Christmas Tree "battle"

For a Christmas service project, a combined youth activity was held to decorate Christmas Trees for some people in the ward.  The youth were split up into teams with the assignment to come up with the best tree that met the following conditions - each tree had to be strung with lights, have a tree topper, have a garland, and have at least 4 different kind of ornaments made by the team:

We all know it's best to put the lights on first...

While a bit slow at first, Sister Penrose got the collective creative juices flowing in no time...

The trees were shaping up in no time...

The teams and their trees:

Capture the flag

After working hard on some merit badges, we decided it was time for some fun - capture the flag with Nerf gear:

We split up into two teams, based on the bandannas I found - the Green Team and the Black Team

 The Green Team

The Black team immediately took to a bunker mentality

But soon it became a game of attack and counter-attack

Sometimes the combat got very close

Then, we tired...

The cache of weapons and Nerf darts:

The Victors:

Temple trip - November

A pretty good sized group for a temple trip on a school night.

Merit Badges

We've been working on a few merit badges lately - Emergency Preparedness and Architecture.  The Emergency Preparedness merit badge was done at the Church:

Here, Damon is "saving" his brother after he fell into the ice (as represented by the circle in the middle of the basketball court).

The architecture merit badge was done at an office downtown.

Several Future CEOs:

As part of the requirements, each young man was required to sketch a building we saw on a walking tour of downtown Portland:

This one courtesy of their scoutmaster - "Dinosaur Nick"