Girl Scout Troop 5527

As part of the Senior Game Visionary Badge, the girls completed the Marshmallow Challenge for their Ice Breaker activity.

The Marshmallow challenge is a fun activity. The girls break into small teams. Each team is given 18 minutes to complete the tallest free-standing structure they can using 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 yard of masking tape, 1 yard of string, and one ordinary marshmallow. The marshmallow must remain on top.

Check out the Marshmallow Challenge website for more details and background information on this activity.

We had two teams of three girls - the 9th & 7th graders vs the 10th graders.

The 9th/7th graders created the taller structure!

Another activity of this badge was to experiment with different logic puzzles. We had a variety of different logic puzzles that each girl had a set time to try before passing it on to the next.

All six girls trying out the puzzle games.

We also played a life-size game of CLUE outside. A game board was drawn in chalk on the driveway, and the girls themselves were the pawn players. Forgot to get photos of this game, but it was fun. :-)

Our troop just came back from a long weekend visit to Juliette Gordon Low's Birthplace in Savannah, Georgia. This trip was organized by a neighbor Service Unit, 70-3 Teen Travel Club.

Juliette Low's Birthplace - Vintage photo

The girls in our troop used their cookie money savings for this trip. 2012 marks a special 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouting organization, so this was the perfect year for this trip. Four of the six members of our troop, plus our honorary member Sarah, were available to attend.

Our Basic Itinerary Highlights

We departed for Savannah on Friday morning at 7 AM from Sterling, VA, and eventually arrived at our hotel around 6 PM. Dinner was on our own that night and our troop met up with two aunts of one of our scouts, who are local to Savannah. We dined at Anna's restaurant in City Market. The weather was mild and perfect for touring. We got our first taste of Pecan Pralines samples from a Savannah Candy Kitchen. Those are delicious! There are several kitchens in the historic area, and they would prove to be a required stop whenever we saw one for the rest of the weekend.

City Market

We had girls from Brownie to Ambassador level on this trip. The girls were split into two groups - younger (Brownie) group and older (Junior and above) group. Our (older girl) group was scheduled to tour Savannah on Saturday, and visit JGL Birthplace on Sunday.

We set out after breakfast on Saturday. We first visited the Georgia Railroad Museum and Battlefield Memorial Park, and then the Savannah History Museum. After those tours were complete, we got on a trolley for a trolley/walking tour of historic Savannah.

Steam engine coming in at Georgia Railroad Museum.

The Girl Scout Adventure trolley tour included a box lunch and a visit to Laurel Grove Cemetery where Juliette Low is buried. The tour guide, Cindy, was a wealth of knowledge on Girl Scouts and Juliette!

Juliette Gordon Low's Headstone.

The walking tour of Savannah was really quite long and we were all ready to relax when it was done.

Our travel group in front of The Andrew Low House.

The girls did earn two badges for the day's activities. GS Savannah Council's own Discovering Savannah, and the Old Town Trolley Tour's Savannah Safari badge.

Savannah Council's own Discovering Savannah badges.

Savannah Safari IP badge

Dinner Saturday night was a pizza party back at the hotel. Our troop enjoyed a round of Catch Phrase before we headed back out for a Ghosts and Gravestones tour of Savannah. That was fun and our group enjoyed getting scared. :-)

Sunday morning, our group walked over to Juliette Gordon Low's Birthplace for our tour and class. Of course, when we went to visit, is the time of year they decide to do some restoration work on the building's exterior, so the house is surrounded by scaffolding. Not quite as pretty as the vintage photo above.

JGL Birthplace undergoing some restoration work.

We attended the workshop first, "Spanning the Decades", where we did activities from each of the 10 decades in Girl Scouting.

Girl Scout Workshop "Spanning the Decades"

We broke for lunch and came back for a tour of Juliette Low's home for the afternoon. No photography is allowed inside the historic home.

Troop 5527 (plus one honorary member) at Juliette Gordon Low's Birthplace
Savannah, Georgia
December 9, 2012

After our tour, we had a special Pinning Ceremony in the courtyard garden. Only a girl who has toured the Birthplace is eligible to wear the Birthplace Pin, which is the official recognition that she has visited Daisy's childhood home. The pin is placed on the front of the uniform, below the membership stars, and may be worn forever.

The Birthplace Pin this year is a special edition for the 100th anniversary.

A leader will start the ceremony and pin the person to their right. That person will then pin to their right and so on. The ceremony is ended by singing TAPS.

Gathering in the courtyard for the Pinning Ceremony

The girls also received a special 100-year anniversary Birthplace patch for their visit.

100 Years Juliette Low Birthplace patch.

We ended our Sunday night with our entire trip's group having dinner at the Pirate's House.

Monday morning we departed Savannah, GA at 8 AM on our Virginia Coach bus, and arrived back in Sterling, VA at 7 PM.

You can see more photos of our troop's weekend in our photo album on flickr.

It was a great trip and the girls really enjoyed it. Definitely recommend to other Girl Scouts. :-)