theflyingeagles

After our first Camp Fire meeting one of our kids wrote a list of activities for us to do as a group, including “be in a parade.” Ask and ye shall receive… on July 9 we marched in the Seafair Wallingford Kiddies Parade. We made small flags for each of the kids with their names on them and the kids colored & decorated them. Then we made an official banner which will hopefully be used for parade seasons to come!

All the flag poles started at 36″, they were pretty easy to break though and by the time the parade started Hondo only had about 6″ left. (no exaggeration). Luckily we had an extra, next time we will hold a contest where the person whose pole remains intact is the winner.

It was a lot of fun to see what the other participants put together. Pizza-Pirate? (say it in a phony Italian accent)

We walked behind the keystone cops… The Parade Marshall said to “Leave enough room that you don’t get dizzy from the exhaust fumes”. That sounds like some serious parade veteran advice.

Our cheer section!

Sweet Mahogany Drill Team

taking a brief rest after the parade route

going back to meet the parents at the park

angle of repose

At our second June meeting we introduced the kids to the Camp Fire word WoHeLo and lit our red, white & blue WoHeLo candle. WoHeLo is a combination of the first two letters of the words “Work”, “Health” and “Love” and is meant to represent the joy and worth of life. The word WoHeLo can be used as a greeting or password which the kids embraced.
Continuing with the Trail to The Environment, we got to meet Emmett & Jake’s chickens and Jake gave us a tour of the chicken coop. Afterwards we had an egg spoon race. Before finishing up we handed out patches & stickers for achievements from previous meetings and we closed with a belly-down circle time.

from left: Hondo's, Kaya's, Sydney's, & Hollis'

In June we started the Trail to The Environment. We talked about the differences between pets & wild animas and the kids made bird houses out of recycled milk cartons. And, of course, as truly modern Seattle children we had a 50/50 split representation of soy & cow’s milk… (what, no rice milk?)

For our second meeting in May we got an incredible opportunity to meet a K-9 Unit Seattle Police Officer & his dog. Officer Waldorf & his black German Shepard Hagi showed us all of their training equipment, Hagi’s special uniforms (including his own bullet-proof vest), and did a couple of demonstrations for us.

Before the officers came we had a family picnic lunch & lit our special group candle.

sharing chocolate wafers

our group candle

An unseasonably cold end of May... note Kya's tablecloth poncho.

training sleeve

trying on a muzzle

unfortunately I didn't get any shots of the action, it was so exciting that I forgot to keep photographing!

In May we talked about safety and made our first aid kits. We taught the kids about ‘The Buddy System’ to get ready for our future field trips. Some brilliant scenarios were discussed between all the children regarding possible situations where you could use the buddy system. For example, say you were lost in the forest, perhaps you could leave a note for your buddy, and walk a little further to look for help (while remaining in your buddys line of sight). We delivered the candles from the previous meeting and taught “Who lights matches?”… “An Adult. That’s right.” We finished up with another vote, our group name. It was between “Snakes & Snails” (which ironically Sydney came up with, since she is made of sugar & spice & everything nice, right?), “Bears, Bees & Butterflies” and the winner: “The Flying Eagles.”

At our second meeting we made candles in recycled jam jars. The children voted from a selection of scents (prickly pear, yuzo fruit & orange dream) and orange dream won by a hair. We played an animal guessing game which taught the kids to work as a group and finished up with our ceremonial circle time. 

Hollis' first meeting!

Off to a good start! Our first meeting was back in April, two months ago if you can believe it! We made pillows and Jake coined the term “Coolist Club” which will forever be in our club vernacular. Afterwards we finished with a game of duck-duck-goose and showed off our designs.

Emmett & Jake

Kya

Misha

Sydney

L-R: Misha, Hondo, Jake, Emmett

Amber & kids