GREAT GIRL SCOUTS ARE ALSO GREAT STUDENTS!!

I know this post is not about Girl Scouts really but I thought it was wonderful that ALL of the girls in Troop 746 got awards at school.

I know I was proud of each and everyone one of "my girls" as they had their name called and walked up to the stage to get their award.

Some parents were unable to be there to see their girls get recognized because they had to work or had other commitments. So, I thought I would post about it here so everyone can share in the excitement.

Trinity was the first in the group to get called up. Her first award was for Perfect Attendance.

Yes, I did say her "first" award, because she got several.

Way to go Trinity! I'm so proud of you. Keep up the good work.

Our two newest girls, Brittnee and Elizabeth, both got an award for Accelerated reader. That means they have read more and harder books then is required of them.

I was beaming as they got their awards.

You girls are so smart!

I can't tell you how happy I am these two girls joined our Troop. They are great to have around and set good examples for others to follow.

Trinity's next award was Honor Roll. She just got her report card and got all A's except one B.

Wow! It's hard to get on the Honor Roll. All those long hard hours of studying paid off!

As the girls got called up, they got to pick out a pencil to go along with their awards.

Elizabeth got another award too. This time it was for Trustworthiness. No wonder she makes a great Girl Scout!

That is a wonderful quality to have.

It's a very admirable quality to have. To be trustworthy not only makes a great Girl Scout but it makes a great person in general.

Jesse and Trinity also got the Accelerated Reader Award.

I think it's super our girls enjoy reading. A person can get lost in a book, travel the world, learn anything they want. I hope they continue to enjoy reading their whole lives.

Four of our five Girl Scouts are in the same class and so they all got to be up on the stage together as their class award winners were called up for their Accelerated Reader Award.

They also got a book mark to go with the award.

Nikki is in a different classroom. Her room got their awards right after the other girls.

She also got the Accelerated Reader Award. Good job Nikki!

That is wonderful! All five girls got the Reading Award.

Each girl should be very proud of the hard work and effort they put into their school work to get these awards!

Not every kid got an award.

Yes, I'm very proud of our girls. Each and every one of them are fantastic girls and I'm so happy to have them in my Troop.

Nikki, Trinity, Brittnee, Jesse and Elizabeth, YOU ROCK!!!!

INVESTITURE AND REDEDICATION CEREMONY

Tonight we had an Investiture (for our two new girls) and a rededication (for the girls who have been Girls Scouts for awhile now) ceremony.

We started out by using a candle that was once lit by candles that can be traced down back 99 years to the first candle lit by Juliette Low (the founder of Girl Scouts) at her first Girl Scout meeting.

The girls learned that it was Juliette's plan to show the golden flame on the candle and explain that the Girl Scout Law and Promise are like that flame that burns always inside of them.

As the candles were lit, we discussed how the flame symbolizes a Girl Scout's honor that must never be dimmed. When a Girl Scout makes a promise, she is placing her honor, the brightest thing in her life, before her fellow Girl Scouts, her leaders, her parents and her friends. Girls should always remember that giving the Girl Scout Promise on one's honor is a serious thing.

We stood and said the Girl Scout promise "On my honor, I will try, to serve God and my country...

The girls went on to say "On my honor I will try to help people at all time."

They finished up with saying "On my honor I will try, to live by the Girl Scout Law".

The new girls said they wanted to be in Girl Scouts and will do their best to follow the Promise and the Law at all times.

>The girls already in Girl Scouts, recommitted themselves to Girl Scouts and also said they would continue to do their best to follow the Promise and Law.

Brittnee was now an office Junior Girl Scout! We welcomed her to the Troop, gave her a patch and a certificate to remember today by.

We are all very happy to have her as one of our Girl Scout sisters now.

Elizabeth was excited about becoming an "official" Girl Scout now. We also welcomed her and she too got a patch and certificate.

We are looking forward to having a lot of fun times with Elizabeth in our Troop.

Nikki was happy that she got a rededication patch and certificate. She said she loves Girl Scouts and is happy she is in our Troop.

Her favorite thing we have done so far was going to the Angel Game and walking down in the field with our Troop banner.

Jesse was also happy about rededicating herself to Girl Scouts and getting her patch and certificate.

Her favorite thing about being in Girl Scouts was making and delivering Happy Socks to the cats at the cat rescue.

Trinity was excited about rededicating herself and said she was going to stay in Girl Scouts until she is finished with High School.

Her favorite thing we did was going to Camp Scherman and getting to go on a kayak.

When all the promises were made, patches and certificates handed out, it was time to end the ceremony. Candles were blown out and things got cleaned up.

We took time for a quick Troop photo.

Then we moved on to celebrate Girl Scouts 99th birthday.

We had cupcakes and punch.

We even sang Happy Birthday to Girl Scouts. It was fun to know we were part of a group that has been around for 99 years!

While eating, we talked about working on Bronze Award and what all we still have left to do.

We started to work on earning the Sign of the Sun. We must earn this badge as part of earning the Bronze Award.

It was soon time to leave so we all gathered did the Girl Scout Circle as a way to send each other off with well wishes.

Everyone crosses their arms, right over left, and holds hands. Each person thinks of a nice wish for the girl to her left. Once she has thought of the wish, she squeezes the girls hand to let her know she sent up a wish for her.

That girl then does the same thing, until everyone has had a wish sent their way.

We then say "Girl Scouts Rule", break apart and go home.

It was a different kind of meeting, yet a nice one. It was good being able to hear what the girls have enjoyed about Girl Scouts so far, talk about what they wanted to do in the future and to know, these girls are really a super group of girls!

YUMMY RECIPES TO USE THOSE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES

We have been living with Girl Scouts cookies taking over our lives for weeks now.

With all these cookies I thought it would be fun to try to make some cupcakes and use Girl Scout Cookies in the recipes.


I went to my girl friends house and we spent the day trying different cookies to make different kinds of cupcakes.

The first one we made was more like a mini cheese cake with cherries on top. The crust was a Shortbread cookie. These came out great!

To make these you will need:

2 8oz packages of softened cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
12 Girl Scout Shortbread cookies
1 can cherry (or any other fruit) pie filling.


First line the pan with a cupcake liner. Then add a Girl Scout Shortbread cookie to each cup.

Mix all the other ingredients with a hand mixer. Spoon mixture over the Girl Scout Cookies. Bake for about 20 mins in a preheated 350 degrees oven.

When they first come out of the oven they will be puffy like a big muffin.

But then, as they cool, they sink down in the center. This is normal and what you want. Allow them to cool completely.

Then add the cherry (or other fruit) pie filling.

This will make 12 servings. Be sure to eat one quickly because before you know it they will all be gone! Everyone loves these.

The other cupcakes we made were Thin Mint cupcakes.

For this one, we just did a semi homemade cupcake.

We used a chocolate cake mix. Mixed as directed on the box. Then we crushed up Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies and added it to the batter. We also added a little bit of Mint extract to the batter.

We cooked the cupcakes per the directions on the package.

We then iced them with a whipped cream type topping. It is called Pastry Pride.

To that we added a bit of the mint extract and then topped with crumbled Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies and added a whole Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie to the top.

It was fun trying different ideas to use the Girl Scout Cookies but it was more fun to eat what we made. YUM!

You should try these. I think you will like them too.

NEIGHBORHOOD CLEAN UP DAY...and some fun

We got up and hit the road early so we could go to Long Beach and help clean up the neighborhood.

We were some of the first people to arrive. We registered, got our gear and hit the streets to clean up.

Jesse and Nikki had other plans so they were not able to join us. But, we missed having them with us.

Before we even left the parking lot, the girls started to spot trash. They were ready to start cleaning up our world.

We gathered at Cesar E. Chavez Park. So we started our clean up right across the street from the park. They didn't want us to actually clean up the park area because they have grounds keepers to do that.

We found a lot of trash right over by the freeway on ramp. People must just throw their trash out the window as they get ready to get on the freeway.

The girls were actually having fun and got excited when they found big items of trash.

Under bushes we found tons of trash. The wind may have blown a lot of it there. Some was pretty old.

We were able to see first hand the items that wouldn't break down. Things like Styrofoam, plastic and tin.

We also learned how trash can really add up. While it may seem like no big deal to toss out one piece of a candy wrapper, it really adds up when lots of people think the same way.

We talked about how the trash just piles up and destroys our Earth so that is why we really push recycling. That way, some of our trash gets reused and made into other things, rather then laying in a big pile somewhere.

It was a pretty warm morning. It got up to 82 degrees. But the girls keep on working hard.

Each one was a trooper and they even turned into sort of a game about who could find the "mother load".

A big item, like the one Maureen found, is what they would call the "mother load".

The worst piece of trash we found was a dirty diaper. Now who would throw that out in the bushes? Sad and stinky.

While the rule was, we only had to fill up one bag per group in order to get our free ticket to the Long Beach Aquarium, the girls decided to collect one bag for each girl.

Way to go girls! Don't stop at the minimum requirement. Do more when you .

We also discussed how a lot of the trash ends up going down our storm drains and ends up in our Oceans. This of course kills our sea life.

We came across one storm drain that was a prime example of how much trash ends up there. They saw how it clogs up and also causes the streets to flood during the storms.

Going along a fence of an empty parking lot lead us to a lot of trash too.

After two hours and filling up three large bags of trash that ended up weighing 17 pounds we were tired and ready to have lunch.

We turned in our gear and picked up tickets. Everyone is excited about getting to go to the Aquarium soon. They said it will be even more fun knowing they get to go because they helped to make our World a little bit cleaner.

We headed into the park and had a picnic lunch. It was nice to get to sit in the shade and rest a bit.

After eating and resting up, the girls wanted to play a little while.

I have no idea what they were playing but they all knew and together they entered into some kind of fantasy world that adults are not allowed to enter.

It was fun to sit back and watch them play and get along so great. They are all such good girls.

There was no fighting. Only helping each other and having fun. Just like Girl Scouts should be.

They took turns pushing each other on the swings, shared stories with each other and laughed a lot.

I really do get happy when I see the girls having a fun day and yet they also learned a lot. Today was a prime example of how helping out can also be a fun thing.

I wanted to thank Trinity's Grandma and Grandpa for going with us and helping out too. They were great!

When we left, we drove by and saw all the trash that was no longer on the streets because of us and others who cared enough to get up early and lend a helping hand. It made us feel good to know we did a good thing today.

Later that afternoon, I went to Ralph's and met up with Nikki for a cookie booth sale. She was not able to go to the clean up in the morning with us because she had a softball game. She did great too! Got a hit and helped the team score!

Way to go Nikki!

Nikki's favorite cookie is the Lemonades. She loves the taste of the shortbread that has a hint of lemon flavor in the icing it's dipped in.

Because she was so passionate about this cookie, she was able to get others to buy this kind and we sold out of them.

Nothing makes a great seller then someone who really believes in the item they are selling.

Even though the neighborhood has been flooded with cookie sales for weeks now, she still was able to sell 35 boxes of cookies while we were there.

We still have a few more sales to do. This is our last week to sell as many cookies as we can. We have done so well and have sold more then twice as much as last year. I'm so proud of all the girls.

We have such a great troop! I really do love each one of these girls. They are all so special and kind hearted.