Bridging

E's fearless Girl Scout leader, M, invited the families over today for the girls' bridging ceremony from Senior Scouts to Ambassadors. We were only there for about 20 minutes, but she had the girls run through all the activities they'd done as seniors - held garage sales, made over 3,000 bones and took them to Springfield and Washington, D.C., earned three badges as a troop, met with their state senator, among other things. She also read a proclamation the senator had passed by the Senate honoring the troop for its many efforts and E got a copy to bring home, suitable for framing, of course.

Here the girls are after the ceremony, being a bit goofy as they posed for the parents' photos.

E got a bridge path, the three badges, a pin for participating in the cookie sale, a pin to celebrate the Girl Scouts' recent 100th anniversary and her new Ambassador handbook. The girls will spend a lot of time this year working toward their Gold Award. E is planning a project to teach people about the environmental problems of using plastic bags and creative ways to reuse and recycle the bags instead of tossing them in landfills. All of the girls have written their Gold Award proposals; their next step is to go before the council and get the project approved. Their leader said very few are approved on the first presentation. Instead, the girls are typically given ideas to make revisions to their projects. Could be a long process.

And what's this?

Andy got a pin for his volunteer service for the troop. He helped last year with the cookie delivery. I think he was surprised.