Life as a Brandtito

               Heaven enjoyed her first "Juniors Only" Girl Scout even this weekend. The Pensacola Mess Hall sponsored a Crime Scene Investigation event for the older Scouts on Friday evening. We've been wanting to check out The Mess Hall for the last year or so, but it was one of those things that kept falling off our weekend to do list. Basically it's a hand's on Science Center where kids get to do "fun" (aka messy) experiments and the staff on hand tries to imprint the various scientific reasons for said messy experiments into the young minds. Microscope Lab                As the event was "CSI" themed the girls did various detective type centers. They had a finger printing lab, where the girls studied their own unique finger print techniques, they had a microscope lab where they tried to match up various items under a microscope, they had...

Take a good look, this is the last photo of Heaven Brandt as a Brownie Girl Scout!! As of this evening, she is an official JUNIOR Girl Scout!! The older girls took part in the "Bridging" ceremony  at this weeks meeting and once again we are a split troop.  The girls are just fine with that, and both our Juniors and Brownies are eager to get started on earning some badges for this year! The troop's first "Camp Out" is next Friday & they are also tentatively planning a weekend get away this year.  And of course.. .there are always the cookies ... Heaven getting "sashed" Troop 418 Junior Scouts Heaven showing her Bridging certifcate The bunch!

          In my blogging absence. We've spent a lot of time pedaling cookies. The infamous, Girl Scout Cookies of course.  I think the girls ended up selling about 150ish boxes or so total this year, not too shabby. Plus we worked cookie booths on the weekend and racked in a good bit of cookies for our troop. Of course we did need a few boxes for home as well.....which basically means one of each kind. Except the plain ones. Who eats the plain ones??           The girls also had World Thinking Day. This year their country was Germany. Our booth had "Real Authentic Root beer" AKA Mug Root beer & German Chocolate Cake....both of which, I'm pretty sure aren't German...but kids don't eat Sauerkraut & Bratwurst (also, they're too young for real beer). Turns out, Kids don't really eat foreign food...or at least the Mini Brandt's don't. Most of the other booths had gone with a sim...

I adore the Sanger Yes....Annabelle is wearing fur. This weekend myself, one of my beautiful sisters and the lady Brandts went to see The Nutcracker at the Sanger. It is gorgeous, and I'm hopeful that with enough forcing in time the girls will gain my appreciation and love for it. For now, however, they just enjoy the chance to get fancy. I was a little nervous the girls wouldn't be able to last thru the entire performance, but they did great! Heaven especially enjoyed it. One of their fellow Girl Scouts was an angel in the production, which they were especially impressed with. We sat with some of the Brownie memebers in the audience. Next time however, I will definitely read The Nutcracker before we go as it has been years since I've heard the story. There were parts in the second half that I had to stretch to explain to the girls. I need to brush up on my interpretive dance. Lovely Ladies Me and my Beautiful Sis Mikey We finished off the night ...

Here are are a few videos from the GS Bridging Ceremony. Pledge (I'm not entirely sure why I recorded this)         I missed the first girls "bridging" due to a phone mishap, but it starts with the first girl saying "Girl Scouts are..." and then each girl following gives an example of a  Girl Scout characteristic.

 They entered as Brownies...and left...well, still as Brownies. Tonight the girls had their first Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony. Of course I stayed (much to their displeasure..COOL PARENT!!) so I could embarrassingly photograph & video the goods. Heaven is now an official second year Brownie & Annabelle is an official first year Brownie. Technically Annabelle should have been a Daisy last year, but since we joined in the second half of the year, her leader (her fantastic, amazing and wonderful leader) said it was kind of pointless to buy a slew of Daisy stuff and allowed her to go ahead and sport Brownie Gear. Now it's official and we've got lots of new badges to sew !!  (and by that I mean glue on with Fabric Glue of course).   Heaven reciving her badges earned thus far (Not sure what's going on with that kid in the corner but it looks no bueno)       

Tonight the girls Girl Scout took went on  field trip to Petland...aka Heaven on Earth. Any time I am having a bad day, or feeling REALLY stressed out, I head over to Petland to calm my nerves. They pretty much force puppies upon you when you walk in the door. There are little gated off areas that you can take these precious fur-balls into and just play with them until your heart is content (or until they remind you 10 times they're closing soon). It is impossible to leave Petland in a bad mood. Needless to say I LOVE Petland, and had to tag along. Ever the "cool" parent, I hung back and let the girls do their thing (more puppy time for me). The girls got to hold, puppies, kittens, bunnies and even pet a snake. They are working on their "pet" badges currently and listened to animal facts from the Petland staff. Did you know Rabbit's do not sweat? They do not have sweat glands & use their ears to regulate their body temperature. AB informed me of this fac...

Happy Cinco De Mayo! Tonight us ladies headed to the Mother Daughter Fiesta sponsored by a fellow Girl Scout troop. We donned our most impressive Fiesta gear and off we went. We had a taco dinner, made crafts and even did a little salsa dancing. As far as Fiesta's go...I'd say it was a hit!  Do cupcakes belong at a fiesta....absolutely!  Salsa!  Showing off her flower Annabelle's headpiece

Loaded down for their camp out The girls had their first Girl Scout camp out this weekend! They camped at their camp leaders house, and they had a BLAST! They did a night hike, dinner by the fire, sang campfire songs (each girl had bring their own song to share), cooked smokes and made crafts. Needless to say they were sad to see me show up to pick them up Sunday morning. Their troop earned their camp out by selling cookies and working fundraisers. The girls worked at Nana's store yesterday selling hot dogs before their trip.  They didn't have too much luck, but they did get to make some cool crafts while they worked...which made it totally worth it to them! They got to get a book from Nana's store for all their hard work! 

I should have known to expect Chaos from the start. Last Friday we had two events for the girls, Softball try outs & their first Girl Scout event, World Thinking Day. They try outs were at 5:00, so John agreed to take the girls as I do not get off work until 5:00 and it would take me about 40 minutes to even get to the ball field from work. So we agreed that he would take them and as World Thinking Day started at 6:00, I would meet him at 5:40 with a change of clothes for the girls and rush them off to do their Scout thing. It was a rushed plan on the best of days. So…at 5:30 I receive a call from my youngest beautiful sister (who helps with Gospel Project SB) advising me not to worry, but that Annabelle MIGHT have broken her finger. Say what???!!?? Fast forward 15 minutes to John frantically arriving home with a SCREAMING Annabelle, and a very consoling Big Sis. Ever the informer, Heaven was eager to inform me of the apparent run down of events. Try outs consisted of several stage...