ages 8-11 from just 3 streets basically.  Taylor's proud too that the troop is so fun 4 non-member boys come and learn and play with their neighbors.
For January's pack meeting, Taylor knew he wanted to do an Olympics theme.  I tried suggesting he just do summer track events but he would hear nothing of the sort and no matter how much I try to get him to plan, he just can't do it and is a great last minute kind of guy.
So at lunch time the day of pack meeting he came home to say he thought he was going to do a "Biatholon" event.  What???  In case you don't know this Olympic sport combines cross country skiing and shooting.  And I admit to having rolled my eyes at him and walked away.  Could he have picked a weirder sport and how was he going to do that INSIDE the church???
And somehow he did.  He went and bought 89 cent cookie trays from walmart and pvc pipes from home depot and declared himself ready.  I came along for the event because my group of 9 year olds was all receiving their Bear awards.
First the boys started by decorating their pvc pipe shooters with duct tape and sharpees.

Then the parents and siblings (of which there were a lot since 16 of the 19 boys were receiving their badges that night) all lined the hallways of our church.

Brother Wallis stood at the door with the timer and then the boys were off... one at a time of course.

Skiing on their cookie tins.  There's Ethan, pvc gun in hand ready to take off.

And here he goes around the corner.  Amazingly those cookie sheets worked on the carpet.  And though it was a lot of leg work for the boys, not a single one of them had anything but an ear to ear grin on their face.

Once they made it 3/4 of the way around the church, Taylor had set up a "shooting range" in one of the classrooms.  That's my broom with to-go boxes strung from it.

Each of the boys got a small paper cup with 5 marshmallows to shoot and then they told the adult how many they'd hit on the targets.

The chairs did a nice job of keeping them back far enough to shoot as well as kept them from squishing mallows into the carpet.

Isla enjoyed being a spectator and stole cups of marshmallows most of the night.

And then it was back onto their "skiis" to finish out the lap.  It was a fun night with parents getting to kind of hang out and chat and also cheer all the boys on.

Isaac decided he needed a job and voluntarily started lining up the boys "skiis" while they were inside shooting.

Taylor let all the boys go three times around and timed them each time.  The top 3 earned ribbons and Ethan was excited to come in 3rd.  And while we had our meeting we let all the other siblings try their hand at skiing and shooting so they didn't feel left out.  Some of the parents even jumped on the cookie sheets to race.

Then it was time for the real awards.  Here's our big group of 8 Wolf scouts.

And me with Ethan as he pins on my mother's bear pin.

And there's all my bears and a very camera shy Ethan as you can tell.

Ok that's better.  It was a really fun night and with treats afterwards I'd say it was a success and everyone went home very entertained and very happy.  And I promise in the future to TRY to not roll my eyes at Taylor.  He always does come through.