May is certainly flying by. Especially for Allison. She is wrapping up her finals-and her final semester of school to finish up her Bachelor's degree!  She had a long break in between finals, so she decided to come home for a visit. Turns out she needed to come home and shop for a new laptop computer. Her computer blew up on her! And she really needs one for school-so she came home Tuesday night after class and Tom and Allison had a day out on Weds.

She and Tom went computer shopping Weds afternoon, and then headed up to Hershey, PA to catch a hockey game. The Hershey Bears had one more chance to make it into the final Caldor Cup, but sadly they did not make it. Allison and Tom enjoyed their hockey game anyway and their day out together. Tom is still transitioning to his new work position and is in between online classes, so he has some extra time available.  Scott and I were home and off to the Boy Scout meeting. There are a few more activities coming up that Scott wants to participate in, like an overnight camping trip on Memorial Day weekend. He is also hoping to schedule his Eagle scoutmaster conference on that trip.

So on Thursday night we all went out to dinner in Old Ellicott City and enjoyed walking through the shops afterwards. It was Ladies Night, so they had some freebies in each of the shops. The town has not completely recovered from last years massive flood and there are still many closed stores. I was also disappointed that they ran out of Girls Night Out glasses at  The Wine Bin. But Allison and I enjoyed our wine tasting anyway, along with some really good chocolate cake!  On Friday, Allison headed back to school to prepare for a Pot Luck Frisbee party at her place. She had one more final to prepare for on Monday night.

We started our Memorial Day weekend celebration early. I would have loved to attend the Wine in the Woods event in Columbia MD. The event has grown considerably over the years-lots of wine tasting and bands, arts and craft booths, food booths-both Sat and Sun. But Tom is not really a fan of Maryland wines, which is all they serve. So instead we had my Mom over for dinner on Saturday night after picking Scott up from work. Tom grilled some wonderful, thick pork chops but we ate inside since it has been a bit chillier and rainy. Although that makes for good weather to get some yardwork done. And I was able to get my flowers and tomato plants in the ground. Then on Sunday we were invited to our friends house for dinner with a few other neighbors. Most of the kids are home from school, so it was fun hearing about their first year at college, summer plans or current activities. Our high school kids still have a few more weeks of school until summer break.

Allison still does not have any set summer plans for work. She did hear from a computer programming company who seem very interested in her, but the placement is in Virginia and quite the commute. If nothing else pops up, she may go back to Girl Scout camp as a Unit Leader. Scott's summer will be busy with Boy Scout camp and volunteering at Cub Scout camp. Also finishing up his driving classes and hopefully getting his license. Always busy. At least Scott had a day off on Friday. I think the teachers needed time to get in the grades for the Seniors who are graduating next week. However, Scott did have to work since school was out.

Before I had to drop Scott off to work, I had to take Pika our cat in for her yearly check up. Now at 17, I believe arthritis is creeping in on her making it hard for her to move around. Besides her pancreatitis and liquid medication, I need to give her injections 2x/week for the arthritis. Boy is that a whole new experience. But supposedly it works. I think I need it for myself!

Wishing our niece, Stacey a Very Happy Birthday!

This is the river that flows behind and below Old Ellicott City down to the main river. However, when the city flooded last year, it was the street that turned into a river. You can see why it is a bit risky to have a business there.

Happy Mother's Day! My boys treated me to a dinner out in downtown Baltimore. Tom made reservations at Morton's Steakhouse. They had a lobster tail/filet mignon combo special. Scott had never been to a ritzy restaurant before, so we guided him through a few different meal options. We started off with escargot, but Scott and I thought it just tasted like spinach pie since they served the snails on spinach and puff pastry. My wedge salad was so big, Scott and I shared it. And he tried a huge veal chop. So big we had to send it back to cook some more. Scott enjoyed nibbling on the bone! We all enjoyed our dinner so much, we were too stuffed for dessert. Instead we stopped in for milk shake on the way home.

I would have enjoyed bringing my Mom along, and I planned on taking her out. However, my schedule and mom's schedule did not seem to mesh. I had to drop Scott off to work on Mother's Day! The roller rink has always been closed that day. Not anymore. They want to increase their revenue. Not necessarily a good thing since Scott reports 2 people showed up to skate. I guess everyone figured they were closed. They did not do a good job advertising their new opening.  Anyhow, I did stop by to bring Mom some flowers after dropping off Scott. And we all went out to see Guardians of the Galaxy II before he went to work. We really enjoyed the movie, but it was not exactly on Mom's list of must sees! However, she had a very busy Sunday schedule at the residence with entertainment, BINGO and movie night. And Mom B was looking forward to the activities. Meanwhile, Tom spent the afternoon busy mowing the lawn.

It has been plenty warm enough lately to keep us busy with yardwork. I haven't bought all my outdoor flowers yet though. Just waiting for some steady, warm weather. I actually picked up a few tomato plants and had to put them in the garage since we had a freeze warning!  Crazy. Now that everything is busy growing, it will be time to do more trimming of the bushes too. Oh well. Scott was looking forward to putting in a garden again this year. So as a Mother's Day gift he offered to buy me a raised planter to grow our jalapeno peppers. We tried growing them in an old kid's swimming pool in the backyard, and mostly the bunnies ate the plants. So we thought we'd go a little higher. Just waiting for it to arrive!  The kids also bought me a sweet MOM charm on a gold chain. I am spoiled! Just wish Allison could have joined us. She was busy studying for an upcoming final. We had talked about visiting her on Mother's Day, but she had friends over for the early part of the weekend and a trip to the beach scheduled. Turns out we had rain all day Saturday, so she put off the beach trip to Sunday morning.

She was making the most of her last few days with her roommate, Jen. She graduated last December, and is planning on attending the Library Science program at Uof Maryland in the Fall. So she was packing up her things at the condo and heading home. Her parent's actually live right around the corner, so she is moving back in with them until she can find an apartment closer to school. So that meant most of the furniture and household items were going with her. Not to worry, we have plenty to share with Allison. She asked for our old kitchen table and recliner chair. Turns out, Jen's parents have a large van and were able to transport the furniture from our house to school on Saturday. So Friday night, Scott and I moved all the furniture to the garage so that Tom could help load it into the van when he came home from work. The furniture looks great in the condo, and she loves feeling like she is at home!

Unfortunately, my back did not survive furniture moving(on top of carrying Cookie around for a week after her surgery). Cookie was not supposed to be jumping on furniture, or walking up and down steps while her stitches healed. She is a good 25lbs, so I guess my back felt it along with lifting and carrying tables and chairs. I did me in.  I could barely walk over the weekend. And that being said, I was supposed to go to a church concert and out to dinner with a coworker and her friend on Saturday night. However, I spent the entire day on the couch with the heating pad

. I hope I can make it through work next week!

I was pretty busy the week before. I had a dentist appointment Thursday morning. Sadly, our dentist office closed, but they merged with an existing dental office in our neighborhood. So we had a husband/wife dental clinic, and the wife joined forces with another female dentist right around the corner. I met the new dentist, and she worked on my tooth. Our previous dentist only works 3 days/wk and this was her day off. I was impressed with the new dentist, but not their office. Very, very outdated. I used to tease about remembering spit bowls, and there they were! I did not think most dental clinics today still used those. It is like walking into a high tech store and seeing overhead projectors and tape cassette players(or electric typewriters!). Anyway, I was getting an impression made for my new dental implant. The new dentist was very patient with me since I cannot stand having goop shoved in my mouth-makes me gag. I also had to schedule some more upcoming appointments for myself, Scott, Tom  and my Mom. So we'll see how this works out.

A big shout out to Mark Seitz celebrating his May Birthday! ( I think he spent his special day painting at their new house. )Now if they can just sell their current house! My brother Dan is doing the same thing as Mark. He downsized with wife Sheila and is looking for a buyer for their previous house in Houston.

First week of May!  Tom finally heard from work and was offered a new position! He is so happy. He had to go in for an interview, and now has to let his current work group know that he is leaving. He is thrilled about the switch, but knows the current work group is going to miss him. But he will get a lot more done and enjoy his new position so much more. So he really does not have a lot to do until June when he officially switches over. Good for him since he can spend time finishing up his current online class.

I continue to stay busy with Girl Scout choir. After work last Weds, I participated in the introductory program for the yearly GS Delegate meeting. We sang 3 songs on stage prior to their meeting and right after the dinner. However, they were running late and we ended up singing about 30 mins after our scheduled time. No matter. We had time to practice. And while I was on stage, I spotted Allison's previous mentor, Jeannette Partlow from the Chemical company. Too bad the meeting had just started, I would have loved visiting with her.   We just exchanged smiles and waves. Looks like the next performance will be the end of the year meeting and nursing home performance. And probably at least 1 baseball game National Anthem performance this summer.

On Friday I was busy taking Cookie into the vet. She had been scheduled for dental work and to have some lumps taken off her back. The clinic had to reschedule since they had problems with their equipment. So this was the big day. I took Cookie in around 8am and she did not return home until after 5pm. The clinic was very busy-lots of surgeries. She did very well and came home with stitches in her back and missing two bad front teeth. Fortunately you cannot see the missing teeth, and the scars should heal up nicely. So I spent the day waiting for her to be done. Afterwards we were asked to keep her calm and feed her soft food along with antibiotics. Not as easy as it sounds. Fortunately she is really good about eating and no problem taking the pills hidden in cheese. But it was hard to keep her from jumping up on the couch, or even going down the steps outside to go to the bathroom. So we had to pick her up quite a bit and try to keep her from running around. And that was not easy since she weighs a good 25lbs. Very solid puppy.

On Saturday night, Tom was able to purchase a few tickets to attend the Hershey Bear Hockey game. He was able to get seats right on the glass next to the Hershey Bear team. He has been in the mood to catch an NHL/IHL Stanley Cup/Caldor Cup game live. We have been following the Washington Capitals, and their IHL team, The Hershey Bears, have been staying in the playoffs as well. We picked up Scott after work and our friend, John and headed up to Hershey. Unfortunately the game did not go well. The Bears lost 3 to 1, but it was a fun game and interesting to watch so close to the ice. But surprisingly, not comfortable.  We decided we need to stick with the Club seats from now on. The space was very crowded and the seats were small and cramped. Not good on our knees. Plus you really had to get up every time someone in the row wanted out(and there was a very large woman at the end of our row who kept getting up and down). Pretty much cleared out the entire row to let her through! And it made it hard to watch the game! But it was still fun.

Scott had to work all weekend, but that was not his only activity. He also took the SAT on Saturday morning. We thought it would be good to get a few tests out of the way his Junior year so he has time during his Senior year to retake them if he wants to/needs to bump up his scores. He missed the Boy Scout Appalachian Trail camping trip though. He would have enjoyed going if he had time, and if the boys weren't preparing for the 2018 Philmont High Adventure Trip. They have to practice hiking and carrying heavy backpacks. Instead, he is looking forward to the White Water Rafting trip and a Memorial Day weekend overnight camping trip at the fairgrounds.

 He has 1.5 more months of school left and he can't wait to be done. He is busy reading "Of Mice and Men" in English, and currently has a substitute teacher for chemistry as his regular teacher is off on maternity leave. And the Seniors will be leaving soon. So they are getting ready for finals. Which messes up Scott's class schedule since he has Seniors in many of his courses.

We have also been busy with our yardwork. I have been trying to clean up leaves from the plant beds, and Tom started cutting the grass and applying fertilizer. I had to transplant a few stray bushes, so lots of digging. It has been a crazy spring with freezing cold temperatures and temps in the 90s like mid summer. So the plants have had quite a change in their normal schedule. My magnolia tree did not blossom at all this year. All of the blossoms fell off in a freeze. But the cherry trees did very well and the neighborhood was beautiful with all the blooming pink and white blossoms, along with the dogwoods. This year was the best bloom I have ever seen on my lilac bushes, and the iris are going strong as well as my pink clematis flowering vine. The forsynthia did not do well this year(the yellow flowered bushes) and not as many daffodils. A lot of plants started blooming early in February with a warm up, but it got colder in March with the snow storm, so it was too harsh on the early bloomers. DC sneaked out a Cherry Blossom festival this year, but we did not have time to go down there. We even missed the annual kite festival in April. Just too busy.  And the critters are all busy-momma bunny is back in our yard. I am sure she has a family under our shed as usual. And most exciting, I have baby bluebirds again in my nesting box. And we are enjoying all the different types of birds attracted to our feeder including gold finch, cardinals, blue jays, doves and chickadees to name a few. I think the one thing everyone could skip this spring is the pollen and the allergy symptoms!

End of April and Tom was spending another week working in LA. Mostly the San Diego and Palmdale area. He actually is interested in changing work groups and has put in a request for a transfer. At Northrop, you basically have to quit one job and interview for another position at the same company. So he had interviewed with another group and was waiting to hear if they could cover his school expenses for his PhD.  In the meantime, his current work group found him something to keep him busy.

Scott was back to working very hard on his last semester of school. He did very well with his report card bringing home all A's and a B. Way to Go Scott! He has been working so hard at school and with his other activities, including working at the roller rink. He had one more training class for work at night and I dropped him off while I went to visit with my mom. I had not seen her since before Easter and decided she needed a hair appointment. The last time we were together, Scott and I were enjoying an Easter brunch at her place.

So when the weekend rolled around, I took her in to see our favorite hairdresser on Sunday evening. On Saturday evening, I had picked Mom up after dropping Scott off to work and brought her home to enjoy a steak dinner out on our deck. The weather was incredibly hot and humid for one of the last days in April. Mom seemed to enjoy sitting outside listening to all the birds singing as well as a few of our spring peeper frogs chirping in the backyard. On Sunday I was able to take her in for a hair appointment. I had a busy Sunday however. I started it off with a drive north of Baltimore to the Bel Air library. Our Girl Scout choir was asked to sing for a children's program. The children's librarian read a book about Girl Scouts and we sang. It was a very nice library, especially the kids area. Last weekend I sang with the Girl Scouts at an Outdoor event for Earth Day. I passed on a few other events we sang at over the last couple of months including being invited to sing "God Bless America" for the Baltimore soccer team. The Baltimore Blast hosted a Chinese soccer team in a world championship here in Baltimore, but I just couldn't get into watching a soccer game. Also, the choir put on a musical written by one of our parents. They put on a musical last year, but it is a lot of rehearsals, especially during the week, and I just did not feel like putting in the time. So I go when I can.

Our last weekend in April turned out nice. Good thing for Allison. She traveled up near Girl Scout camp to attend a weekend camping trip for the Frisbee teams. The teams all get together every year for a camp out and frisbee tournaments. This year the girls were lucky enough to stay in cabins with flush toilets, showers and cots. Good thing since Allison was not feeling very well. Looks like what ever has been going around finally caught up with her. But she managed to survive camp food, just not a lot of frisbee playing. She did win a tournament frisbee though!  And then she was back to school on Sunday. She is quickly coming to an end to her Senior year and graduation. She was happy to finish up one of her big projects this term-she helped put on a free baseball clinic for the kids in Salisbury with a few classmates. Now she is mostly studying for tests and finishing up presentations. And she will be attending Grad School come August for her MBA. However, she has not heard back from any companies yet on a summer internship opportunity. She is still eyeing Girl Scout camp as a counselor if all else fails.

Scott is also looking forward to the end of this year. He is hoping this last semester will be as successful as the previous one. I did strongly encourage him to attend After Prom. He was not interested in attending Prom, but the kids are allowed to go to After Prom even if they do not attend Prom. It is a big, Up All Night party with lots of food, activities and prizes held at our YMCA. Allison went twice during her Junior and Senior year after attending Prom with friends. Scott was not interested in the dancing part, or dressing up in his tux, but he did agree to attend the party with his friends. Tom was back in town Friday night, so he was able to drop him off Saturday night at midnight. Scott had worked that afternoon, but was up and ready to go party. He actually had a great time, especially with his friends and one of the moms working the event took him and a few other kids out to breakfast at 5am when the party got out. Fortunately he did not have to work on Sunday and was able to get some sleep before hitting the books.

So Easter was over.  We really did not get to spend a whole lot of time with my mom on the holiday. Scott and I did enjoy an Easter brunch with her at Sunrise the weekend before. The facility always does a nice job entertaining the residents and their families. Wish we could have stayed longer, but Scott had to get to work that day.

And Tom finally had to get to work. He was asked to fly out to California for a project at the last minute the week after Easter Sunday. Work was trying to decide if they should send him to Florida, Texas or California, and LA won. Although he did not spend much time in LA. He was all over southern California. So that left me to run Scott around to school and work.  I was busy working too. A few of our staff members were sick and on vacation, so I came in on the weekend to help out. Meanwhile, I have been fighting colds and stomach bugs myself all spring. I am sure all the running around did not help.

Scott was still attending employee training every Tuesday night, so I needed to give him a ride. He also had a scout trip scheduled for the upcoming weekend that he was looking forward to attending. It is the yearly Bike and Hike scout trip and this year was scheduled at Gettysburg, PA. Scott has ridden around the large park before and really enjoyed it. He also liked the campground since it accommodates horses  and the boys usually tent next to the stables and they were a fun distraction.  There were only a few boys from Scott's patrol camping, and Scott volunteered to cook. However, one of the new boys in the patrol is vegetarian, so Scott had to learn a whole new way of cooking. On Thursday night, he and I went out grocery shopping for vegetarian meatballs and sausages. Scott actually did a good job planning a menu and picking out vegetarian food items for his spaghetti and meatballs and pancakes and sausage. So on Friday I packed up his camping gear and food while he was at school. One of the patrol members mom gave him a ride up to camp. They were only staying one night, so I would have to pick up Scott on Sunday.

In the meantime, Allison was headed home for the weekend. She had a frisbee tournament scheduled at the University of Maryland. She decided to stay with us for the weekend. Usually the girls on the team bunk down in one of the team members's family houses. Allison opted not to volunteer our house for 30 girls. (She knows what fun I had last time we hosted and one of the girls had an asthma attack and had to be taken to the hospital).  But really, I wouldn't have minded, but I needed to get Scott to camp. I did not really have a lot of time for cooking and cleaning for 30 girls. But I was happy to have Allison home for the weekend(even a little bit). On Friday, she stopped in to have dinner with Tyler on her way home. Then she was up early Saturday morning and off playing frisbee.

Sadly, Saturday turned out to be a rotten day for outdoor activities. It rained and poured all day long. In Pennsylvania, Scott's group cooked breakfast under a tarp, and then postponed their bike ride until the afternoon, hoping the rain would let up. In the morning, they toured the visitor center at Gettysburg. Scott has been there before, so nothing really new. After lunch, they went out on their ride, but it was in the cold rain. Scott's group was led by a mom who did not want to ride through the Gettysburg park and did not want to take the boys along the road to access the other trails since it was raining and she was worried they would get run over. Also, a few of the boys in the group were not prepared for bad weather(contrary to the boy scout motto Be Prepared) and they were wet and cold and wanted to quit. So Scott did not enjoy his biking trip as much as he has in the past. At least it stopped raining around meal time, but he burnt his garlic toast, so he was not too happy. And the vegetarian scout decided to sleep in Scott's tent since the other boy had gone home with his mom, and all he did was complain that the tent was dirty inside. Mind you, he had his own tent he could have slept in. Scott does not mind tenting alone with a bit of mud and leaves. So Sunday morning Tom drove up with me to pick up Scott early. Of course the weather was beautiful on Sunday.

Allison's frisbee games were also put on hold on Saturday morning. The teams usually play on the Fraternity lawns, but the groundskeepers did not want people running all over in the rain. So the games had to be moved to another field farther off campus. Some of the team members got lost on their way to the other fields. Then they put the games on hold since it was raining too hard. There really wasn't anything to do while they were waiting, but Allison and a few girls managed to locate a small aviation museum near the campus to walk around in while they waited for the rain to let up. She finally got through her games and headed home for dinner. On Sunday, she was also up early and off to another day of frisbee games before driving back to school. Sadly the girls did not win one single game on either day. But they do love playing. Tom, Scott and I were headed back from Gettysburg and stopped into Frederick, Maryland for a Papa Murphy pizza. The 'bake your own' pizza shop closed by our house and Frederick was the nearest store, 30 mins away. We ordered two to have later. When we got home, Tom packed and was headed back to LA. Scott unpacked all his Boy Scout equipment and started on his homework. I was off to participate in a Girl Scout sing a long at an Earth Day event with our choir in the afternoon. Thank goodness the rain stopped since this was an outdoor event.

Another busy week for the Seitz family.

So Scott was finally on his Spring Break in the middle of April. He still had to go to work, but we did not sign him up for any sessions during the middle of the week. Tom and I still had to go to work, and he did not have a ride. Scott did have to start his training classes on Tuesday night.  But then he worked his regular weekend schedule.

Actually, if he had to go to work, Tom would have been able to drive him. Turns out, Tom has not been very busy at work since the new year began, so he has been spending a lot more time at home. His team has been reorganized, so he has not had many projects to keep him busy. Instead, he has been focusing most of his time and energy on his schoolwork. Which is good for his schoolwork. But he also has spent time working on projects around the house. Not so good for me as it usually means more cleaning on my end.

Like he cleaned out the pantry, cabinets and the freezer. Which made it tough to locate items I was searching for(I have my own system for organizing which makes it worse since I am usually the one who spends the most time in both places!). Then he decided to trim more branches off the maple trees along our street. He managed to get two trees trimmed and after he cut up all the tree branches, he left a huge pile of logs and twigs that ran the entire length of our house! And that was only 2 trees! Naturally, the county won't pick up plant debris unless it is packed up in recycle bags. So it took several weeks to sweep and bag tree limbs and branches, and Tom finally had to pack up the big logs and take them to the recycle dump. Plus I am still raking up leaves from under the bushes from last fall! I wish Tom felt compelled to spread the rest of the mulch sitting in our driveway from last year. We had way too much. He did decide to take on all the lawn care himself this year including spreading fertilizer and crabgrass killer. And since it has been so much warmer this spring and so much earlier, he has started to cut the grass since it is growing out of control. Then he decided to change out our front door screen. He put in a new storm door that has just a half screen up top. It looks OK. Mainly Tom was worried about the full length door screen that we already had getting pushed in/out by the pets and visitors. At least I put him to good use getting my flat tire repaired on my van.

Since he was interested in transferring to another department,  he interviewed with a previous work group and  is waiting to hear back. He just needs the manager to agree to continue to pay for his PhD. I hope he hears from the group soon! I really don't need any more new projects to clean up after!  As it was, I put in extra hours at work. One of our OT's was feeling ill, so I ended up working for her on Friday. On Saturday we were planning on traveling to Williamsburg after Scott got off work, so after I dropped him off, I stopped in to visit with my mom. I wanted to drop off her Easter basket since we were going to be out of town on the holiday. She loved her new shirts, Easter sweet treats and the Disney bracelet we picked up for her during our Florida visit. I also dropped off some hyacinth bulbs in full bloom. I couldn't stay long since I needed to get back home and pack the van. I also had to drop Cookie off to our friends for the weekend.

We felt bad that Scott didn't really seem to have much of a Spring Break. So we decided to take him to Busch Gardens on Easter Sunday. Allison wanted to join us, so she met us in Williamsburg Saturday night. After Scott got off work we headed down to Williamsburg  Saturday night and all stayed overnight at a local hotel. It was fun spending the night together, and we decided to check out our Easter baskets that evening since we wanted to get an early start at Busch Gardens the next day. I teased the kids and told them I hid their Easter baskets somewhere in the hotel(yes, Allison got another Easter basket). I couldn't help myself. I had packed a few extra treats from my trip to Philly that I included in everyone's basket like chocolate covered pretzels for Allison and Old City Coffee for Tom. For Scott it was coconut covered chocolate "bunny tails". I treated myself to a few Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit figurines that I bought from one of our neighbors the week before. I had a Royal Doulton collection started when I was young, and was excited to see someone in our neighborhood parting with a few statues that I hadn't seen before. Plus they are sugar free!

We had a wonderful day at the Amusement Park. The kids were most excited to try out the new wooden roller coaster and the day was absolutely gorgeous. 90 degrees but not too hot or humid. Although a bit too warm for this time of the year. It was amazing how green the trees were in Virginia. It is only 3 hours away, but it seems like a completely different world. We topped off our end of Lent celebration with ice cream sundaes. Sadly, it was time to get back home, so we parted ways with Allison. She had driven herself down the eastern shore and wanted to head back to school before it got too late. She had a 3 hr drive and our ride home took about 5 hours because of traffic. Fortunately, Tom and Scott did not have to worry about getting up early the next day since Tom still did not have much work and Scott had Easter Monday off. Lucky guys. I was back to work.

At least Scott was able to move forward on his paperwork for his Eagle project during his time off. He finished all the paperwork for his Eagle notebook during his Spring Break. Then he was able to have his notebook reviewed by his Eagle coach and the Scoutmaster during the scout meeting while he was off from school. Next step is to have a Scoutmaster conference. This is the time when the scoutmaster quizzes the boys on all the knowledge they have learned since they started scouts, including such  info on first aid, knot tying, emergency procedures and the history of boy scouting. Pretty much involves memorizing the boy scout handbook. Looks like he won't have time for that until after school gets out in June.