celebrating easter with the girl scouts

our first year of being junior girl scouts is winding down to an end, which is kind of hard to believe.  actually, this whole school year has really flown by like crazy and it just seems to go faster and faster every year.  yikes.

because we only have use of our meeting space at the church on the first and third weekends of the month, we decided to take the girls on a fun outing for last week's meeting.  with easter coming up, a trip to a local craft venue called the sawdust factory seemed like a great idea.

the bean has been here a couple of times before - once for a field trip with summer camp and another for a birthday party.  it's one of those places where the kids get to make a fun craft using wood products and paint and accessories, and they always have a great time with activities like this.

their reserved tables were all set up with the supplies for their craft - an easter treat box with their choice of either a bunny or a chick.  there were samples of each so that the girls could see what their finished product might look like.

we were the first ones to arrive, so the bean grabbed an apron and we sat down to wait for everyone else.

we only had 7 out of our 9 girls there for this meeting, and we took a few group photos before getting down to business.  this is my favorite one...i'm sure you can guess why.

before they sat down to start painting, our hostess took us to the wood shop in an adjacent building to give the girls an overview of what they do, learn a little about different kinds of wood and see some of the equipment in action.

they cut out all of the pieces that are used in the workshop, and they're all neatly organized and labeled.

the birthday parties are done on this side of the room:

the girls were excited to get started on painting and decorating their boxes.  i love outings like this, because they're completely occupied and i can sit on my tired bum and relax a little.  heh.

i'd stopped at target before the meeting to grab some easter grass and a few candy-filled eggs for each basket, which our hostess happily filled the finished boxes with while the girls enjoyed a snack and chatted for a while.  look how cute they turned out:

and one more group photo with their creations was a requirement.

i think we only have about 3 or 4 meetings left before we break for the year, and then when we start scouting again next year we'll need to start getting serious.  it'll be our second and final year of junior level and we want to earn our bronze award.  i hope we can come up with a cool project to work on!