The Scouting Training Gauntlet

It is week 5 of a 7 week "Boy Scout Gauntlet"--Stephen is a scoutmaster for our church run troop. He really likes this assignment and it's a good fit for him and his love for camping and outdoor activities. But it keeps him very busy and that sometimes is hard to balance.

As a scoutmaster, he has monthly camp outs with his troop. 2 of the 7 weeks are out with the boys camping. THEN he is a certified rock climb instructor with the BSA and he needed to re-certify so he has 2 weekends (one of them right now) rock climbing and these are all day Friday and Saturday trips. THEN after we already had these things on the calendar, President Fisher (Allen Stake Presidency) approached Stephen and "strongly encouraged" Stephen to sign up for "Wood Badge" and intense leadership training for Boy Scout Leaders. This would take 3 additional weekends, 2 of them being "Sunday Friendly" and therefore Thursday-Saturday. It was amazing that he even had the particular weekends still open, and even more amazing that all 7 things have happened concurrently!

So he wasn't able to coach Sam's soccer team this season. He wouldn't be able to make it nearly all of the games. This was really hard on both Sam and Stephen, we're hopeful we can make it work next season!

But soccer has continued nonetheless, and Sam continues to enjoy it and really likes being a defender. This is him with one of his good little buddies on the team, his friend is great on offense and so they make a great team! So every Saturday I've braved Celebration Park as a single mom going to root my Sam and somehow corral Matthew. I'm sure I'm hilarious to watch but I'm beyond caring what people think of me. Sam likes soccer, it's important to him that we're there to cheer for him, it's part of being a family.


It hasn't been easy to have Stephen gone, it's meant a heavier load on me and Stephen isn't a fan of being away from us, most of the time he has been home he's blowing through the door and back out again or busy packing and loading up gear. We're really looking forward to November when this is all over. We're even pondering our children having their own camp out with Daddy which we know they'd enjoy. But I've been blessed--truly--we knew this was coming, we prepared for it. I have attended the temple praying for the added strength to get me through this time. And at those moments when I'm feeling overwhelmed I've been carried and blessed with the added patience, health and strength to get me through.