Sights, Sounds, Smells and Songs of SPRING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some pictures that I took of the area around our house now that all the snow is almost gone!
Of course, you can only get the sights of spring on a camra. You will just need to use your imagination for the rest!

Joke of the Week! "Huge and the Flower Shop"

Ha, Ha, Ha! Why am I laughing? I haven't even told the joke yet!

A group of humble friars started a flower shop. Business went well for them right from the start!
But their competition was not happy with it. They were selling more flowers than he had. So he went to talk to the friars to ask them to close their shop. It didn't work! He begged them. That didn't work either. He black mailed them. Still they wouldn't leave! He sued them and he lost the case.
He did everything that he could think of. Then he got an idea! He asked Hugh to go and smash up their shop!
Hugh was the biggest, meanest, roughest, toughest bad boy around.
Hugh utterly destroyed the shop and frightened the friars so much that they ran off and have never been seen again.
So it has been said to this day; 'Only Hugh can prevent florest friars'.

Guess who's lookin' up to you, Billboard!

"What did you just say?" you might be thinking, "I'm not a Billboard!"
If that's what your thinking, think again. So, what is a billboard?
I'm sure you can think of someone you look up to! I know that I can!
That person that you look up to is a "Billboard" so to speak.
But what I think we fail to see as Christians is that people are looking up to us, whether we know it or not! So we are "Billboards" to the people who look up to us.
That puts a new look on things, doesn't it? You think that there is no one looking up to you? Once again, Think twice! There is ALWAYS  someone looking up to you!

Recently I played at a piano recital. One of my favorite things to do at the piano is come up with songs. So I played a song that I had written. Big deal! I messed up a couple of times, but I didn't think much more about it. Yesterday my mom ran into the mother of one of the little girls that takes piano lessons from the same teacher I do. She was at the recital, also. This girl's mother told my mom that her daughter had been inspired by my song to go home and write a song of her own. I don't even know this girl.
It's funny how things like that work. I wasn't even going to play that song because I couldn't play it very well.  But if I hadn't played it, I wouldn't have seen God at work in my life!

Also, there is always Someone looking down on us too. That Someone is God! When you do something you should ask yourself  'Is this something I would want the people that look up to me to do?' and even better 'Is this something God would want me to do?'

Who do we look up to. Well, we should look up to God more than anyone else. But do we? Not always! Sometimes we focus so much on the Billboards that we miss the little road sign, called God's Word, which is telling us which way to go! Our focus needs to be on God more than man!

Have you ever looked at a full moon? It is amazing how it lights up the night with the light from the sun.
As Christians, we should act like the moon. When people look at us they should see God's reflection in our lives. But how often do they? Just something to think about.

Joke of the Week! "The Wonderful Thing About Feet"

What More Can I Say?

A boy asked his dad if he could use the family car!
His dad replied "Try walking some where! Why do you think God gave you two feet if you aren't going to walk anywhere?"
"That's easy," the boy replied "one for the gas and one for the break!"

Hope You Like It

Joke of the Week! "B's, Bible and Hair?"

I'm Back!
Ya know, It takes six senses to laugh at my jokes!
A sense of touch, taste, sight, hearing, smell and humor!

Here is this week's joke!
A sixteen year old wanted to get his drivers licence. When he asked his dad, his dad replied "If you study the Bible, bring your grades up to a "B" average and cut your hair you can get your licence!"
Six months later the father said to his son "Well son, I'm real proud of you. You've been studying the Bible, you brought your grades up to a "B" but you didn't cut your hair!"
"Well dad," the boy replied "in my Bible study I found that Moses, Samson, John the Baptist and maybe even Jesus all had long hair!"
The boy's father thought for a minute and then said "Did you notice they walked everywhere they went?"

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From Boy to Man: Enduring Pain

This is one of the things I've heard a lot around our home! "Tough it up, Bud!" If I stubbed my toe and got upset, you can be sure that my brother Chris, who is 8 years older than me, would tell me that! Loud and clear, too!!!!
It was annoying at the time, but after a while I learned to "Tough it up" and am learning to endure pain. I often watch my dad put wood on our wood stove. He will hold on to the log with his bare hand and put it in the fire like that! 'How can he do that?' I wondered.
I soon found out why! My dad can endure pain!
(Be sure you under stand that I am not trying to take jobs away from doctors, I know that some pain is to much to endure! I am talking about the "I stubbed my toe" kind of pain.)
After 13 years of life I found out two things that comfort me when I am in pain:
1. Pain will not last forever. I will only be in pain for so long! If I stub my toe, the pain will not last. If I brake my arm, the pain will not last! And if I end up having pain for all my life, I won't have it in heaven!
2. Jesus went through it too! He died the most painful death that a man could die! And he endured the pain! Yea, it hurt and it hurt a lot, but the Bible does not say that Jesus said "This hurts! Make it stop!" Jesus never said that! Jesus asked God in the garden to keep him from going through the pain and suffering but He also said "Your will be done!"
If it's God's will that we go through pain then let God's will be done!

I have heard a lot of boys saying "It hurts! Make it stop" about the littlest thing!
But as long as we live on earth we will always have pain! So I will say this to you and myself as I learn to endure pain: "Tough it up and be the man God made you to be!!"

Joke of the Week! "Horsey See, Horsey Do"

That thing that's forming on your face, it's a smile!

A farmer sold a horse to a friend of his. The farmers friend asked "Why are you selling this horse? You said that it pulled your wagon."
The farmer replied "It doesn't look good pulling my wagon."
So the man took the horse home.
The next day the man took the horse back to the farmer and said "Give me my money back! This horse is BLIND!!!!!"
The farmer replied "Nope, I told you that the horse was blind and you still took it! You ain't gittin' your money back!"
"You never said that the horse was blind!" the man protested.
"Oh, yes I did!" the farmer said again "I told you that it didn't look good!"

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The Best Way to Learn.......

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb."
Thomas A. Edison

I am sure that you have head the saying "Hind sight is 20/20". That is true, most of the time. You might be asking yourself "What does he mean by 'Most of the Time'".
Well, I will tell you! The best way to learn is from your mistakes, but you won't learn from your mistakes unless you are looking and willing to learn! If you aren't not looking to learn, your Hind Sight is not 20/20! For example, I was trying to put a bag of trash in our garage at night. I thought the door was open until I tried to walk in. SMACK! You guessed it! I walked into the garage door! It looked like a comedy act! At least no one was watching! But I learned two things from that: if you can't see where you are going try to feel with your hand where you are, and also, I can't walk through doors!
It would have been silly for me to get up and try to walk through the door again! But I learned from my mistake and, instead of trying to do the same thing again I opened the garage door and walked in with no problem at all!
I am sure you can think of a time when you made a mistake and learned from it. But I am also sure that you can also think of a mistake that you didn't learn from and you keep making it over and over again! I know that I sure can, because I am a sinner and a sinner sins. I can try not to but I will never stop sinning, not until I get to heaven. But I can get two things: help and forgiveness, and they both come from God. He is the only one that can help you out of the "rut" of sinfulness! Another thing that I found has a lot of " wisdom" is the book of Proverbs.
But you will only learn from you mistakes if you are willing and are looking to learn.
I have learned so much from my mistakes! I have found that the best way to remember is to write them down in a book so that I can go back and look at them!
So what is the importance of learning from our mistakes and trying again, look a Thomas Edison. He didn't give up after the first try. He made the most commonly used electrical device in the world.

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"IF" by Rudyard Kipling

One of my favorite poems is "If" by Rudyard Kipling! Their isn't much more I can say, the poem speaks for itself!

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too!
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about-don't deal in lies,
Or being hated-don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life into, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve their turn long after they are gone,
And so, hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to you "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---but not lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends ever can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
But---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Troop 777 and the 2011 Klondike Derby!

Every year the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) holds a Klondike Derby!
The Klondike is a skills competition made up of several stations which often includes the skills of First Aid, Shelter Building, Fire Building, Lashings, Orienteering, Signaling and a Sled Race! We use dog sleds to carry our equipment!
Our troop, troop 777, is not liked very much at scouting events, because we always win.
I don't mean to be prideful, but lets just say that the troops trophy shelf has gotten pretty full!

So this year we won a few things again! We got First and Second in First Aid (that's because we had two patrols), First in Shelter Building, Second in Signaling, Second in Orienteering, Second in the Sled Race and the First Overall award!!

(photos of our troop's patrols below)

Me, Paul, Caleb, Mason and Nick

 

Matt, Nate, Nick, Jeremy, Ryan and Greg

 

God Has Blessed Our Troop!