Hi all!  Happy Thinking Day.  This postcard exchange has been great!  It was a bit chaotic, the girls were very enthusiastic, and there were a lot of postcards, so the signatures were a bit messy on the ones we sent out, we each wrote our name and one thing we really liked. Next week after our Thinking Day (this Saturday) we are going to use an atlas to color in all the postcards we have gotten.  The two cards to the right are like the ones we sent out.

Its cookie selling time for us, and we spent an evening last week at a cookie rally hosted at Sea World. We got a special Shamu show and for some reason they put all the brownies in the lower section (splash zone) and I was sure they wouldn't splash us, BUT THEY DID! Several of our girls were soaking! but luckily it was in the low seventies so they weren't too cold (only some were shivering).

One of the speakers at the rally was a young freshman in college, who, last year, was the lead selling girl scout for our council. 1200 boxes of cookies! (That would give you a belly ache!) Sea World also sponsored a contest for the Heart of Florida and Citrus councils...The troop that sells the most boxes per girl will win a free sleepover at Sea World! They regularly have sleepovers for girl scouts where the girls can spend the night next to the sharks or penguin exhibits and get a tour and a special patch, it is rather expensive so to win one is pretty cool.

This year for thinking day our service unit (New Generations of Citrus Council) will have an exhibit sponsored by one of our troops at a local church. Each troop will have a booth dedicated to one country. Each troop will display information about their country, share games or crafts, tell stories, maybe serve a food item, etc.

Our country this year is Japan. We have had a guest speaker, a friend of mine who had grown up in Japan and had been a girl scout there. So she shared a lot of information about the country. This past weekend, we had a sleepover for thinking day.  During the day we took a field trip to an Asian grocery store (the incense mixed with fish smells were a bit too much for some of the girls to start off with, but they got use to it), and then spent the rest of the day crafting and learning. They tried sushi and watched movies like Spirited Away and Totoro! They practiced origami, made swaps and learned how to use chopsticks so that we can teach it to other troops. We have a few games to play and lots of information to share.

UPDATE - We had our Thinking Day on January 31, 2004.  Along with our country [Japan], other countries represented were:  Greece, Jamaica, Spain, Mexico, China, Germany, Israel, and Scotland.  The girls learned lots of things, and they especially liked answering questions and demonstrating origami.  We were serving a Japanese yogurt drink (which was just like any kind of juice) and most visiting girls went 'YUK' so when we left out the 'yogurt' they really liked the 'Japanese juice drink'. (lol) We all collected and shared lots of information and received a lot of neat swaps.  The best part, though, was learning so much cool stuff about another country.

In March we will have our annual Camporee near the Ocala national forest. This year we will actually be in tents (well maybe), last year we got lucky and had a cabin!

Troop 1138 wishes that all you girls and leaders have a wonderful 2004!

Thanks Troop 1138
Winter Park, Florida

Kim, Karen, Mari Jo, Jessica, Amberley, Clara, Kayla, Alyssa, Amanda, Cally, Cody, Jenny and Maggie

Happy Thinking Day 2004!