Category: Uncategorized

We had lots of rank advancements and merit badges awarded at last night’s court of honor. Most scouts advanced one rank, and some even advanced three! Lots of merit badges and three new eagle scouts as well.

Troop 157 embarked on a History of Scouting Trail (HOST Hike), which is a multi-hike series that honors the founders of Scouting America while taking hikers through Scouting-related landmarks and sites in Washington, DC. The James E. West hike is a 5.4-mile hike that took us from the small park near the south side of the Air & Space Museum to the National Museum of the American Indian. It was a cold, blustery day, but our scouts had a blast!

You have left Northern Virginia enroute to a vacation in Hawaii. While in the air there is an awful storm, and you are blown off course. Lost with damaged instruments, your pilot sees an island below and must make an emergency landing. At first it seems like a tropical paradise. You can survive anywhere. You’re a Scout, and you’re prepared. You have no worries. You have brought all you need with you…and then you see pterodactyls fly over and you realize you have landed on an island inhabited by dinosaurs….

• How will you survive?
• Will the dinosaurs be friendly?
• What trials and tribulations will you have to go through to make it off the island?
• Will you fill your passport and make it to your destination?

This month, we went to the district’s Jurassic Adventure Camporee at Camp Highroad in Middleburg, VA! Our troop participated in a variety of patrol-based competitions, working on lashings, fire building, navigation, first aid, archery and more.

We’re sorry we missed last year! As an apology, we’re offering new items, and DEEP discounts – but only through this pre-sale. Pre-orders are live until July 30th. Shop Now! https://2025-christmas-tree-presale.square.site/s/shop

We’re offering the trees for sale at the 2023 prices – but we can’t do that for the whole time for all of the trees – It’s not just our troop relying on this this year, 1577 is joining us in this fundraising endeavor.

Some of the size classes are simply not going to be available on the lot: 12 foot and up are not being ordered on spec this year, so if that’s the size you want, you’ll need to order it. The decorative items will likely not be on the lot either.

9-12 foot tall trees are priced for this presale at the same price we were selling them at two years ago. Those prices will be going up when they are on the lot.

And the rest of the trees have a 5% discount attached to them for the presale as well. Email us at XmasTreeSale@basTroop157.com with any questions!

This month, the scouts cleaned up Bready Park as well as went camping at Burke Lake Park. The closer destination was nice after battling the traffic to Richmond. Fishing was also a focus for this month, but unfortunately the hot weather made it difficult to catch much. We’ve been told many times that they call it “fishing”, not “catching” for a reason.

We unfortunately chose one of the hottest weeks to attend summer camp. It had temps of over 100 with a “feels like” of 117 at its hottest. Nevertheless, our scouts had fun and made the best of it! After a long, sweaty week of advancement and merit badges, we were all happy to go home to our own beds with AC, showers without shower shoes and no wolf spiders!!

Congratulations to Caleb, Troop 157’s newest eagle scout!

Caleb was featured in both NCAC and The Reston Letter for attaining eagle scout at just 11 years old!

We’ve been busy keeping up with Bready Park, working on rank advancement, the auto mechanics merit badge and also some physical fitness/swim testing and just hanging out. Looking forward to summer camp in a couple weeks!!

The Honor Flight Network is a special program in the DC area that aims to thank veterans for their service, sacrifice, and selflessness. They fly veterans in from all over the United States to spend a day or two in DC, taking them to all the war memorials, see the changing of the guard, etc. It’s a special day to thank and honor them. Part of this involves a warm welcoming and departure at the airport. Troop 157 saw the Dubuque, Iowa veterans off on their flight.