The Mighty Mississippi reduced to frosting

Matt is a Cub Scout (although not for much longer--he turns 11 in October and he'll be a full-fledged boy scout then). This month's pack meeting was the Blue and Gold dinner. The boys were given the assignment to decorate a cake by themselves with the theme Beautiful America. Matt chose to memorialize Lake Itasca--headwaters of the Mississippi River. We visited the lake two and a half years ago, and Matt likes to recall running around in the river where it's only a few feet wide and a foot deep. Here are a few pictures for your reference:

Yes, I made the icing and colored it. I gave direction and made a few suggestions regarding the design. But he did the decorating himself.

Here he is pouring on the crushed graham cracker sand. You can see the lake area (the big blob of blue on the left side of the cake) and the river coming out of it.
And here Matt pipes on the grass icing with the special grass piping tip. He was excited to use my special cake decorating stuff.
And here he pipes the letters on the post
Here he places jelly bean rocks
And voila! A cake depicting a favorite part of our beautiful America!
There was a very informal contest, but he didn't win. The shark cake won, the Rocky Mountain cake won, and the volcano cake with light-up lava won (that was a cool-looking cake!).

After finishing his cake, Matt asked if he could decorate his own birthday cake this year. Look out, Chef Duff!