This year's Blue and Gold Banquet theme this past Friday evening was Hawaiian and the boys each shared some interesting facts about our nation's fiftieth state, which they read from the back of their ALOHA cards. From left to right, we have Max, Br. Staines (Scout Master), Christopher, Jacob, Peter, and Cameron.
Christopher presented me with the Bear pin and needed help pinning it to my sweater. Notice the small candy necklace I'm holding? That belongs to Christopher and I offered to hold it for him while he pinned me. Instead of leis for the banquet, I bought 65 candy necklaces for each place setting since I found them after Valentine's Day for half price. They were a big hit with all the little kids.
Christopher is focusing on how to remove the back of the pin.
Brad, Matthew, and Christopher helped with the color guard presentation. Christopher got a few awards too. He advanced from Wolf Scout to Bear in October, but it had not been formalized until now.
The Blue and Gold Banquet (and all the pack meetings) are family events. Lindsey had fun dining with Ivan and Julia. The fruit kabobs inside the pineapple halves made nice centerpieces. Michelle and Yvette whipped those together. I made 65 place cards for each place setting that welcomed everyone and had a toothpick umbrella attached. We had Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner and the dads and scouts brought homemade cakes for desserts. Matthew and Steven had the best looking cake, which was shaped like a realistic looking fish bowl. I knew from the moment I saw their cake that it was from their family. Last year they had the most intricate cakes too. Yvette must be helping with their cakes...because they are WAY too perfect looking. Kind of reminds me of the Pinewood Derby. Only the dads take over, I mean...help.
I considered myself to be a decent cook and baker. However, candy making had been unchartered territory until I recently cracked the code of a favorite—chewy Texas Pecan Pralines. This culinary epiphany came only days before I left my home sweet home in Austin, Texas, to return to CU Boulder after an epic hiatus to wrap up my bachelor’s degree in journalism. When I was a little girl, I remember tasting heavenly, creamy homemade pralines, bursting with pecans, handcrafted with love by my mom. She only whipped them up a few times, but I just couldn’t get the memory of those buttery, sugary treats out of my head. They were that good. I asked her if she still had the recipe, but I knew it would be hopeless since my mom wasn’t one for keeping track of her down-home style cooking. I married my college sweetheart, a guy with the same first name as me, and began teaching myself to cook. Becoming “Kelly Times Two” was amazing, and I had ...
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