Right now nothing. My boys will continue in Boy Scouts and my girls in Girl Scouts. I've always had it in the back of my head that my girls could join Venture if they wanted when they turn 14, but I'm helping build up a robust outdoor program within our service unit of GS so hopefully they won't have to .

I'm glad they are getting the outdoors stuff done. I still think the way BSA troops are set up make it more conducive to camp but I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses. My two troops camp as much as the girls want to camp. My own daughters would like to more often so there are two ways I'm solving that. There is an outdoor group in our Council that runs hikes and backpacking trips starting in middle school. I think that's too late to get the girls interested so I started a GS camping coop in my Service Unit that is open to Brownies and up. As long as one of their leaders/parents camps with us once/year, they are invited on as many camping trips as they want. Right now we have them scheduled about every three months. I did that after looking at my son's troop and realizing that many people make light work.

If you're anywhere near San Diego in January-March, my girls can help you with this!

The Gold Award has been around since the beginning but it's changed names several times. I think at the beginning it was the Golden Eagle, or something like that. The requirements changed a few years ago when the Journeys were introduced. I think it has to do with changing requirements and marketing. Girls can get scholarships and all of the good stuff, but they generally are a lot quieter about it. Also with the Eagle, boys hear from Cub Scouts "you'll go on to get your Eagle won't you?". But I don't think there's that expectation and subtle pressure for girls. In GS Juniors (4th & 5th graders) can earn their Bronze Awards and Cadettes (6-8th graders) can earn the Silver so there are more awards so it may get watered down a bit. I have a ds16 and another ds14 and it kills me that they haven't started their projects. DS14 has time but ds16 is almost 17 and he needs to get working. He's started a little but is so busy with school it's been put on the back burner. Which I think is sadly typical for that age.

Because you aren't buying cookies, you are supporting a Girl Scout and the cookies are a bonus. :-)

There are a few barriers to doing a lot of camping for a GS troop in my experience. We're not really set up to do it for one thing. GS troops are a lot smaller than BSA troops--one of mine has 10 girls, the other 8. I'm a leader in both and I'm the only one with the training. In my son's troop there are between 40-50 boys so a lot more parents and a lot more leaders that are trained. It's unrealistic to think that I can be gone for an entire weekend each month, or two if I'm camping with both troops. I enjoy camping and I want my girls to enjoy it too--there is a huge benefit to feeling capable of surviving and thriving outside. My dd12 is in middle school now and having single-sex outdoor time is vital for her well-being. But it's not that we don't want to take our girls camping, but we don't have the leaders/volunteers to go all of the time, unlike BSA troops tend to have.

I think in any group of volunteers you'll have thenknes that go the extra mile and the ones that put their time in. And not every group works for every kid. We have over 100 GS troops in my town, from Daisy to Ambassador. We have three troops in my daughter's grade at her school. It kills me to read that GS is full of cheesy badges and only crafts. Sure, out of the 100 troops here, probably some of them glamp and some do only crafts. But some are into robotics and some camp once/month. Most of us are working our butts off to create great programming and interesting activities for all of our girls. Very few of us do the Journeys just as they're written and I can see why a girl would leave if we did. But most of the cheesier-sounding badges have a real purpose. (The only one I truly despise is the Cadette Tree badge. It's just stupid.) I don't love everything about GS but overall it is as worthwhile a program for my girls as Boy Scouts is for my boys. We won't be changing--we already camp plenty with our troops and I feel good about our badges, training, and especially the GS camps around here.

I actually disagree with the characterization of the Gold Award being less rigorous than the Eagle. In my town a kid can put up a bench, attach "drains to the ocean" plaques on street drains, or put up a dog waste bag station and then leave and get his Eagle. The Gold has to be sustainable which requires an added layer of work and planning. We had a girl that wanted to rebuke a chirch's outdoor theater space. She was rejected for that until she found a way to make sure it will be maintained and improved upon in the future. My boys saw that and were amazed and impressed. (My boys are dragging their heels on starting their projects. Grr.) I am too. And my girls are already planning for their higher awards. But the Gold definitely takes at least as much work as a good Eagle project and gets a lot less glory.

My boys seem to be in something of a slump with Scouts. My oldest is taking 5 AP classes and has no time for anything else. DS14 started 9th grade and is a little crazy with that plus he's stuck at 1st Class until he can get a couple more hours of service. My girls are doing okay. ODD is a Cadette and is planningher Silver Award so she's moving along. Younger DD's troopnis heavily into fundraising for GS weekend at Emerald Bay in March and then San Francisco next year. Plus badges and all of that. Nothing super exciting, just plugging along with their Scout journeys. But if anyone has advice on service hours and how to help an already overwhelmed 16yo on his Eagle, I'd appreciate it.

Let me know if there is anything else I can answer. We hiked around a lot the first day and explorered a lot. I was amazed how cool it was there compared with Aqaba since it's up in the mountains. I didn't ride a camel--we actually had already done that and I didn't need to again. It looks like our trip might have been opposite from yours. We started in Israel and went to Jordan from there. And then Greece after that.

Petra Guesthouse http://www.guesthouse-petra.com/en/ContactUs/

I was in petra about 16 months ago and it was everything and more that I'd dreamed of. We stayed in a hotel right outside of the gates and it was so nice to be able to get up and go. They also made us the best lunches to take with us. Just don't drink the strawberry-banana smoothie. But the mint-lemonade is insanely good. If you are able to go, Aqaba is a nice resort town. You can see Israel from the beach there. Have a great time! It's a wonderful place to go.

I sub middle and high in two districts near me. There are about 6 districts that I can easily drive to. In the two I stick to I earn $120-140 depending how many days. In my kids' district it has to be consecutive, if not it reverts back to the lower amount. In the one I like better, the days just accumulate. In CA we have to have 30-day emergency credentials just to sub in the first place but if you want long-term it has to be full sub credentials which is essentially teaching creds. It cost me about 4 days pay to pay the fees to get started last year but I got a long-term middle school position with my first interview. They really liked me so I try to sub at that school as much as possible so they are reminded they like me.

Our district gives high school credit for Geometry taken in middle school or at least they did before they changed the math sequence. I'm pretty sure that's the only one.

I sent my kids in 8th grade for manynof the reasons people have brought up here. I wanted to give them a chance to get used to school before it mattered, to make friends before they went to the 3400 kid high school, and for sports. My 9th grader (he started today) has been practicing XC for two weeks and they have a meet this weekend. It would have been difficult to get the info on that without school. Plus they picked their classes in April, inhink, and this way he had a much higher chance of getting electives he wanted.

My kids are all back from their Scout Camps. Well, my 16yo isn't going because he has to work. But the 14yo went backpacking through the Sierras for his camp. They worked on several badges while at camp in the evenings. He now needs only 4 more service hours to get to Star. My girls both went to GS camps. 11yo dd did one called Camp: The Movie and made a movie about the ants that were all over their cabin. It's pretty funny and on youtube if you so desire. 9yo went to a week of day camp about 45 minutes from our house, so I "got" to drive her both directions each day. We were going to carpool with another girl in her troop but that didn't work out. She likes camp for 4 days but the last day is just too much and she had something of a fit when I tried to drop her off. Eventually she was willing to stay and had a great last day. The most interesting thing we did this summer for GS didn't have anything to do with formal camps. Girl Scouts are known for cookies but at least party because of how our troops are structured (small troops with only a couple of leaders) it's hard to go camping a lot. I have two troops but I can't take them each camping each month and be gone from my family that much. So I decided to look at our Service Unit (all of the troops in our city) as a Boy Scout troop with all of the adults and more kids and see if I could get something of a coop organized with the girls and leaders from the SU. We had a couple of meetings in June to organize the group and one to get the girls to meet each other and planned our first camping trip in July. And then we did it. We had 7 girls from 2nd year Brownies to 2nd year Cadettes. (Two of them were mine.) We went on a hike, geocached, worked on knife safety, and hung out getting eaten by bugs. It was great! The girls got along well, no one got seriously ill, and everyone was willing to eat at least one thing at each meal. We're presenting it at our next SU meeting to try to get more girls and adults interested. We have a camp out planned about every other month for the next year. I'm hopeful that it'll work out and keep going for a long time.

I'm a GS troop leader for two troops. One of them sells a lot of cookies and nuts and has a very healthy balance. In that troop there are no dues, parents pay for half of each activity (if it costs) and for the uniforms. The troop pays for everything else. They have a huge balance partly because the troop doesn't do many field trips or activities. The other we charge $45 dues/year and half of each activity. They sell hardly any cookies/nuts so there's usually only $100 or so at the end of the school year. The parents pay registration costs ($25/girl this year) and uniforms. This troop does a lot of outside activities. I try to organize free activities as much as possible. We are fundraising to go to Catalina Island this year. With the exception of the parent of our special-needs girl, we don't encourage parents to stay but we do ask that one is registered so they can help at cookie booths. If they want to do a buy out we have that option for $130 (the average amount we got from cookies last year). At first glance the money sounds like a lot but I think my biggest problem would be with all of the parents required to be at each meeting.

My oldest is kind of stuck--he has one more Eagle MB to go but we have to trek to a historic site and we just haven't had time lately and probably won't until the summer. We also want/need him to get thinking about a project which I'm sure in his mind he's doing but I have yet to see any evidence of said thinking. I'm walking that thin line between being annoying and helpful. Mostly though I just fall over to the annoying side I think. Unfortunately he also has track practice and Academic League the same night/time as Scouts so he's just losing motivation because he's not able to go to meetings. My younger ds needs one more mb to get Life and he's doing the work but then we have the hardest time getting anyone to email him back about being his Counselor. He does have time though but I'd like him to get moving a little faster than his brother. Older dd is chugging along with her GS troop. She's in 6th grade where GS feels more embarrassing than fun. Luckily her troop is still together, they haven't lost anyone this year and they made a ton of money on cookies. Knowing they can do almost anything they want definitely helps keep her motivated to stay in. So does being silly and making this meetings low-key and relaxed. Younger dd's troop doesn't make nearly as much on cookies by about half which is sad. They are still Brownies so they have the cuteness factor still but it's going to wear off soon. They have some camping trips planned and a whirlwind of badge earning through the spring, so I'm anticipating they'll have a lot of fun. She doesn't actually love being a Scout unless she's actually at the meetings/activities but has pledged to stay in until she's 14 and can go visit the pandas in China with the GS Destination program. She just needs to earn $3400 plus airfare to go. But hey, whatever it takes.

I'm a GS leader. We use a secret fb group and Shutterfly. Shutterfly sends everything to people's emails. I figure that two methods of communication is reasonable. I just copy/paste the messages from fb to the Shutterfly email address. I wouldn't require anyone to have fb but for some of the parents, that works best. Plus I get to see who has seen a particular message so they can't tell me they didn't get it. I figure that by doing those two methods I'm fulfilling my duties to get info out to everyone. If that's not enough (and it always has been) they'll have to figure it out for themselves. I try not to text except for emergencies.

Thanks, I'm trying. I don't want to bug them with too many texts/calls but I do want them to know how much they are loved. We're praying for them and I know that's no nothing, but it's hard when I want to just rush in and do something.

I like that idea. I think I'll talk with my other siblings about that. That's something concrete that I can do that would probably be very helpful.

Mostly my comment about her family being closer is that I don't know about taking them out of somewhere comfortable to someplace they've never really spent time. My brother and I are close but they don't come visit often--we usually visit them at their house. It's just how things have turned out. I haven't talked to my brother since Tuesday and it was a wide-ranging conversation, from the babies to the race we're running together next month. So I'm trying to keep it somewhat normal while still being supportive. I don't think I've said anything about how horrible things are--I've tried to be very careful with my language. Thank you for the reminder though.

Very few boys here in LDS Troops are in OA but that's mostly because the majority of OA activities are on Sundays and we don't camp or do Scout activities on Sunday. That doesn't concern me too much--my oldest is in OA and my younger son isn't. Both are fine and have a great time doing their Scout-y things. We do run our troops differently and for a different purpose. I wish the Church would do away with the Scouting program as their YM's program altogether--we only use it in the US but that's a different discussion. I don't understand when you said that they don't allow boys to move to community troops. I didn't ask and the only feedback I got was, "I hope it works out and if he ever wants to do stuff with this troop he is more than welcome." So he has. I do think the not camping or doing anything on Sundays makes community troops difficult for most LDS members to figure out. It just doesn't work for most members to have a son in a community troop. I'm a little different in that my dh left the Church years ago and Sunday stuff is negotiable in our family. I can say that my son who is still in the LDS troop is very happy there, camps, wears a uniform, works hard on badges, and will work hard to achieve Eagle. I'm proud of both of my boys and thrilled that they are able to be in a program that works for both of them in different ways. And I'm thankful for all of the leaders that have done so much for both of them. And I promise that we do our bit for fundraising in both troops. And in my daughters troops. And we pay our dues and I still end up paying out of pocket for some activities. But I try to keep that to the minimum. But after reading this thread, I am going to attempt to plan my next year of GS earlier so the parents have a better idea of what money might be due when. It's not easy since we don't actually know how much the encampments will be, but I can estimate based on the last few years fees. That will be good for everyone.

So I have a son in an LDS troop and one that I moved to a community troop so I have seen both sides of Scouting and while that may be what you have seen, a lot of it isn't Church-wide. LDS Troops & Packs are allowed to do one fundraiser a year--usually the money goes to pay for the boys to go to summer camp. Eleven-year-olds can go on three campouts/year. Cubs can go on family campouts. Obviously each troop and pack will vary (just like they do in community troops & packs) as far as activity goes. My boys camped monthly in both types of troops. It does change when they turn 14 and start doing Varsity, but I can say having a son in the Venture Crew it changed there too. Last year my oldest went to Philmont with the LDS troop that he left for the community troop. My younger son is planning to go in a few years. We also pay for all of their uniforms and books. The Church does not. We may hand down shirts and stuff like that, but I don't think that's unheard of. I know the reputation of LDS troops--believe me. I get to hear about it when I take my older son to his meetings. But I think that to generalize that to every LDS troop and pack is unfair. On the whole though, as a Girl Scout leader and Boy Scout Committee member, and a mom, I totally agree with you on fundraising. I'm sitting here looking at the last few cookies we have to sell, knowing that my youngest is carrying her troop and the parents are going to balk at the fees I'm about to tell them for new uniforms, an encampment, and a trip to a pottery studio.

Thank you for everything suggested and the stories. I really appreciate it. I called my brother just to say hi and I'm here for them--he wasn't able to talk and I would imagine will call back in the next few days. He and his wife were dealing with everything and just needed some space. I sent flowers today, or at least ordered them. They will be delivered tomorrow. They will be doing a lot of testing in the months to come. They found the spins bifida last week at her 20 week ultrasound and when they did further testing saw markers that indicated Downs. She will have an MRI tomorrow to get more answers about where in the spine it is. I would assume and hope they'll have more understanding of both twins issues. It's odd, my SIL is 34 I think and knows more about prenatal health than just about anyone I know. They are very lucky--they live in a major city in the western US and she is a pediatric nurse practitioner (with a doctorate in treating CF) at the main children's hospital in their city. Her mom is also a NP but in my state. I'm sure she'll go up to be with them. They are well covered as far as medical care goes, both before and after. I would love to have their older kids here for a bit but they are closer to their Mom's family and their aunt is also a pediatric nurse in their city. (My family are teachers, hers are nurses!) I am creating care kits to send up to them and leave with them in April. Once the shock wears off I'm hoping to talk more with them and see what they need/want so I'm not just forcing stuff on them because I'm so far away and can't be there. Thanks again. I really do appreciate it.