Girls Camp 2014!

Girls camp, my 5th year in a row going as a leader. The best year of girls camp, ever. Including the years I went as a YW.
It was great because the stake camp director is Becky who is in my ward and she's the best at organizing and really listening to what the youth want from camp. I don't think I heard a negative thing about camp itself this year which is great!

We arrived at camp on Tuesday morning. Most of the girls went on hikes but the YCL's and leaders went straight to camp- I was with them because of my ghetto knee. It was good though because I got a head start on setting up the 1st years campsite. The last two years we've camped as stake years instead of by ward. Last year Nicole and I were with the 2nd years. This year Nicole didn't go but I still did and ended up with the first years. 25 of them. 25 twelve year olds...BIG WHOA. Only one of those girls was from my ward so I didn't know any of the others. Some of them were so little and looked like they were 8.

There were 5 adult leaders for our group so I was kind of a floater, I just went where I was needed. It was great. We had 7 girls from our ward at camp after 5 others cancelled (mostly last minute :p).

So the forecast for camp two weeks prior to camp was 88 degrees with 90% humidity basically the entire week...yuck. The week before camp it said 70's with clouds...PERFECT! Well that weather app changed almost by the minute. It POURED the first three days of camp. I'm not talking about rain. I'm talking about RAIN. We broke a rainfall record set in 1948 by NOON on Wednesday. We were wet, we were prune-y, we were cold. Despite this I didn't hear anyone complain. It's kind of fun actually to be 'forced' to all gather under the pavilion and/or canopies where you make lots of new friends. Despite cold nights I much preferred rainy camp to way too hot camp.

The theme for this year was Look Up and Believe. We talked about the temple and stars a lot.

It was really neat because there were A LOT of friends at camp this year. Many girls who aren't members got to attend. One of those girls is my neighbor Eve who's friends with a girl in our ward. Our ward is the best. They seriously are. They all get along, they are all so helpful, kind, funny, put up with my weirdness, etc...

I made a lot of new friends at camp. That's weird to say but I seriously met/talked to at least 50 new people and many of them became good camp buddies. Many of them made me friendship bracelets (which was the 'class' I taught about friendship). Old friendships were strengthened too. There are so many awesome leaders and youth in our stake and I love spending time with them all.

Funny camp story-
My ward sat together for almost every meal- they sought each other out. Well other girls want to sit with our ward too (which is totally fun!). So one day we were sitting in the pavilion staying dry and a few girls from the stake were talking to me about how they don't think of me as a typical leader. They explained that I wanted to befriend everyone while other leaders just want to 'lead' things. Anyways it came around to the point that the girls would do anything I told them to do because they like me. One girl then said she would get on the (wet) ground right then and do ten pushups if I told her to. I looked at the ground and back to her and she got on the ground to do them! I tried to stop her and told her NO! But she did them anyways (so I guess they won't do everything I say!). Her pushups made other people curious and four people ended up doing pushups between the tables after lunch. The rest of the week it was a joke that I'd just look at this girl and the ground and she'd start to do them- but I didn't let her do them again, don't worry ;).

All of the first years + YCL's up at the ropes course

The intense swinging tires

Rachael doing pushups in the rain...#beastmode

Just one of the times this canopy needed to be dumped

A1 STEAK SAUCE RULES!

 So here's another little story. The last full day of camp they have these challenges for the girls to do. I was in the group, A1. So before I got into my group I nicknamed us Steak Sauce. The girls looked at me like I was insane, even after I explained it...anyways I tried to get them to make up a chant but nobody was really into it as we walked down to our first competition.
The challenge was like the show Chopped but camp style. Each team had a basket with 5 ingredients they had to use to make a meal over the campfire. Leaders weren't supposed to help at all, which is REALLY hard! Anyways my team came together and ended up winning this round (out of two other teams).

 This was their plate ^^

 They were proud of it.

 Our next competition was shelter building. Once again STEAK SAUCE dominated. After the win at the food challenge the girls started coming up with their own chants/cheers.

 This was our next station- it was archery. Some of my fellow leaders took some selfies with my camera :). My group did not win archery but it kept them humble ;). Our last station was first aid. My team won that too. At the end of the day they tallied up all the teams and winners throughout the day and my team won both the overall food challenge and the first aid challenge out of the entire camp! Everyone was calling us Steak Sauce at this point haha it was reallllly fun. PLUS the sun came out Friday and Saturday so the weather was lovely.

Just chillin' before dinner

F2 Ward Skit- represent! Our entire skit was told in #hashtags

 We rewrote our skit about 20 minutes before skits began. We ended up deciding to speak in hashtags the entire time. SO funny. We made these HOPE super hero capes and did a fun skit. It's hilarious hearing our more serious girls saying things like #chillinlikeavillan at the very end we all #droppedthemic and #walkedaway.
Quick funny story- since half of our YW didn't go to camp we had three of us adult leaders from our ward who participated. When we told the other two adults what we were doing, one of them was like, I don't even know what hashtag means! So then I got an idea that instead of saying hashtag she should say, poundsign. It was SO funny because she said it so seriously. Anyways... #hopeheroesout

Friends waiting to get our picture taken!

Eve, McKenna, Hailey. F2 FRIENDS!

And that wraps up my 2014 girls camp post. It is not complete nor does it make a whole lot of sense because I'm rushing but it's good enough I think. But wait...the FOOD. Food at camp this year was delicious. Seriously everything was homemade and they had meals between meals for snacks...

I just want to go back, it was seriously a blast.