Wondering what you’re looking at? That’s hours of hard work done by two smart Girl Scouts (one being Zoe!) to create items to sell at our annual Tasting Bee in April: Handmade “monsters”, bandanas, scrunchies, rabbits and a few bracelets. Back in 2023, Ella and I attended one of these events and loved it so much that when our troop got a chance to run it, we jumped right in.

Last year was our first full-speed-ahead coordination and ownership of the event. The Tasting Bee consists of “booths” created by Girl Scout troops, each with local single-serve tastes (yes, actual food!) from a country they select, served at a table filled with facts and traditions shared by Scouts dressed in the spirit of their region. Here’s a write-up of our 2025 event in the local Crescenta Valley Weekly.

What this means for our troop is two things: 1) our Scouts select a country and design a booth, and 2) the troop leader and I coordinate to bring in other troops and promote the event to the community. We had 13 troops last year–and this year we organized a record-setting group of 18!

To help, the Johnson family prints, assembles and staples hundreds of “Passport” books for attendees that includes pages for each country, which they bring to the booths to get an official country stamp along with learnings and local tastes.

I coordinate all the online promotion, set the participating troops up for success, and basically wrangle a spreadsheet of details to be sure all goes smoothly. Each attendee gets 30 tastes for their paid registration, and in prior years, we used raffle tickets as tokens–which meant in 2025 we tore 9,000 tickets into rows of 10 and stuffed paper bags to have ready for our 300 registrants. That’s not a typo: nine thousand.

This year, the troop was looking for a more sustainable solution, and Zoe came up with popsicle sticks! Though it sounded so much easier, we ended up with over 450 attendees, meaning we had to count out 13,500 sticks into groups of 30 to stuff those bags… Good problem to have, I guess? The purpose of this event is to raise funds for the Europe trip these Scouts have been saving for the past 3 years. More attendees means more funds, and this year we earned over $4000!

Though I have to say my favorite part is feeling the energy of all the excited participants as they create experiences for one another. France made fresh crepes. The Philippines prepared mango sticky rice. Our troop served fondue (as Switzerland), which was way harder that it sounded… Our 18 troops represented Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Honduras, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and the UK. Imagine all those tastes!

My favorite FAVORITE part is my husband playing the part of “Booth Sleuth”, as he goes around to each troop’s table and quizzes them on what they really know about their country, with a sleuth hat on:

ChatGPT helped us pull information across all those countries, and armed with facts, he asks the hard questions and provides prizes in the lead-up to the event. The whole event is truly a group effort–and thankfully this was our last year running it, since it’s hours and hours of work. Worth it, but exhausting. Though here are two gorgeous faces who survived the Bee with their good humor intact:

Speaking of exhausting, Zoe completed her first drive to Starbucks, with her behind the wheel. That’s another happy face. In fact, let’s wrap up this post with three Zoe pics, because the next post is all about Ella!

First you’ll see that I-made-it-to-Starbucks glow photo, followed by a sassy pic in a furry jacket before a friend’s Sweet 16 party, and finally, the lead-up to the Theater Banquet at Zoe’s school, where she won THREE awards:

• Sophomore of the Year!
• Standout Ensemble Performance
• Outstanding Tech (for a One Act show)

She and her bestie got ready together at our place, and I talked them into a photoshoot in the backyard. Smiles, everyone, smiles! And just wait. You’ll soon see our rising 6th grader as she wrapped up elementary school this year and heads off to middle school in the Fall. It’s non-stop over here, and these girls keep us busy.