When I was younger, I witnessed my brother and father participating in the Boy Scouts of America. By the time I was seven, my brother had achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, and I decided that day that I must be able to achieve this rank. Though it would not be as simple of a task as one may think to achieve this great honor. To begin, I officially joined the Boy Scouts when I was 10 years old. Getting through the ranks of Scout and Tenderfoot was simple enough. I learned basic skills that would be very important for the rest of my scouting career and for the rest of my life. Camp outs were very enjoyable though to see there were not any hardships. We had to face severe weather, camping accidents, or general frustration between fellow scouts, but overall, we were able to overcome all of these problems and have great camp outs. As time went on, I became progressively more busy playing sports and taking private drum lessons so my time in scouts lowered. However, that does not mean that I was not progressing in Boy Scouts. By the time I was in 7th grade, I was already a Life Scout, the rank before Eagle Scout. Part of gaining the rank of Eagle Scout is to lead a service project. I have made plans with my school to help with a project that dealt with helping with the organization of a classroom. Unfortunately, as this project was starting to come together the COVID-19 outbreak was starting so my project had to go on hiatus. During this time I was able to participate in Merit Badge classes so I was able to maintain a consistent stream of scouting knowledge. After some time we were able to get the project back on. However, at this point, the project had changed and had become more about landscaping and general maintenance around the building. The day we did the project we were able to overcome another dispute: scheduling. The same day of the project was a major golf outing and states for track was the same day. This lost some important people who were originally going to help out with the project. I was able to find some good friends and advertise the project to some people and they were able to come out and we were able to finish this project very efficiently. After all of this, I was able to complete my Board of Review and finally achieve the rank of Eagle Scout in 2021. This was almost 10 years in this one goal. The pride and joy I had in achieving this goal was an excellent feeling.

Spending time with my brother rather than be pointlessly bantering with each other over the smallest things or actually being able to work together is one of the best ways I could ever spend my time. We have had a lot of very memorable moments with each other. Still, no memory comes even close to the time we achieved something great in the Wii U launch title, Nintendo Land. I have always had a strong appreciation for video games while Alex, my brother, liked them just so he could play games with me. Something clicked when we got the game Nintendo Land though. The controls were simple enough for Alex to understand and I, a seven-year-old boy, was just impressed with anything my family put in front of me. Nintendo Land is a game composed of several mini-games themed around past Nintendo games. We tried out all of them, but there was one that stuck out to us, The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest. Now it was only 2012 when we started playing this masterpiece of a game but our love for it never quite died down. As humorous as it is to think about it now, getting through the main levels was actually quite challenging for the two of us. I of course was a swordsman and Alex played primarily as the archer, so we had long and short range down pat. As time went on and we got busier we had less and less time to play this game together: Whenever we had the chance to boot up the Wii U however it was always a joy to spend that time together. Several years had come and gone and we were home alone together one day. Out of nowhere, Alex suggested we play Nintendo Land and who am I to say no to that. Up to this point in the game, we have gotten through everything except the last extra level. I kid you not when I say we must have spent hours on that level. We were half-heartedly playing through that level and suddenly without warning something was unlocked within the both of us. Both of us agreed we were going to beat Gannon’s last stand that day. To say we did not yell at each other a bit would be a slight lie; however, Alex and I were in it for the long haul: We were going to beat the level that day. After spending what felt like an eternity, we were starting to consistently make it to the last room of the game. That boss fight suffice to say was the bane of my existence for a little bit as I in particular was having trouble with a particular pattern of the boss fight. We spent over 5 hours playing that stupid level that day but it finally all came together. I was able to land the last hit on Gannon and we celebrated like crazy. This journey that took over 10 years was finally over.  All of the memories I was able to make with my brother were worth all of the frustrations that game gave me. That is why Nintendo Land is my favorite game to play together with friends and family.