Ethan's Eagle Scout of Honor Reception (including recipes)

It was a bit of a challenge to plan what we would have at Ethan's reception for his Eagle Scout Court of Honor. We had sent out 50 invitations, but did not ask for R.S.V.P.s as I find that people don't really respond much anymore.

I wanted to have a few nice things, but not too much. Ethan does not like cake or cupcakes, so I had to pick something else. After a bit of research I was inspired by the cookies some others has created for their boys. I had grand plans, but in the end I did not have time to bag them up. Everyone seemed to like them and the recipe I used was perfect. It is not too sweet, holds nicely, but also has a pleasant crumb once in the mouth. I decorated some of them with royal icing and left others plain. Ellie liked the iced ones, but I think next time I would do fewer of those.


Our good friend Karin sent one of those edible arrangements for Ethan. It was a big hit, especially the chocolate covered strawberries and banana pieces.

The favorite things I made for the reception was the special water bottles. They were easy and fun to do. I was inspired by those that Amanda made. I simply made a template in Adobe Photoshop. I was able to fit 7 strips that were 1.5" by 8". I made 4 different designs: A young Ethan, Ethan and his Patches, A Boy Scout and awards, and a pergola design. I did not bother to remove the original label, but simply used my tape runner to apply double sided tape, being careful to place it right the ends and a few in the middle.





Sugar Cookie Recipe
from: Sweetopia blog

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups butter (at room temperature)

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

seeds from 1 vanilla bean (or 3 tsp vanilla)

5 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt
Instructions:

1. Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. (Use the paddle attachment). Mix until thoroughly incorporated – for about one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more.

Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough. If you’d like a light and fluffy cookie, that’s ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you’d like the cookie to hold its shape.

2. Add eggs slowly and mix. Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix again.

3. Cut open your vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out. Add to mixing bowl. Alternatively, add liquid vanilla extract. Stir briefly.

4. Sift your dry ingredients together. (Flour, baking powder and salt).

5. Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Place a large tea towel or two small tea towels between the edge of the bowl and the electric mixer so that the flour won’t escape. Mix on low speed for 3o seconds. Remove the tea towels and observe the dough mixing; when it clumps around the paddle attachment it’s ready. It’s also important at this stage not to over mix the dough (the glutens in the flour develop and the dough can become tough).

6. Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.

7. Roll out the dough further if you need to, and cut out cookie shapes. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Re-roll scraps and repeat.

8. Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 10 minutes to 1 hour to chill again. They will then hold their shape better when baked.

9. Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.

10. Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown. The baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.

11. Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!

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Royal Icing Using Egg Whites:
from: JoyofBaking.com

2 large egg whites

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

3 cups (330 grams) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

For Royal Icing with Egg Whites: In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice. Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use.

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Savory Cranberry, Pistachio 7 Goat Cheese Palmiers
Adapted From: Tasty Kitchen
1 whole Sheet Of Purchased Puff Pastry, Thawed
2-3 ounces, weight Goat Cheese (chevre), Room Temperature
1/2-3/4 cups (slightly Packed) Dried Cranberries
1/4-1/2 cups Pistachios, Roughly Chopped

Preparation Instructions

Roll the puff pastry sheet into a rectangle that is at least 8 inches wide and no less than 1/8-inch thick. With the standard puff pastry sheets found in the grocery stores, you won’t have much rolling to do.

Spread goat cheese over the puff pastry and top with dried cranberries and pistachios. Using your hand, lightly press the cranberries and pistachios into the cheese. Roll each long end of the rectangle into the center. Chill for about 15 minutes.

Cut the roll crosswise into 1/8-inch slices and divide the palmiers between two baking sheets covered with parchment paper. Chill for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Bake the palmiers until they are puffed and light golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Quickly flip the palmiers and place back in the oven, switching positions of the baking sheets. Bake for an additional 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer the palmiers to a cooling rack and cool completely before serving.

Make ahead: The palmiers can be baked and then store in the fridge in an airtight container for 2 to 3 days, or frozen. Before serving, place unthawed palmiers on a baking sheet in a 350 degree F oven for 5 minutes.

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Sausage and Cheese Pinwheels
Adapted from: Tasty Kitchen

2 rolls of Crescent Dough
1 pound Pork Sausage
1 1/2 cups Cheddar Cheese, shredded


Preparation Instructions

Using store-bought or homemade crescent dough, lightly flour a surface and roll the dough into as much of a rectangular shape as you can (they won’t be perfect, don’t worry). Using a tube or package of flavored pork sausage, spread half of the sausage onto each piece if dough. Do the same with the cheese. Roll up each crust into a log and slice with a serrated knife, making them about 1/2-3/4 inch thick. Discard the end pieces without sausage. Reshape the pinwheels if necessary and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 375ºF for 25 minutes or until the sausage is cooked and the crust is golden brown. Enjoy!

Ethan's Eagle Scout Ceremony

We had a really wonderful Eagle Scout Court of Honor for Ethan on Friday. It was a full house with about 75 people attending.
We showed the slide show I made.
His former Senior Patrol Leader, Collin, gave a talk about the Trail to Eagle.
Ethan's cousin Mark welcomed everyone.
Stan P. offered some remarks, as did Frank, Ethan's former Scoutmaster.

Ethan took the oath and Eagle Scout Charge very seriously.


Then I awarded him his Eagle Scout medal.

Larr put on the neckerchief. It is very cool!


We could not be more proud of our boy.


Good mentors are such an important element for a young man.

Ethan - Wolf Cub Scout

Here's my boy when he was a Wolf Cub Scout in 2001-2002.

My Son - The Eagle Scout

This evening Ethan completed his last step in becoming and Eagle Scout. He was both excited and a little nervous. He passed with flying colors. We are so proud of him.

There were only two questions that took him a little by surprise, though he thought they were good ones.

The first one was, "If you had to remove one part of the Boy Scout Law, what part would it be?" Ethan took pause and thought about it for a while. Ultimately his answer was that he would take out "thrifty" as it is the only one that is self-interested. All of the other parts deal with involvement with others.

The other questions, albeit a bit more predictable, also required some thought. "How would you advice a young new scout?" Ethan replied, "I would tell him that there might come a time when it is hard to keep going, but you have to keep going. Later you will be glad you did." That is so true from his own experience. When he was around 13-14 he nearly lost interest. A bit later on his hooked back in and became jazzed about scouting again.

I look at these photos and see the journey he has traveled. He has gone from being the littlest guy in the troop (as you see in these photos from his troop trip to Washington) to the fine young man he is now.

It's a big day in our household. Ethan came back from a week long stay at Boy Scout camp and Ellie raced in the Colorado State Time Trial Championships.

Ethan has way more fun at camp than he had expected. He went down focused on earning three of the badges he needed in order to get close to being able to work on his Eagle.

Ethan was part of Super Troop since his own troop was not attending camp that week. Super Troop is made up of various boys from different troops. The boys stayed in canvas tents, most of them sleeping on cots. Ethan did not have a cot, which was only a problem a during the few nights that it rained. The end of his sleeping bag got a little wet during those nights.

After getting set up at Camp Vasquez, he was elected as the troop leader by his peers. Period 1 he did Environmental Science. Period 2, just down the mountain, was Communications at Camp Hollywood (the building with the computers and technical equipment). Then they had a lunch break. Period 3, Emergency Preparedness, was back up at Camp Vasquez. There was really not a lot of down time, but the boys still found time to hang out, teach each other card games (like Blind Man's Bluff.)

The theme this year is a western theme which means that there were fake gold nuggets that the boys earned, found and traded for stuff. One they had a big party with the everyone at camp. At one point, a troop leader, John, pretended to be a bandit. He came into the party, shooting his gun and dressed from head to toe in black. He was yellin' that Sheriff Kelse had stolen his town, his people and his gold. They lock hands and got into a finger duel with the bandit flipping Sheriff Kelse over. The sheriff won and put the bandit in stockades where the boys could throw stuff at him. The camp staff had erected an entire ghost town for the occasion. During outpost on Thursday night a bunch of the boys set up an economy. Some of them formed companies and went out to prospect for interesting rocks. Some boys prospectors, some where miners and a few were bosses. They included Ethan, Ryan and Andrew. They had a pretty good business going. The camp staff found out what was happening and told the boys that it was against "Leave No Trace" to do such things, so they could not take any away. A few boys tried to set up a black market. At one point the workers revolted and Ethan had to make an official statement on behave of the other bosses that there would not be any black market activities. On Friday night Ethan learned how to make a money's fist knot from a staff member. There was also a flag ceremony where Ethan was awarded the Baden Powell Award for being one of the best scouts who models living by the Scout law. He also received a Ranch Award. The staff liked Ethan so much that they tried to convince him to come back down and be on camp staff. Ethan was very pleased with the offer, but could not accept the offer as he starts work with Jeffco Open Space on Monday. On Saturday Ethan came home happy, but tired and hungry. There had been a black bear about 40 feet from his troop tent area. He stayed up much of the night to make sure the bear did not attack. He had been alerted that the bear was in camp. He was looking out and could not see it in the dark of the night. Suddenly a camp truck drove up and started honking. It turns out that the staff was chasing it out of camp and back into the wilderness. It was a lot of excitement!

Ellie had a great time racing. She had a very competitive group this year with several girls who left from the race to go to Nationals in Bend, OR. She placed 5th, but was within less than a minute than the person who came in third.

Of Mountains, Trains, Leadership, Pack Horses and Departures - A Full Day

Yeah, we like to use our weekends to the fullest around here. Saturday was a grand exaple of that. We were up and out of the house just before 7:00 a.m. in order to get to the Mike Horgan Hill Climb in plenty of time. Ellie prefers having about an hour on site before her race starts. This was the first hill climb of the season, and it was a big one. The junior start out at Nederland High School, west of Boulder. The hill climb was just 3. miles, but the grade is quite steep most of the way. She was tired even before she began since she had around three sleep overs, a full day and evening at the amusement park and then another visit to Lakeside Amusement Park on Friday night. She was tired enough to not even feel much like a racer. She still did okay, coming in second place. She is usually faster than the girl who came in first place. She used to feel like she was good at hill climbing. Yesterday shook her confidence. She said, "Hill climbing is good for those who are tiny. I am not tiny anymore." More than half of how you perform is in your head so we will have to work on this one. This was a race that was an accomplishment, and not so fun. For much of the course it is a 17% grade. That doesn't sound like much, but it kicks more people's butts.

We had fun while we waited for results. She loves to chat with her friends. She and Dad also kidded around. She was silly and did not want to look at the camera for any of the photos.

Ethan did not do this race partly because I thought we would not have time for that and taking him to camp. It is also a much harder race for those who are 15+ years old. They start out in Boulder and race for 18 miles. That trek includes going up Magnolia Road, the steepest paved road in North America (or something like that - it's killer!) He elected to spend the time wandering around and adventuring in the woods.

After the race was over we took Ethan to Tahosa where he will be on the youth staff for week two of the Big Horn Leadership camp. He was pretty excited. He gets to be the head quartermaster. This means he is in charge of getting and handing out all of the stuff, including the food. This is the job he hoped for. I think he will also be teaching Pioneering (how to make stuff with logs and rope.) as well as Orienteering. We had fun getting ready for camp. Each day has a silly theme including Future day, Romans and Eguptians, Cowboys & Indians, Pirates and Ninja and Midieval days. He took a toy ray gun, a sheet for a toga, a whip, lots of pirate stuff and a few other things. I also made him a purple robe for a creepy campfire story about the Purple bishop who kills campers and wraps up their clothes in purple cloth. We made a purple robe and found purple glow sticks. He will then slink around in the woods after they learn about the story. The boys think it will be fun. I think he will have a grand time.


On the way home we took a detour to go and see the Moffat Tunnel. It is a cool spot that we have visited many times. Larr was hoping he might get a glimpse of a train coming through. As luck would have it, one happened through about ten minutes after we arrived. He had a blast taking lots of photos. Then we hoped in the van and raced to the intersections so we could watch it go by. My favorite was when they passed by on the bridge. The engineer smiled, waved and honked the horn. I love things like that. It made me feel like a kid again, with the thrill of the engine, the rush of excitement as it goes by. It makes me forget the dirty dishes that seem to be ever present in the kitchen sink or the dirty clothes in need of laundering that seem to multiply overnight. It helps me live in the moment.


Larr and I finished off the evening by seeing "Departures". It is a movie that I have been waiting to see for some time. It is a wonderful Japanese movie about a young Celloist who has to get a job and becomes a person who prepares people for creamation. It is a tender, funny and sad movie. It made us laugh and cry. I was spent by the time it was done. I would definately recommend that you see it, if you like subtitled movies.