Hope everyone had a great Sunday. We sure did at the Jamboree!!!

Below is the link to the lastest picture uploads, many of them were from Day 11 which the previous email described.

The highlights of day 12 would be taking a backstage tour of the giant arena stage where the previous Arena Event was staged as well as Saturday’s 100 year celebration Shining Light Across America event was staged. It was pretty amazing to see what it took to put on these productions. The guys got some sneak previous of what to expect in Saturday’s show. Just enough to wet their appetite. The actual details were held pretty tight to the chest and only various rumors were going around as to what was or was not going to happen Saturday.

We had admission tickets in the afternoon for the Technology Quest exhibits. The boys that weren’t too involved with Merit Badge Midway accompanied us up there. There was some really great exhibits. NASA was there, Rockwell Collins was demonstrating some of the new GPS technology as well as flight simulators and range finder binoculars etc. University of Michigan had doctoral students there with some really cool exhibits kind of like a mini Mythbusters. Kids came away with solar powered minirace cars they built. Capsules of their own DNA, etc. Aaron Pyper was filmed by a TV camera crew building his car so we have a new reality star in the troop!

We had a surprise Birthday party for Briton Limburg in the evening. His birthday isn’t until the 3^rd (the day we leave camp). Based on the birthday party thrown while we were on tour we knew he would be expecting something if we did it on the 3^rd, so we snuck one in early on him. We had a great cake ordered in and delivered, with some help from the commissary we had a great party.

The boys all wrote a letter to you folks on day 12. Pictures of them authoring those epistles are in the upload. We made up some commemorative envelopes of the Jamboree and stamped them with the new 44c Boy Scout stamp that was just issued this week. Some of the boys stood in line at the post office and were able to acquire a First Day cover commemorative stamped envelope that could only be obtained from the Jamboree. The post office here was kind of overwhelmed by the demand for these first day covers. It’s hard to believe that the post office had to be persuaded to even issue this 100 year commemorative stamp. Hopefully sells of these will get the post office in the black this year…ya think?  You may want to save the envelope and letter mailed this week for a keepsake! It is always a hoot watching this generation trying to write a letter and address an envelope. We had several that didn’t know there zip code, one that didn’t know his address, a good portion that didn’t know where to write what, and one that was trying to find what to peel off to seal the envelope…no you just lick it…Hopefully we just preserved a piece of our old way of life?

Now for the part beyond where we have the pictures uploaded…(we’ll get those posted tomorrow)

Saturday  we followed many of the boys around trying to bet pictures of them out doing things instead of just around camp. That is actually harder than it sounds. This place is so big and there is so many things to do that if were not tailing them you couldn’t find them to get a picture. Should be some great picture uploads from that coming.

Hopefully many of you got to see the Shining Light Across America on TV Saturday evening. It was amazing. The boys were just spellbound the whole time. Great entertainment. We got to see a clip from President Obama. The whole thing was fast moving and action packed. Huge fireworks display towards the end in the background with other productions going on all the way through it. We were pretty warn out at the end. It took awhile to get over 70,000 people out of the arena. I was really proud of our guys, while they were waiting they cleaned up the litter from empty water bottles etc over almost the entire Western Regions portion of the arena. Nobody asked them to do it, they just didn’t want to leave it that way and jumped in and did it.

Sunday breakfast had to be cooked in a hurry so we could get off to Church services. A couple of boys went to the Catholic Service. I understand it was pretty cool. Most of the boys went to the LDS Sacrament service. It was presided over by Elder Robert E Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve and conducted by the General Young Men’s Presidency. It was a great meeting. It is always breathtaking seeing 36 Priests and 72 Deacons prepare and pass the sacrament. Michael Tyler and Addison Dishman were asked to sing in the Choir, Drew Roberts was selected to pass the sacrament so we had good representation there from the troop. Elder Hales was thronged by the boys on the way out.

This evening we did a split with a Troop from New Jersey. We sent about 12 of our boys and 2 leaders to their camp and we had 12 of theirs as guests in our camp. It was a great experience. The boys invited them right in and shared dinner with them. Within minutes they acted like they were just part of the troop and didn’t want to leave.

I need to send this before I run out of battery again. I still owe you a couple of days of pictures. Hopefully you will see them tomorrow.

Till then…

Yours in Scouting,

Jamboree Troop 603 Scoutmasters

http://picasaweb.google.com/100869686042495152805/Jamboree603Day1112#