Sweet Retreat

I'm a little (a lot) late posting this than I meant to, but such is life. I guess blogging about putting mayonnaise in your hair and bee keeping was more interesting at the time.

At the beginning of the month, I went on a 4 day scrapbooking retreat with my mom and some friends. We've been going to these for 4 or 5 years now and they are so fun!! Our friends Donna and Nicole along with a couple of their friends put these retreats on and they are amazing at it!! They come up with a theme then they stick to that theme. This year was Sweet Retreat. The first day Nicole made each of us a little luffa ice cream sundae. She got the little ice cream dishes, put a luffa in it then topped it with a red pompom and a straw. So cute.

The next night we all got one of those sleeping eye masks on our bed, seriously I love those things and mine had just broken so it was perfect, I've used it almost every night since.

One lady also does this really neat little spa type treatment every year. She bakes washcloths after she soaks them in water and a little essential oil then passes the warm (hot :)) washcloths around to everyone, it's very refreshing and gives everyone a nice evening boost.

They also hold an amazing raffle. I'm not much of a gambler for various reasons, one of them being I'm cheap cheap cheaperson. But I do like to support the raffle so I bought 5 dollars worth of tickets= 5 tickets. I put them all into this super cute vintage suitcase that was filled with cute scrapbooking paper, striped straws, stamps, candy, etc....I wanted that thing SO bad. When we did the auction, that was the first one they did. Everyone had put A LOT of tickets in it. But I WON IT!! I literally screamed a little, blew out an ear drum or two and squealed all while my face turned bright red :).


There were 2 other items up for auction. Then at the end, the raffle off the money to be used for your payment for the next retreat. Once again, they called my number....wooops. I only had 4 tickets in that bowl along with 134ish other tickets. That means I got $134 to put towards our next retreat. I felt so bad for winning half of the prizes but then I was so glad I had bought those 5 little tickets. Afterwards I felt like joining the lottery or whatever you do for the lottery, but I didn't. Read=Cheap.

That was a fun way to end the weekend for sure.

Along with winning some wonderful prizes, I also got A LOT done. I made over 80 cards, painted several wooden figurines (missionaries, captain amercia, among others), watched several episodes of Arrested Development, and caught up on missed sleep from girls camp. It was glorious even though the room my mom and I shared was boiling hot due to the sun that baked our room all day.

This is always a fun weekend with a lot of neat people, it's fun to see what others are working on and get inspiration from them. Nicole and I might have kept trading cards so we could copy each other ;).

Here are some pictures. I forgot I had my camera until the last day so there aren't very many.

 my desk never stays clean for long. We each get a 6 ft. table to use all weekend and my mom and I shared a middle table for extra supplies and it still was SO messsssy. I work better in a little chaos though, unfortunately. This was after I had cleaned my desk off a bit...:/

 a few of my 'guys'. My hands we SO shaky for some reason so they aren't great and the lines aren't straight but that's what I get for freehanding with a shaky hand. Oh well.

 Hi Nicole!! Speaking of tables, hers is always super clean and organized. I want to be like that when I grow up.

here are a few of the cards I made. I tried to use up lots of scraps which I did!! Yay me. I also used up 4 small 6x6 paper packs which I was very proud of. These are just some of the styles I made, I tried to make several of the same card just to make it easier. I have a lot more where that came from though. Gray was my color of choice for the weekend I guess, I just realized gray is on almost card I made.

It was a fun weekend and I can't wait for next year!! My ADD has issues and I usually become a recluse during these weekends. I do like to be social sometimes but there are times I just need to block everything out and do my own thing for a few hours, so I tried to balance that this year. My headphones hurt my ears really bad though so when I got home I bought the most comfy pair I've ever owned, and they are noise cancelling which was great for my trip to Rexburg this last weekend.

Bzzzzzzzzz

I love bees. I have never been stung and I think that's because they know I like them. I don't freak out when I see them or hear them, I respect their stinger. This is weird sorry.

I want to be a bee keeper. Like for reals. It's not a typical hobby for a 25 year old girl but maybe I'll start a revolution!! What is better than honey straight from the hive? Nothing, Pooh agrees with me.

I've put a bunch of bee keeping books on hold at the library and can't wait to get them. I don't know why I keep trying to start new hobbies (guitar, learning Japenese, book writing, bee keeping etc....). Maybe it's the way my ADD brain works, I need to have 100 crazy hobbies to keep my brain sane.

If/when I start this little adventure, I'll let you know all about it, I'll even sell you some honey. You're welcome in advance.

This one time I watched a two hour documentary about bees and how they are disappearing. If the bees disappear, the entire eco system will crash. That would make a good book....maybe I shouldn't write books haha.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Über Soft Hair

Do you suffer from course, frizzy hair? If the answer is yes, read on my friend, read on.

This is actually pretty gross but it works.

Blend 1 egg (or 2 if you have longer/thicker hair) in the blender after it's blended a bit, slowly stream in EVOO (coconut oil would probably work too). Keep blending it until it starts to thicken. Mine wasn't that thick but it worked just the same.

Once it's thoroughly mixed put it all over your hair/scalp. Use a fine toothed comb to brush it through all your hair. (My hair is long and thick, I should have used an extra egg or more oil but didn't, this might not be great if you have naturally greasy hair, I have naturally dry hair so it works).

Once mixture is rubbed into your hair pretty good, twist it up and clip it then cover with a shower cap then wrap your head with a towel and leave it there for 1 hour. This mixture will make your hair feel really gross.

After the hour is up, remove the towel, cap, and clip and wash your hair 2x's with shampoo and conditioner.

Style it like you normally would (I blow dry and straighten). My hair feels really soft. The bottom of my hair didn't get as much mixture as the top so next time, I will section my hair to make sure it's all coated.

I don't know why this scientifically works but it does, even if it is gross.

Temple.

One week ago today we had our monthly youth temple trip. (See here if you're confused) It is always really neat to go there with out youth. Even though they are 12-18 years old they know when to be respectful and reverent. There are a lot of teenagers out there who don't 'get' that but our youth are so great and they are some of the few that do 'get' it. If we had more young people (I'm SO old) like them, this world might be a little happier.

We always tell the youth the following:

“Our young people … are the nobility of heaven, a choice and chosen generation who have a divine destiny. Their spirits have been reserved to come forth in this day when the gospel is on the earth, and when the Lord needs valiant servants to carry on his great latter-day work." -Joseph Fielding Smith

I've always enjoyed this statement, I do believe it's true. This was said many years ago. I know the Eternities have a much different time scale than we do here, I think I heard one time that one day on earth is equal to 1,000 years in Heaven. Don't quote me on that though :). So the choice and chosen generation is all of us who are living now, not just the youth. It seems like a big responsibility but a great one, if we endure it well.

I also like this quote, President Spencer W. Kimball declared, “We are rearing a royal generation … who have special things to do.”

People now are faced with A LOT more destructive outlets than ever before, they really have to be steadfast and immovable and follow the commandments otherwise the little things will soon turn into big things, then bigger, and bigger....etc. It's best to just not start those habits in the first place.

I taught a YW lesson last year sometime where I used this object lesson here's the poster that goes along with it:

By the time I had wrapped the thread around one of our YW (gently) just a few times, she had a hard time getting out of it.

Anyways back to the temple. If we do the things we are supposed to do we can all go to the temple. I had an interview with the Stake President on Sunday and he said something I thought was neat. He said, the temple isn't secret, if it was, nobody would be allowed in, it's sacred, everybody and anybody who is worthy can enter the temple. I think I'm going to use that when my friends ask about why they aren't allowed inside our temples, I thought it was a good explanation.

My brother Ty gets home from his mission in Chile in less than 3 weeks!!!! Yikes that's strange in a good way. At some point after he gets home, I get to go thru the Temple for myself, not as a youth so that's really exciting. It's also helped me to be a better person and to try to be a good version of myself. I don't see why anybody wouldn't want that, why they would do anything that would keep them away from there, that would keep them from having the spirit and blessings that come from being 'good'.

Here are a couple pictures we took at the temple last week. We have one wonderful YW who isn't baptized yet but has been a 'member' her entire life. I had the great opportunity to walk around the outside of the temple with her. We talked a lot about different stuff and took lots of pictures. I know she can't wait until she is able to be baptized to be able to participate with the other youth, I believe that time will come soon and I'm so excited for her.

Whiten your teeth like a boss

Whatever that means. Have you seen all the pinterest pins about how to whiten your teeth with hydrogen peroxide? I've seen it done 2 ways so far.

The first method I saw and tried was using a q-tip, dipping it in peroxide and rubbing it all over your teeth and letting it sit for a few minutes then brushing it off. Cool, but tastes gross.

The second method I saw and tried was to swish a capful or two of straight hydrogen peroxide around your mouth morning and night then spitting and brushing. Cool, but tastes even grosser. Like nasty gross. This method is good to kill yucky germs though.

Today I 'developed' my own method. I think it takes a few times to really see a big difference but I already think I see a difference. Do you want to know what I did? If not, stop reading :).

In a little bowl I squeezed a bit of toothpaste (I used Crest whatever whatever) then I poured some HP in the bowl with it. With my 'old' (read still good so I just used it) toothbrush I mixed it up until it made a runny liquid. Then I used that same toothbrush and brushed the front of my teeth all over with it, re-dipping my toothbrush several times. Then I let it sit on my teeth for several minutes. Then I brushed like regular with a new toothbrush and did a final rinse with some water and spit it out. Glamorous right? It doesn't taste like HP but like regular toothpaste which was niiiice. I would recommend you have a washcloth handy because drooling may occur when you first put the mixture on your teeth.

I was also thinking I might try mixing HP with mouth wash to mask the taste.

Maybe mixing those things isn't as effective and I'm not a dentist or chem-ologist so I have no idea if it's even really going to work. I'll let you know.

I'm not responsible if this ends up not working haha. If it does, I am responsible :).

25 take 2

Since I'm older and wiser now that I turned 25 (and it's too hot to sleep) I thought I'd make a list of 25 things. I love lists and and the more random the better. I don't yet know what this list will even be about, but there will be 25 items on this list. (no particular order since I have no idea what to say)

1. I love opening presents, like love it, but wish I could do it in private because I don't like people watching me. See #2

2. For 25 years my face tends to get super red in really random situations. It's annoying.

3. When I watch Arrested Development on Netflix late at night I accidentally laugh loudly out-loud. Then my face turns red, See #2. They had the dream cast.

4. I don't care if you think this is geeky but I have a favorite part of speech (I love me a good participial phrase and adjectives) as well as a favorite coin (dime and quarter) So I guess I have two favorites, it's my list I can do what I want.

5. I will deny it if brought up in every day conversation, but I love to dance like a crazy banshee randomly. Only sometimes. Like the 2nd Tuesday of the month and the 4th Friday. Sue me. Some say I got the moves like Jagger. (Disclaimer, nobody says that)

5. wow 25 things is a lot.....

6. I recently decided to learn Japanese (can it be done?!) then today I got the chord buddy system for my birthday to learn to play the geeee-tar. My thumb already hurts and I only made it thru two rounds of Brown Eyed girl and Let it be. Wakaru deshou?

7. When somebody tells me I can't do something, it makes me determined to do that thing. I have a very hard head literally and figuratively. (example #1: Freshmen year in HS, driving thru the school parking lot at a moderate speed, putting my seatbelt on. My mother almost rearends the car in front of us and slams on the breaks, my body flies forward and my forehead breaks the freaking windshield. Really?! No bruise, no cut, no red spot, no headache, no nothing. I was at least hoping to get out of school the next day) (example #2: a couple years ago we were working in the yard and there was a really stubborn tree root that was NOT coming out of the ground. My dad kept telling me to leave it alone because there was no way it would come out without heavy machinery. Well I showed him and that nasty tree root. I have a highly unflattering photo of myself and brother holding that tree up out of the ground. Red face and all. I got $40 for it.)

8. I really love spell check. What did the pioneers do without it?

9. I shouldn't have committed to 25 things. Why do I have to be so old?!

10. I do not like odd numbers and I often times refuse to even say them, so that means I very often either over exaggerate or under exaggerate to avoid them.

11. See this odd number? I don't like it either.

12. Look, this is what a number should be, nice and even.

13. Did you know that, 3.14 (pi) spells PIE when flipped in a mirror?

14. I can never remember jokes. I hear such good ones then when I try to retell it, I fail miserably. I'm  just not meant to be a teller of jokes.

15. When I'm out and I see someone I know, I stop, drop, and roll....depending on the person. Oh wait....nope, those steps still apply.

16. I am in the middle of writing 4 books and late last night I had an idea for a 5th (fives are the only acceptable odd number). It's fun, I'm no good at it but I love it.

17. Ewwww these upside down 'L' numbers are the worst. Yucky yuck yuck yuck.

18. I have quite the extensive (read: impressive) collection of socks.

19. I'm often too gullible and people seem to think it's a fun 'party trick'. Hey Amanda, those yellow bumps in the middle of the road are for blind people who drive. Me in drivers ed: hey, you guys know why those yellow bumps are there? Thinking I'm soooo smart.

20. My first home was a funeral home. No joke.

21. I love radishes.

22. I might also enjoy eating frozen corn. Weird? Yes. Delicious? Double Yes. Think mini corn flavored Popsicles.

23. It's possible I love Deadliest Catch but have to close my eyes when it shows the guys getting  hurt, over, and over, and over again.

24. I'm more afraid of seaweed than sharks.

25. FINALLY!! I probably have about 15 photobooth photos of myself looking like a bug. I can't help it, I laugh hysterically whenever that silly program opens.

woah!! I'm sessy and I know it.

 you're welcome.

That's the end of that trick.

25.

Man, I'm old today.

♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

Someone needs to bar me from youtube asap. I can't manage to get anything done. Mostly listening to my new favorite only1noah and my old favorite the Civil Wars. I love good music, whenever I turn on my playlist I just smile really big. The good thing about music is you can do other stuff while you listen......or so I'm told :) Sorry I keep posting music videos, I just can't help it!! Plus it's my blog and if you don't like it, you can kindly click the back button ;) kidding, kind of.

My favorite Civil Wars song Poison and Wine:

My NEW favorite cover of theirs:

You are my Sunshine. I DIE. Whatever that means, I heard it once and I can't stop saying it despite it's annoying-ness. Plus I have to say it with a silly 'accent' and non-flattering facial expressions so annoying. Whatever just listen to the song, it's great. I try to use delicious as a word to describe music and movies that I like but I realize that's not really a fitting adjective since you don't actually taste those items....I'm just weird. Just close the browser now, I'm just being way too random. I apologize for wasting your time. Here's some music trivia for you. HOLY CRAP THE THUNDER JUST SHOOK MY ENTIRE HOUSE. There might be an invasion of the alien sort happening right now, yiiiiikes. I've never heard or rather felt thunder that loud before.....anyways where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh yes, music trivia.....Who sings I love Rock n' Roll (originally)? . . . . . . .

did you guess The Arrows? Hmmmm chances are you chose Joan Jett, you're wrong, try again. Actually don't because I just told you the answer. I love talking to myself on my blog, on a Friday night. Excellent. How about who sings Black Magic Women (might be one of my favorite songs BTDubs I have NO idea why. I think it goes back to when I had my little blue tape walk man and my dad would make me cassettes with artists like Bob Segar, BTO, Spice Girls, Aerosmith, Def Leopard, etc....I loved that tape.)

If you need a reference to the walkman I'm talking about it was this one but it was baby blue. Same headphones and everything.

oh back to the question, Black Magic Women, who sings it? . . . . . . . . .

Did you guess Santana.....? SORRY wrong. My mind is just being blown with all these cover songs that I never even knew were covers. Fleetwood Mac was the original singer of this song.   I apologize for using the word, BTDubs and any other random musings that seem to go on forever. I have ADD and can't help myself sometimes.

Really?!

This is a segment I like to call, Really?! With Amanda. (No affiliation to Really?! With Seth and Amy)

So you're last name is Kardashian and nobody knows why the heck you're famous but you have 8 tv shows? Really?! I don't pay any attention to you but when I log on FB I see a 'trending article' that one of you is trying to sell your baby photos to a magazine....really?!

So you're a bug and you like to suck my eyelid blood, REALLY?!

So you work at a printing store but have no idea how to use a computer so I end up walking you thru a program I don't know step by step and you still charge me for wasting 30 minutes and doing your job for 10 copies, really?! 

So you want to find true love and decide that the best and most successful place to do that is on a tv show competition where you compete for someone who's simultaneously dating 14 other people, really?!

So you like to snap the floss has hard as you can between my teeth dental hygienist....have you ever flossed before, really?!

So you have 8 kids under the age of 6 and you decide to park your cart (with kids hanging from it) in the middle of the obviously clogged aisle then take 14 minutes to decide which bottled water to buy, really?!

So you're 10 and you have the mouth of a sailor and everyone just laughs and thinks it's a cute phase, really?!

So, you're a better human than me because you've never read Twilight, really?!

So, you just met each other .4 seconds ago in the ravioli freezer section and now you're bff's, really?!

So, you called me just to talk at me for 46 minutes then when your new episode of All my Children comes on, you quickly rush out a goodbye like I've been keeping you from something important all this time even though I've only uttered a handful of ya's and uh huh's, really?! I'm doing great, thanks for asking, really?!


So, I just wrote an entire blog about nothing, really?!

"I thought Spa meant swimming"

Just a fun quote from our YW activity tonight from one of the young men. We decided that the girls had A LOT going on over the last couple weeks, girls camp, efy, youth conference so for our activity tonight we decided to have a low key spa night. I hope it was low key for them because it wasn't for me!! :) I have to organize my thoughts/pictures before I post about my weekend scrap-booking retreat so maybe I'll have time to do that tomorrow, maybe.....

For our spa night, I randomly decided that I wanted to do pink and zebra print. It kind of worked out but then I forgot to grab my zebra paper so I had to use random 12x12 scrapbooking papers:

 our table set up. Each girl had a 12x12 scrapbook paper with a water bottle 'labeled' with a piece of funky duct tape that I threw together like an hour before activity. It was quick and cheap. Then I got different sized jars and filled them up with needed nail supplies (cotton balls, swabs, makeup sponges, home made lotion, nail files, cuticle sticks, and nail polish remover). There were also small soaking bowls (2 for $1 at dollar tree) that I put between each mat. Some girls soaked their nails, some didn't.

 A close up view. I also got a $1 metal tray and put the nail polish on that just to be fancy-ish. I just used those cheap plastic table clothes that are like 80 cents just so we didn't ruin the table.

 another close up I guess, I took really random pictures.

Off to the side we had a little table station set up where girls could make their own sugar scrub. We bought little jars for $1 several months ago and have been saving them for this activity. You fill up a little jar 3/4 of the way with sugar then mix in Dawn Renewal dishsoap pomegranate flavor until it's a good consistency. There is no wrong or right way to do it, just until it's a texture you like. Then we had the girls try it out. It's nice to use this hand soap because it makes your hands super soft and it's great if you're a gardener it gets dirt and grim off lickety split!!

Then the girls painted their nails (sorry for the weird color, my camera was on a weird setting). We also 'baked' washcloths for a fun spa treatment. What you do is fill up a bowl or sink with water, add a few drops of essential oils, I had Eucalyptus so that's what we used, place the washcloths into the water and let them soak for a few minutes. Next wring them out pretty well and roll them tightly and place in a 9x13 glass pan. Cover pan with foil (or smashed pie pans if your church foil cupboard happens to be locked :/) and bake for 20 minutes on 350. Serve the cloths with tongs (make sure to warn everyone that they're very warm and hold them by the tag to avoid being burned.) One of the scrapbooking ladies does this for us every year at our EMW scrapbooking retreat and it's my favorite part of the weekend!! It's so refreshing and great.

I think the girls had a good time, we realized it was later than we thought so we ended with some ice cream treats to celebrate a YW's birthday then the girls went home. It was fun. I went crazy while setting it up but that's just how I roll I guess.

If you like good music.....

....listen to these please. Amazing.

Overkill? Nope. He's amazing. One of the best youtube artists I've ever heard no joke. He should be on the radio not this 'non music'

Day #4 and other stuff

Phew I forgot we had one last day at camp. It was a crazy weekend at my scrapbooking retreat and I didn't have a great connection so I never got around to blogging about our last day at girls camp!!

The last day was pretty boring in terms of what we did. We woke up (late again) and sent the girls to breakfast where they ate pretty quickly. Then we had some time to start packing up camp. Let me just say this, we had A LOT of stuff. It took awhile to pack all up. Nicole and I pretty much stayed at camp the entire morning packing and organizing I mean throwing stuff into whatever container it would fit in :). We had grandeous plans of having the girls put stuff into the correct tote that was labeled with a laminated list of what goes in what tote. That didn't happen. Nicole and I pretty much packed up all our camp stuff while the girls were off getting their certification certificates and having the last devotional and packing themselves. We had to have our YW President come stay with us the night before to help us drive girls home and it was a good thing we did because we accumulated a lot more stuff it seemed like.

I don't really remember anything spectacular happening this day. It was sad to leave camp in a, I'm sad I won't see the girls everyday and make fun memories with them, but I'm REALLY glad to go take a real shower and sleep in a real bed way. I'm fairly certain I came home with walking pneumonia or at least a NASTY cold that rocked me to the core it felt like. Every cough was just so painful and took a lot out of me. It took me a good 4 days to recover from camp. Luckily I was able to find someone to cover my shift at work Monday so I was able to sleep some of it off.

4 days after I got home, I packed up my crafting supplies and left to go to Monroe for the weekend. It was SO fun. It was loud, and productive, and yummy, and relaxing, and tiring, and weight gaining, and fun. I will blog more about this maybe later. I'm so busy I want to scream!! I'm at work right now while I'm kind of working on the 12 hours of continuing education I just found out TODAY that I have to complete before next Monday (my birthday!!). It's for my job with Shelley, it's ridiculous. I already do this for my other job so why do I need to do it for both?! UGHHHRRREEJJJHHH. That's my mad 'voice'

I also decided I wanted to learn Japanese. It's hard. I started last night and didn't have time to do today's lesson so all I've learned to say so far is, Hello, do you speak English? Hi, No, Yes, A little, excuse me etc....I can't really remember it all. The nice thing is, for the most part when you look at the word you can pronounce it like it's written, except for a few letters like U and you have to shorter certain sounds and whatnot. It will be fun to see if it actually works. Each day for 10 days I have a 30 minute lesson. So I'll probably start over tomorrow or whenever I have time, maybe after I complete my 12 hours. So far I managed to get 4- 1 hr classes in today (some aren't really 1 full hour but still count for the hour thank goodness!!

Ok perhaps I'll blog tomorrow in between all my classes I GET to take :) Right now I'm learning about good nutrition which isn't so bad.

Girls Camp Day #3

Let it be known that I SHOULD be packing for the scrapbooking retreat that I'm leaving for tomorrow but I NEED to write camp stuff down before I go and forget it ALL. I like to capitalize RANDOM words I guess.

Day 3 started out much better than day 2. I think we were all warmer thanks to our Bishop bringing 24 extra blankets for us the night before :). My phone died before the alarm could go off so we might have overslept quite a bit, but it's ok, so did the rest of camp. Our ward got REALLY lucky and didn't have any chores on a stake level except for bathrooms the first afternoon, other wards had to wake up super early to help with meal set up. We don't do early. So we were up by 7. Our girls ran and got ready. I walked over with the girls to get breakfast while Nicole stayed back at camp to boil water for hot chocolate. I had to cut aprox. 100 girls waiting in the breakfast line to get myself breakfast because I had to go to a 'staff meeting' where they gave us instructions for the day. I felt really bad. At least this time I had a utensil to eat my breakfast with. The day before I had to use my one piece of bacon to eat my eggs and yogurt....mmmmm. It's called improvising/laziness.

Since we had such a huge schedule set back due to the Hikes on Day #2 we had to squish a bunch of stuff into the morning so it was busy. None of the girls knew where to go, I told them about 36 times haha. Oh gosh that was fun. Finally once we got them all to where they needed to be, Nicole and I headed over to the showers for our favorite part of the day, foot scrubbing and hair washing. There is a 5 minute shower limit.....whoever can shower in 5 minutes and scrub all the dirt off themselves deserves an award.

Once we were done we headed back to camp where we started thinking about dinner already. We had a huge pork butt that was frozen in the middle and we wanted to be sure it got done. After cleaning up camp a bit (again.....) I started some charcoal in the chimney and prepped the pork for dinner. We just love pork ok? Ribs and Carnitas one right after the other, sounds good to me. I was crossing my fingers and hoping this would work. I don't do ground beef tacos so I pushed for carnita tacos (I'm really fancy) so this would be all my fault if it failed, I had to prevail. We kept it simple and just let the pork cook then after it started to cook all the way thru, Nicole started shaving the meat off the bone while I squeezed lime juice and garlic powder over it. We just made it up as we went.

Girl talk on day 3 was really good. It was given by a young women who graduated a year ago, who is in our ward and very hip (:)). She also spoke with a girl from our stake who's just a few years older than her. They talked about growing up and the ABC's of life. A stands for Actively Live the Gospel. B stands for Build meaningful relationships with friends and family. C stands for Confidence in who you are. And S stands for Smile. They did such a good job I was very impressed with all their stories they gave and how much they were able to relate to the girls at camp. My very favorite part of their talk was when Hannah (from our ward) gave the girls some advice. I want to take this 'challenge' it was pretty neat. She said, in the morning, make yourself look nice, spend some time doing your hair, makeup, etc....wear nice clothes and look good for yourself. Then look in the mirror one last time as you leave the bathroom, then don't look at the mirror again for the rest of the day. Stop focusing on yourself and focus on others. Those weren't her exact words and I might have to get the exact wording from her but that was the gist of it. I really liked that. They spoke for about 40ish minutes then we headed back up for a short year time I think.

After awhile, our girls camp back to the tent to hang out with the 'coolest' leaders. Our 5th years got to go on a 'fun' river tubing ride......I went on it last time and while it was fun, it was freezing and really not that fun after the first 15 minutes. This time the river was much colder, crazy girls. While we watched the food and hung out making bracelets/painting nails etc.....a girl ran to our tent and told us we needed to get down to one of our girls who had had an athsma attack on the river float. I didn't know if she had her inhaler with her and she was sleeping in another tent so I grabbed one of our other girls' inhalers (is this ok? I don't know) and rushed down the hill (should have driven DUH) to the river where she was. She was sitting there with her friend and one of the stake leaders they were all shivering like crrrazy. I took my sweatshirt off and laid it on their legs and tried rearranging towels to help them warm up. Luckily she had her inhaler so I let her call her mom. The stake leader was literally shaking like she was going into shock so we told her to go get in the shower, we waited for the nurse down by the river. Well finally I called Nicole to grab my keys and get my car down there because the nurse was at the other end of camp. Nicole got down there then the nurse got their shortly afterwards. She checked her out and told her to get into dry clothes and lay elevated in a cot to rest. We had her lay in Nicole's fancy reclining cot and her friend Sophie slept in my cot.

We finished up dinner while keeping an eye on the girls. Since Hannah came for girls talk, Heidi came with her to make us guacamole!! She makes it the best ever so it was a good situation. We had DELICIOUS Carnitas that everyone liked, holllllla. With fresh quac, pico de gallo, fried corn tortillas, and chips. It was so good, the rest of the stake had food envy I think :). No soggy yucky foil dinners for us!! After our delicious dinner, I tried to clean up camp....again theme here?

The other girls and Nicole when to whatever meeting they were having at the time while I stayed with Kaylee and Sophie who were still resting. I made them eat food and drink water. After awhile Sophie came out and started talking to me about church. She's not a member and was asking me why people hate our church and say bad/mean things about it. She also asked what makes our church different from other churches. I explained about temples, the Godhead, the plan of Happiness etc....we also talked about testimonies since it was almost time for testimony meeting. I talked the girls into going to the testimony meeting even though they were still tired. I'm SO glad they went.

Testimony meeting was great. It was so good to hear from so many girls. They all had stories that were fun, happy, sad, heartbreaking but they were all so sincere. My favorite was when a 2nd year talked about going on a roller coaster and how she was afraid of heights but she went on the ride anyways, at the end she said, "I have a testimony that I hope I'm never afraid of heights anymore." It was pretty cute, not quite what I was expecting but still cute. The camp director got up at one point and said that there would only be time for a few more girls. Well none of our girls had gotten up but 2 of them ignored the stake leader and got up anyways. One of those girls was Sophie, who I had just explained testimonies too about 30 minutes before. She was so sweet and her testimony was very heartfelt. She was emotional during the entire meeting and I was so impressed with her for getting up to do that. The last girl was Kaylee, who wasn't feeling good but she still got up and was a great example to us all. (By the way, she started feeling lots better, she just went to bed a little early but was fine thank goodness!!)

Once that was over, we headed back to camp. Our YW leader, Sister Ross came around that time (she spent the night so she could help us drive home the next day). We all sat in our circle and had our last devotional and answered the question, where am I going? It was another great discussion with more notes being taken. Then it started to rain again. We all pulled our chairs under the cover of our two canopies that we had shoved together in an attempt to stay dry. There we had our own little testimony meeting. It was kind of informal but I think it was what some of those girls needed. I could see many of our girls were emotional, including the ones who don't usually get that way so it was a good experience.

We had purchased jiffy pop popcorn then Nicole made a label that says, F2 is just popping over to say hi. We decided 3 wards to deliver them to then we set out to do that in the dark. We were shooed away from the pavilion but by the time we got back to camp, they called us back. The stake had lit 100 candles in white paper bags to represent the 99 girls we had at camp and the 100 years of girls camp we celebrated this year. It was neat. We watched a music video then made our way back to camp where we roasted marshmallows that were as big as our heads, no joke. We had several girls stop by our tent to partake with us.

Finally it was time for bed. Nicole and I stayed up to put together their last little gift. Thru-out the week we had a 'mail-box' set up where they could write notes to each other. We bought little 4x6 photo albums that Nicole decorated cute so we put all their notes in that album with room for camp photos.

Then we went to sleep. And slept. And coughed. And slept. And coughed some more.

Only one partial day left!!

Day #2

My memory is already starting to slip oh no!! I'll try my best to remember.

Wednesday morning was pretty miserable. I was so cold the entire night and stayed in the fetal position and got maybe an hour of sleep so I finally had enough and got up around 6, wrapped myself in 100 blankets, put on my boots and sat on my camp chair until everyone else started waking up. Once we were all awake we headed over to breakfast. Right after breakfast was the flag ceremony and devotional then all the girls split up for their hikes. We had 3 girls who didn't go on the hike so they stayed back with Nicole and I at our tent. Oh BTW our shirt for this day said, Take a Hike.

Once all the girls had left, Nicole and I went to take showers. The most glorious shower of my life I think :). Not really but it felt so good to use soap and scrub my feet and hair ahhhh that's the life. Once we were done (with our no longer than 5 minute shower ;0) we headed back to camp where the girls were braiding each other's hair and making bracelets with a couple other girls who hadn't gone on the hike. This was such a nice and relaxing day. We started the ribs in our dutch oven (hindsight we should have started our beans too even if they got gone way ahead we could have kept them warm). The rest of the time while the girls were on their hike was spent eating lunch, painting nails, making bracelets, the girls not on the hike went and worked on humanitarian projects. Nicole and I stayed back to try once again to organize stuff, it was a fruitless effort, there was NO organizing that table. The second one person came back it was a disaster all over again. oh well. Now it doesn't matter.

Our girls got back from their hikes at very different times, they were all very late of course because it wouldn't be camp if they weren't late. Finally once most of the groups were back we had our girl talk. It is always fun to have girl talk when it's someone you know and this time it was Andrea. Once again our girls took furious notes (not mad notes, just really quick writing everything down notes). She told the story of Cinderella, their pet chicken who died and talked a lot about her life experiences and what she would have known as a teenager. Our girls talked a lot about her talk when we got back to camp. Girl talks are so great, there has never been a bad one that I've attended.

After girl talk we made our way to the big amphitheater where we practiced our skit for that night. We had a Dora the Explorer theme and it was such a cute skit. The girls did great. After practicing we booked it up the hill back to camp where we madly started getting dinner ready. It was free time but remember our girls are great and they all stuck around to help us get ready for dinner. We had BBQ Ribs, corn on the cob, beans (a little crunchy oh well), watermelon, apple crisp, and homemade ice cream. Our Bishop and his wife got there about an hour early which was great. We had so much fun when they got there, even though it was chaotic. We showed them the ice cream ball that I had purchased before camp and we filled it up then started passing it around to make our dessert. It was a heavy ball but we made a game out of it. We had stakes with everyone's names on them then we would throw/roll the ball as hard as we could to see who could get the furthest. The Bishop won every time. It was HEAVY. Finally it was time to eat so we ate while we continued to roll the ball with our feet because we didn't think the ice cream was done (it was very done).

Then it was time to go down for the skits. We quickly scooped our apple crisp (which was way yummy) with our homemade vanilla ice cream (that was really hard due to our excessive rolling :)) and hiked back down to the stage. Our ward wanted to go close to the beginning because they were nervous, of course we were the very LAST ward to go, the stake leaders went after us and were last. Oh well. They forgot some of the parts but it wasn't a big deal, they still did great. They were the only ward that didn't take their paper skit down with them!! I was impressed. There were 2 Dora skits, imagine that.

Midway during the skits, it started sprinkling. By the time we got up to the Pavilion for the stake devotional, it was pouring. Nicole and I ran back to camp to cover up all our dutch oven stuff/chairs/other items we didn't want to get wet. Our ward came back and we had another great devotional by our Bishop about Mortality and we answered the question, Why am I here? Notes were taken, discussions were had, other wards around us got goofy, ours stayed reverent. Then it was time for us to act goofy and we had smores and whatnot.

The Bishop left after this and we started settling down. We were going to stargaze this evening BUT it was really wet and there were no stars, fail. Next time we WILL stargaze. Once again our girls were in bed and asleep when we checked on them. I was better prepared to sleep this night and was nice and warm with my little sleeping pill. It was much better.

I think that's it for day 2. It was a really relaxed day until free time then we started scrambling to get dinner ready :)

Day #3 possibly tomorrow? I'm finally starting to feel better. At least my cough doesn't make me think I'm coughing up a lung and my stomach is starting to feel better. Back to real life hopefully very soon just in time for my scrapbooking retreat this Thursday. 

In Depth Day #1

So I don't forget girls camp here is a basic run-down of my week starting with day 1. This is for my memory purposes and probably won't be interesting for anyone else ;). I feel really sick and yucky and I just want to lay here and type so that's what I'm going to do.

Day #1 Wednesday:

We all woke up at the crack of dawn. We met at the church at 5:45am, we were going to leave by 6am but had a few late girls and missing items so we ended up leaving around 6:20 wah wah. We were one of the last wards to get to the campsite but it wasn't a huge deal. We loaded the trailer the night before and managed to fit everything in the truck and trailer very nicely. We got to camp around 7:30am after just one wrong turn. We started to set up camp then the girls were all called away so Nicole and I tried to finish setting up camp. It was a big job but we were ready with all our labeled totes and bins so it wasn't too bad getting set up.

Nicole and I set up most of the camp then we decided to set up an extra canopy which ended up being a very good idea due to the rain that would start later in the week. This extra canopy didn't have directions or all the parts so we were just about to duct tape it together when Nicole found the missing pieces in the truck (thank goodness). We were sweaty by the end of this adventure, it was probably in the 70's all day. So so nice I got so so burned ;). We had made matching screen printed tshirts before camp so day one said, Is is Nap time yet? Very fitting, we were exhausted but in a good way. We even tried to take a nap but couldn't.

This first day we had girl talk which is where a lady from the stake comes to camp and gives a 30 minute devotional type thing. Sister Dickey from the Institute came and talked to us. She was really great. I wish I had taken notes like many of our girls did.

During free time, our girls wanted to stay at our campsite which was so fun. I taught them how to make paracord bracelets which ended up being the hit of camp!! Once I showed them all once how to do it, they were off and running. I'm pretty sure they all made like 5+ of them, we had many other girls from our stake request a bracelet. We also had poptop bracelets which are so dang cute. I never got the hang of making them though :( maybe i'll have Nicole show me again. I have lots of poptops.

 Once again our camp was the fun hangout place for many girls in the stake. I loved getting to know all these wonderful girls that are so good and kind. There is something about being at camp that is so calming amidst chaos.

For our ward time I passed out the journal's I made that had the Plan of Happiness (Salvation) printed in it. Each day we focused on one question. The first day was, Who am I? We talked about the Premortal life and what that means. It was so rewarding to see all our girls scribbling down their notes/answers. The best was on Friday one of the girls asked if they got to keep their journals (of course!!) and I told two of our non-members who don't have scriptures that they could keep the paperback scriptures I had ordered for them and they were both so excited and happy about that.

The first day we also had our faith walk. The faith walk is always such a great part of camp. This year I was surprised to find out that one of our very own YW was pretty much in charge of the whole Faith Walk and put it together with a little help from a lady in our ward. I was so impressed with her leadership skills and ability to put on an amazing faith walk. At one point in the week her and the other youth camp leaders were discussing who the 3 main youth leaders would be next year and one of them said Kaylee (the girl who planned the walk) and she said no, because nobody in the stake knew her. I was in my tent and heard this conversation and yelled out that they knew her after that faith walk!! All of our YCL's were so awesome even though 2 of them aren't even members, nobody would never have known that.

When we got back from the faith walk, we had ward time again and we had another YCL Pearl give the devotional so we could answer the question: Who am I? I was seriously amazed and so impressed with her words and all the thought and effort she put into that devotional. She did such a great job, much better than I could have ever done at her age or even now. The world is a very lucky place to have these girls in it. They make it a better place and they are such good examples of what a good person should be. I want to be more like them, I want to surround myself with them and people like them. We had a great discussion and I loved that while the wards around us were acting goofy and being a little loud, our ward stayed reverent and focused and wanted to continue our discussions and not goof off. They really are good girls. How many times can I say that in one post? It wouldn't be enough times.

Eventually around 10 it was time to start getting ready for bed after the girls had had their fill of smores and roasted starburst. After I got ready for bed as well, I poked my head into their tent to say goodnight and to my surprise they were all already in bed and mostly asleep!! The other wards were up late and talked loud but ours once again were perfect angels and quietly asleep. That night I froze. I stayed curled up in the fetal position most of the night, when I moved I would start shaking with cold. I learned to stuff blankets in the bottom of my sleeping bag :). I ended up sleeping for a little over an hour that night. Oh well that doesn't even matter anymore.

I did have the cutest experience the first evening. One of our YW who was a 1st year came up to me and said she was a little homesick and would probably cry in her bed that night. I was so sad for her and comforted her and told her it would be alright, that we were there for her. Then I managed to distract her a bit. I've been very close to her and her family so I think it helped ease her mind a little. The next morning she was so happy and cheerful and she came to me and told me that she didn't cry at all and that she wanted camp to last longer. She also said that one time she went on a trip with everyone but her mom and she cried every night with them but she was so proud that she didn't cry at camp. I was so proud too!! There is nothing wrong with crying and being homesick but I'm glad she had a good experience and felt so comfortable.

We also set up a fun little 'shoe organizer' mail box where the girls could write notes back and forth to each other. It was fun to see them get so excited to write notes back and forth :). 

Day #2 will come shortly. I took some sick meds to help me try to feel not like dying and they're making me sleepy. Writing about girls camp makes me want to go back.

Maybe at some point I'll find the strength to get my camera out of my car to post a few pictures. I accidentally forgot to take a lot :(