Our Blue and Gold banquet this year was a lot of fun. Everyone had a blast (even the leaders)! Here's what we did. I'll attach the
Reader's Digest version here.
Invitations
Two weeks ahead of time we had a "secret agent" stop by and deliver the
invitations to our denner. He was taken back to say the least. It was fun to watch. I think his eyes doubled in size! We had one of the boys from our troop dressed in a suit with sunglasses and a Fedora. This picture is very similar to what our secret agent looked like. Having him stop by really got our boys excited for the banquet.
Decorations
For our table centerpieces we made briefcases with
Top Secret signs on each side. The briefcases were made of cereal boxes spray painted black. The handles were also made out of cardboard and hooked on with brads.
The only other decorations was bright yellow caution tape which we had all over the room. This was the first thing the boys noticed when they walked in. It really added to the ambiance.
A fun tradition our pack has done for years is make a placemat wordsearch with all the boys names. This is a great way to keep kids busy while you're taking care of those last minute details. You can make these very easily at:
puzzlemaker.com
One final prep item was preparing a playlist of "spy" music to play in the background when the boys and their families arrived. Songs included: Pink Panther theme, James Bond theme, Mission Impossible and a few others.
The Big Night Arrives
When guests arrived they were given a mustache to aid with their disguise,
a spy name and
secret agent badge. To make the badges I used 8163 size labels, an excel spreadsheet and mail merged them. Super easy! Once they picked their name we had them put their thumb print on the badge.
For dinner we had sloppy joes, chips, vegetables and dip. For dessert we made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and a red shoe string piece of licorice to make it look like a bomb. I'm not sure the kids could tell what they were but enjoyed them nonetheless.
Awards were presented to the Scouts by Sherlock Holmes who pulled them out of his top secret briefcase.
Activities
Following the awards we played a fun family game called Bring It On. This is a great game that can be played almost anywhere and with almost any age. Items needed:
- rectangle banquet type table set up at the front of the room
- list of items to Bring It On
- an announcer (the person that tells the families what to bring up)
- at least a couple of judges
Playing is really simple (another plus). The announcer gives the family the names of 1 or 2 items to bring to the table. We divided the audience into 2 teams. The first team to get the item(s) to the table gets the point. Very easy. The key is to pick general items that someone in the room will most likely have such as a article of clothing with a college name, something round, something you can read. Encourage creativity such as if you say a picture of a man it doesn't have to be an actual picture, it could be a cell phone picture, a dollar bill, quarter or anything along these lines that have a picture of a man. If you say something green, it could be someone's green eyes, a jacket, bead, piece of candy or anything else you can think of that's green. It's nice to play a practice round to make sure everyone is on the same page. We ended up playing for about 20 minutes. It could have gone longer but we wanted to end while people were having fun. It helps to give them warning that you're wrapping up, "Ok, 5 more rounds." I think people loved this game because all ages got involved.
Another game we played that began when the boys walked in was Spy. Some may know this game by the name Assassin. We chose to call it Spy and instead of "killing" people we had them reveal the spy they've been assigned. When the boys walked in they chose a name from a basket. Once the opening ceremony was over everyone was free game, meaning spies could be revealed. To reveal a spy the boys had to get near enough to their target to tap them on the shoulder twice. If they were tapped this meant they had been exposed and are now out of the game. The revealed spy would then give the revealer the name they were targeting. The spy then goes after this spy. If it all works out right it will come down to two spies and then ultimately a final "Master Spy". It was fun to watch the boys be so paranoid and worried about anyone getting close to them. Some thought we should let all the kids play and not just the Scouts. Due to the varying ages and understanding levels we ended keeping it to just the Scouts but had the families be the body guards to protect their secret agent.
Everything was set up, carried out and taken down in less than 3 hours. This theme was nice because everything was so easy, boys loved pretending to be spies and the whole family was able to get involved.
Your mission should you choose to accept it is....do this with your Pack!
As with almost everything in my life, I try to find the easiest way to reach my goal. For my latest project I wanted to make some a Halloween decoration that wouldn't take all day and would cause very little stress. This is what I came up with. It was simple, quick and very little frustration involved. 
Finally, to finish the blocks off I tied a ribbon around each of the blocks. This is the ribbon I chose but you could use what ever you wanted. This is where the only frustration came in for me because I'm not a ribbon tier. It probably took me as long to tie these bows as it did for the whole project!
When I'm trying to be creative I picture how I want the project turn out in my mind. Sometimes the final product isn't quite what I hoped it would be. This is the case with these blocks. I think they turned out okay but not great. If I were to make these again I would make the letters stand out more. These kind of blend in with the background. (This is also a poor picture). 
I made the blocks out of scrap 2x4s I picked up at a construction site. You’d be amazed at how much good wood is available if you're willing to do some dumpster diving.
My son Nicholas recently returned from the El Salvador Santa Ana Mission. I can't tell you how great it is to have him home. To help him feel welcome I created a few things to show how excited we were to have him back. 
A couple of nights ago we had a Pack Night where the theme was Marble Madness. It was great fun for all involved. Here's what we did. 
Under everybody's shoey,
I've attached the pattern for these. They need to be copied on cardstock. The secret to making these is to keep the sides straight. The marble has to be able to move back and forth for it to tumble. Again, we kept this really simple. We had the patterns cut out so we the youth would have lots of time to race. We used a 8 foot banquet table with one leg folded down covered with a sheet for our ramp. (The sheet provides just enough friction to keep it from sliding straight down). The kids folded their own and then glued them with a glue stick (liquid works okay but often bubbles the paper and takes a while to dry). Once they're dry (about 1 minute) go over and race away. We just had a free-for-all but organized races would have been fun as well. 
