Eagle Scout

Taylor's may be quite possibly the LONGEST start to finish Eagle Scout experience ever!  Actually I don't know.  I'm not the world's best scout mom so I don't have a lot of knowledge about these things.  But it sure seemed like it was a never-ending ordeal at times.

Taylor decided on his project last fall (of 2013) and had his meeting with the scouting board who approved his idea of making 50 snowboards to distribute to emergency managers in the state or even just people who were interested in having such a device.  Basically it's a measuring device that can measure snowfall.   He even built a prototype but because of one thing or another, was never able to schedule the actual building of the snowboards.  He wound up putting it on hold till spring (too bad he couldn't have done it in the fall so they could have used them over that awful winter!).  Finally he was able to contact area stores (Lowe's was very valuable in donating many of the supplies) and set up a day to get them put together.  It wound up taking a few  different days to get them completely done and weather sealed.

Then one rainy morning, I had to take Taylor and load all the snowboards into our van.  Did I mention it was raining?  I had to run into the garage where they were stored, pick up two snowboards at time and run them to the van where Taylor was inside playing Tetris to get them all to fit in the back.  Then I would run back through the rain and get two more.  That's a lot of trips in case you were wondering.  And it was raining.Then we drove them to the police station in Battle Creek where the guy who would be distributing them works.  The police chief happened to be walking by when we were talking so Taylor explained what his project was  and got a photo with him.  Then we unloaded the snowboards into a trailer where they would be stored until they could be distributed.

Then it came time for the fun stuff.  Apparently there is a great deal of paperwork involved in scouting.  A great, GREAT deal.  And the scouting board didn't think that Taylor had documented things well enough so they sent him away after that meeting to do more work on it.  But of course then summer was upon us and we went to Utah for 3 weeks then came home where the boys took off for youth conference.  Then we had the Bramhall's come for a visit... Anyway, somehow that paperwork sat for awhile.  Finally though, Taylor got it done and went for the final board of review where they said he'd done enough and would be awarded his Eagle. Good thing.  That was his very last chance.  If he had waited till the next board meeting, it would have been too late!

We finally were able to schedule his Court of Honor in October--over a year after he decided on the project!  

 It was a long time in coming, but we are really proud of all Taylor's hard work and very excited for him that he has achieved such a great accomplishment.