Hi Folks WiFi problems here so the last morning and evening I haven’t been able connect and upload pictures. Turns out a few Scoutmasters were trying to do a good turn and created their own little WiFi networks that just happened to be broadcasting on the same frequency that ATT big network here is broadcasting on and was crashing the network. Sounds like they found the culprits and fixed the problem.

I have to correct a previous email. The Jamboree city is not the 14^th largest city in Virginia, it is the 4^th largest City. There is a lot of people here. The logistics of running this are almost incomprehensible to me. It’s pretty amazing how well coordinated it is.

The boys have been busy.heading out to events, meritbadges, activities, and so on. Several have accumulated some pretty impressive patch collections which they are always quick to show off back at camp. Yesterday’s highlight was the big ‘Arena Show. Many of the pictures I uploaded tonight were from that show. The show has featured Secretary of Defense Gates, Miss America, A famous broadway performer (I’ve already forgotten her name, shows how cultured I am) The Army’s Golden Nights Jumpers, and was MC’d  by one of the finalists of Survivor and one other Reality show star that the boys all knew and I had no idea who he was…Later in the day Chris Allison secured some backstage passes and we were able to go on a tour of this massive stage that all this was performed on. It was pretty interesting.

We had some pretty good rainstorms yesterday. The kids have commented about how different the storms are here that at home. The net effect of the storms is that it has finally cooled things down a bit. Today was in the mid 80’s with a bit lower humidity and a slight breeze. Just about heaven. However, the kids definitely have a lot more energy when it is cooler….

We ran into Cody Sirstens dad in the Genealogy Merit Badge booth yesterday. He came over and visited our campsite. Many of the kids were visiting the Genealogy booth and the Family Life merit badge booths toi fulfill requirements for the George Albert Smith award. This is a really cool award and many of the kids are pretty proud about it.

We have been hoping the boys would feed us back pictures doing some of the activites they are out on. They get fairly spread out during the day and we have a hard time getting pics of them. We haven’t got many of those fed back to us. Today we went with them to Technology ‘Quest and got some good pics there I’ll upload tomorrow night.

The kids have been getting along great and having more and more fun together. You’ll have to ask them about the Star Spinning game they were playing tonight. It was a hoot and they got themselves pretty wound up about it right before bed time. They have been so tired every night, they go to bed on time and sleep great!!!

For those of you who have asked for status reports on patches, they have all been filled finally. The Council even threw in some extra patches because of the delay.

As I’m typing I’m hearing someone in the tent behind me sleep talking. It’s pretty entertaining… We even found out we have a couple of sleep walkers in the troop!

Here is the link to the most recent uploads for your enjoyment!

http://picasaweb.google.com/100869686042495152805/Jamboree603Day910#

More to come