GimletBlog

After a year of preparation, pre-jamboree campouts and shakedowns, and long evenings sewing countless patches on the new jamboree uniforms, the big day is finally here!

This morning The Gimlet took Thing One to the airport, where he met up with his National Jamboree troop.  Two members of our troop are attending the Jamboree.

The two LDS troops from our council will spend a week touring LDS historic sites as well as Gettysburg and Washington, DC before settling in at for nine days of fun at the jamboree.  Thing One is looking forward to meeting up with his friends around the country from last year’s Philmont trek and NAYLE.

The Gimlet has very fond memories of his National Jamboree and dearly wishes he could go, too.  Maybe when it’s Thing Two’s turn.

• Follow along with the troop blog!
  Daily (or near-daily) journal entries will be posted on the troop’s web site.
• Gimlet Gallery Jamboree album
• Official BSA National Jamboree web site
• Chief Seattle Council LDS Jamboree troops web site

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See Thing One’s NAYLE photo album in the Gimlet Gallery.

An overview of the NAYLE program from the official web site:

The National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience (NAYLE) is an exciting program where youth enhance their leadership skills in the Philmont Backcountry. Scouts will expand upon the team building and ethical decision making skills learned in National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT). NAYLE uses elements of the Philmont Ranger Training as well as advanced Search and Rescue skills to teach leadership, teamwork and the lessons of selfless service. NAYLE will offer Scouts an unforgettable backcountry wilderness experience where they live leadership and teamwork, using the core elements of NYLT to make their leadership skills intuitive.

NAYLE will equip youth leaders to be better leaders, NYLT staff members and/or superior camp staff. It will help guide their journey to become true “servant leaders,” able to develop all members of whichever team they lead. It provides life skills for now and the future.

On Friday, June 25, I flew on a plane from Seattle to Albuquerque.  The Saturday flight from Seattle to Albuquerque would have been too late for the Philmont shuttle so I had to arrive a day early instead. I stayed at the house of a friend from my last Philmont Trek.  We hung out, went to Chili’s and watched movies.  On Saturday we had lunch at Dion’s Pizza in Albuquerque, and then I went back to the airport to take the shuttle to Philmont.

About eight other people rode on the shuttle, and we watched the movie Dodge Ball. The trip to Philmont took about four hours. Half of the people came on Saturday, and the rest arrived Sunday morning.  Everybody was either from Indiana or Texas, with sizable minorities from California and Minnesota.  Saturday night we stayed at Base Camp, ate dinner at the Philmont Training Center (PTC) cafeteria and there was a cracker barrel later in the evening.  At dinner I was recognized by one of my dad’s friends who was attending the LDS week at the PTC.

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Not long after this photo was taken, Thing One boarded a flight to Albuquerque, where he will spend the night with one of his friends from last year’s Philmont mountain trek.  Saturday morning he begins his NAYLE course at Philmont, which we’ll describe in greater detail when he returns.

If Thing One were here, he’d like to point out that he’s just about Gimlet height.  (And as much as we like Alaska Airlines, they don’t offer a nonstop flight to Albuquerque.)

We hope he takes plenty of photos and has many stories to share from his week.  Meanwhile, we will do our best to keep Thing Two from appropriating all of the cool stuff in Thing One’s room that Thing Two would like to have for himself.

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Last weekend Team Gimlet drove north to spend a day around Vancouver, BC, and especially to tour the new LDS temple which has been built in Langley.  The Gimlet was a LDS missionary in the Canada Vancouver Mission so it was  exciting for him to see a temple being built in the Vancouver area.  It rained very hard for the drive, and we had to wait for over an hour at the border crossing, but once we were in Canada the rain let up just a little and the temple was not very far from the border.

The open house was very crowded, probably due to the weekend, but very well organized.  After volunteers guided visitors to the few available parking places, our first stop was at the ward meetinghouse adjacent to the temple.  We were given a welcome pamphlet and directed into one of many small tour groups.  Before entering the temple we watched a short film about LDS temples in general and the history of the LDS church in British Columbia.

The tours and films are timed so that although there were lines inside the meetinghouse and to the temple itself, those lines move very quickly (something important when travelling with little kids like Thing Two), and in no time we were inside the temple for the main tour.

Photography isn’t allowed inside the temple, so do visit the temple’s web site (linked below) to see the interiors.  It’s a small temple, similar to the Sacramento Temple where Uncle J and Aunt L were married last year, but with a decidedly Northwest color scheme and ambiance.  The welcome pamphlet describes the interior details:

“The interior features beautifully grained hardwood from the west coast of Africa.  British Columbia’s provincial flower, the Pacific dogwood, is used as a motif in the decorative painting and intricate carpet sculpting.”

Children might like searching for all the dogwood flowers, which can be found on the door handles, the carpets, painted on the ceilings and walls, and decorative moldings.

Thing Two’s favorite room was the baptistry, with its large font and marble floors.  Thing One liked the Northwest nature mural in the ordinance room, and as always the sealing and celestial rooms are the most beautiful and inspiring rooms of the temple.

After the temple tour, we returned to the ward meetinghouse for cookies.  The local missionaries and ward members are clearly so proud of their new temple and are working very hard to provide a special and memorable visit for all their guests.

An early dinner at Mr Pickwick’s Fish & Chips finished off our day, and the border crossing back into the USA was thankfully much shorter.

The temple is open to the public for tours daily (except Sundays) through April 24; if you live in the area we strongly recommend making the trip.

• Official web page for the Vancouver British Columbia LDS temple

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Click to view slide show from Thing One's Paris trip (Quicktime, 22MB)

This is just a sampling of the many, many photos Thing One was able to take before his camera broke.  Visit the Gimlet Gallery for your own virtual tour through the City of Lights and the Loire Valley.

To get to Paris we had to fly on two planes.  The first flight was from Seattle to Atlanta, and from Atlanta we flew to Paris.  We left Seattle at noon on the 25th, and when we arrived in Paris it was about 9:30 am on the morning of the 26th.  We stayed in the Hotel Princesse Caroline which is in the 17th arrondissement and very close to the Arc de Triomphe.

After unpacking, we toured the Champs Élysées. I had lunch at a place called Pomme De Pain.  Then we rode Le Metro to Montmarte to see the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur.

There were lots of street performers there and we saw lots of tourists falling for a trick:  a guy would come up to a tourist with a piece of string and ask him if he wanted to see a trick, then tie the string on the tourist’s wrist.  When the tourist couldn’t get the string off his wrist, the guy would make the tourist pay for his string.

On the way, we went past Moulin Rouge (which is very different from the Red Mill at home), and also past Les Deux Moulins, where Amélie was filmed.  We  rode the Metro back to our hotel and ate dinner at the restaurant Chez Clément.

Saturday was divided between a bus tour around Paris and exploring the city on our own.

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Welcome home, Thing One!  He’s still a bit groggy from jet lag, and after spending his evenings indulging in pastries and ice cream, he grew another inch taller.  It rained almost every day, but that won’t prevent a group of Seattleites from getting out and having fun, so he still had a fabulous time.

The camera we bought for Thing One to take on his spring break trip broke after three days of use.  One of his classmates had an identical camera, and hers broke mid-trip too.  Looking through online ratings (which we should have done ahead of time) we learned that this particular camera has a reputation for falling apart after about 500 pictures.  Luckily the memory card was undamaged, so even though we’re very sorry to miss his visits to Versailles and Giverny, we have about 600 photos to sort through, label and abridge into a travel album for the Gimlet Gallery.

While we work on the pictures (and while Thing One writes his travel report), enjoy a little sampling from Paris.  He was playing around with the “vintage” photo setting on the camera when he took these.

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Thing One called to let us know he’d arrived safely (at about 9:30 am Paris time) and was settling in well.  He says he’s doing pretty well understanding what people are saying and is using his French.  So far, so good!

When Bopa visited Paris just before V-J Day in 1945, he remembers entering the city through the Gare du Nord, and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur at the top of Montmarte hill immediately caught his attention, but nobody could tell him what it was, so he never learned its name.

Sixty-five years later, this impressive edifice would also be one of the first places his grandson would see in Paris.  Thing One’s group toured the Basilique and Thing One is bringing back a souvenir commemorative coin to show his grandfather.

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We have a lot of catching up to do, and we’ll try our best to get to it all while Thing One is away on his latest adventure:  a Spring Break trip in Paris with the school’s French classes and French club.  This is Thing One’s third year studying French and it has always been one of his favorite subjects.

The tour lasts nine days, divided between guided tours and independent sightseeing in Paris, and guided excursions outside of the city to places like Giverny, Chartres, Versailles, and the châteaux of the Loire Valley.

The rest of Team Gimlet is trying not to be too nervous about sending Thing One halfway across the world.  We keep reminding ourselves that he did quite well on his own last summer.  We hope he will take lots of pictures and have many stories to tell when he returns!  Meanwhile, watch for new posts about Thing One’s Court of Honor, the family reunion, and anything else we’ve missed.

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