And Gosh Darn-It Brownies Like You!

Monday I woke up super early so I could get off work at 1:30 to lead Bunny's Brownie Troop in a lesson on  hiking.  I cannot tell you how intimidated I was at the mere thought of standing up in front of 10 six to seven year old little girls.  What if they thought I was dumb.  What if they didn't like the activity I planned.  What if they wouldn't listen to me?  Just thinking about it made me a little sick, but I agreed to do it, and it wasn't fair that our two troop leader mom's have to do all the work, so I gave myself a quick pep talk - "You're good enough.  You're smart enough.  And gosh darn-it Brownies like you!" - and headed over.

I was well prepared.  I picked up 10 water bottles from the 99 Cent Store so each girl would have her own water bottle when we do our actual hike this coming Saturday.  I pulled together some trail-mix in snack bags for everyone as their snack along with an apple, some cuties and peanut butter crackers as more examples of what kinds of snacks you can bring on a hike.  I also brought along our Camel Pack as an example of yet another way to bring water along on your hike and a way to carry things as well as my trusty first aid kit.  I brought out different kinds of clothes (shorts, tank tops, skirts, jeans, sweatshirts etc.) so we could talk about how to dress for a hike and different kinds of shoes (sandals, flip flops, hiking boots, sneakers and teva style sandals) to talk about what kind of shoes you should bring.  We talked about what kinds of animals we might see, what to do if we get separated from the group and some basic hiking safety tips.

Then we moved to our craft project.  One of our troop leaders (thank you Stacy!) managed to convince some tree trimmers to provide us with some branches perfect for hiking sticks.

With some leather strips I happened to have on hand, and some fancy decorations the troop had, each girl got to decorate their own walking stick.

We used the leather strips to make comfy hand rests on their sticks and they added feathers, beads, and fake jewels to snazz their sticks up.

The result was pretty awesome!

And the best part?  Not a single girl laughed at me.  Everyone seemed to have fun with the craft.  And I think we're all a little excited about our hike on Saturday.  I cannot believe how well the whole thing went.  And I didn't throw-up once.  Win-win for everyone!

Seriously.. Thoughts?