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.

Raise the Funds!

Like my play on words? It's like raise the roof, but it's not! Oh man I'm SO clever and hilarious.

This Saturday night our ward's YW are having their (now annual?) dinner and dessert auction night. Last year we had a spaghetti feed/dessert auction and this year we are having a chili cook-off competition, a dessert auction, AND a for sale dessert table for those who want instant gratification.

Everyone is invited! (unless you're a creeper, then please don't come.)
It's this Saturday at 6pm at the NW building
There is a suggested donation of $20 a family or $5 a person to come eat dinner then participate in winning some desserts :)

We made enough money last year to buy all new camp equipment as well as pay for each of the girls to attend camp. We're hoping we will raise enough to send all of our girls to camp again this year.

You should really come if you're in the area, promise it's fun!

Just to wet your whistle (is that a thing?) here is one of the items I prepared tonight for the auction

 It's a movie night basket! Yahoooo. I made something similar last year and a little girl cried because she didn't win it, I felt SO bad. Maybe she'll win it this year!

 This is one of my other donations I'm working on, a candy bouquet. It's totally unhealthy and such a cheat but oh well. I need to get a couple more 'filler' candies, it's not full enough yet haha....riiiiight.

I have a few other things I'm baking to donate also.




Also I'm proud to say I didn't even want to eat any of this candy while I made it. Go me! It's been about 6 weeks since I stopped eating sugar and whatnot and it feels good. I make up my own little treats here and there so I still have some sort of 'treat' sans sugar/flour. I consider a banana dipped in granola dessert, it's actually really good.

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 :(

Girls Camp 2012

My 3rd year as my ward's camp leader is officially OVER. If you don't count sorting through 1045 totes full of stuff and finding places to store a whole lotta camping gear ;). This year was GREAT, as usual. Every year seems so different from the last it's fun to see how the girls have grown and how their friendships evolve over time. They are all friends but at camp I think they grow closer and closer every year. We had 10 girls this year which is the most we've ever had attend camp with our ward in many many years. It was so fun, we had 3 non-member girls there and one new girl who just moved into our ward 2 days before camp. Every girl was so great and helpful. They seriously are the best girls that we could ask for. We didn't have any drama or fighting, just laughing and talking. Many girls from other wards hung out at our campsite which happens every year and it's so fun. They had so many free time activities planned for the girls this year but our girls chose to stay at the campsite with Nicole and I. When you'd look around all the other campsites were empty but ours :). I think that's a fun sign. We kept trying to convince them to go do the fun activities but we had lots of fun stuff and they wanted to stay so it was all good.

I'm not posting any pictures tonight, I'm exhausted. I got home. Sat in silence for a few minutes to just relax. Got in the shower then with my wet hair still wrapped in a towel got into my clean bed and tried to sleep. Then tried harder. It didn't work. I got up and my entire body felt like it couldn't move. I wasn't feeling good anyways before camp and it just seemed to get worse. Combined with the smoke inhalation from the fires I sound like some sort of dying sea otter with bronchitis. Whatever that means. Each cough takes so much out of me and hurts really bad (worse than it probably should). While I was out there, it was not comfortable but I didn't notice it as much because I was focused more on what the girls needed and where they needed to be but now that it's all about me again (HA!! just kidding) I'm feeling every bump, bruise, scrape, bite, cough, burn, etc. I'm like an old lady, ironically one of the youngest leaders at camp but I still feel a little old.

The best part of camp was seeing the girls everyday and learning more about them. Seeing them be such good friends and people to everyone and helping out however they could. We had a little camp journal I made up for them and it was awesome to seem them bringing that with them and madly scribbling down every word they heard, especially the girls who aren't members. They all asked such great questions and nobody would have ever known that only 5 out of our 10 girls are actually members/active in church. They were all great and wonderful. Camp was a success!!

It helps to have a great "assistant" like Nicole who just does stuff and knows how to do everything. She's much more patient and organized than I am and it was a big help/relief to have her there this year. We kept talking about next year this, next year that, but who knows what will happen, our ward might wisen up and realize that I'm a little eccentric and not a great camper, but maybe they won't?! :) It's already been 3 years and nobody's said anything yet, fingers crossed!!

Overall, worth the 200+ emails, 50+ store trips, hours looking over ad's and making shopping lists, prepping, planning, packing, unpacking, repacking, etc. Very worth it.

Girls Camp's Eve's Eve's Eve

I'm excited for camp. It starts Wednesday. I'm not too excited for the early hour which we will have to depart but I'm excited to just get there and get started already. Planning and organizing has consumed my life for the past several weeks months. It's hard to believe that it has already been like 5 months since our camp kickoff. CRAZY. That's like half a pregnancy, it feels like it's flown by.

Tonight I was just working on my Lehi's vision pages for my scripture journal. At one point I needed a break so I started to make a YW directory page to go in the YW binder I made for our new Bishop. This binder has all our calendar stuff, certificate stuff, personal progress tracking stuff,etc....Now I'm working on making a few pages that have pictures of all our YW with their info to include in this binder. I realized I didn't have any photos of them on my laptop so I went to Facebook, makes sense right? Well I quickly decided I should just take individual pictures of them to use but I looked through old camp photos. I got so excited for camp this year after looking through them. I'm grateful that we have such a great group of YW, they are fun and silly but also serious and caring. They are just good girls.

I started thinking back over the years I've been in YW (I think it's been 5+ years now, WOW). There have been SO many YW come and go, some I totally forgot about, some I'm sure I don't remember but there has always been a 'core' group of girls who have always been active and have been in our ward forever. While All the YW I've taught are great, I'm thankful for those 'core' girls who are such good examples to everyone around them.

I actually get a little sad when I think of all the YW I've gotten to work with over the years. Many have made poor choices and fallen away from the church, made up their own life paths. Some of them I still see and keep in contact with and I see how much harder their lives are than they need to be. Sometimes I feel guilty like I should have been better or tried harder to make them learn gospel principles but then I realize I shouldn't feel that way. Agency is what it's all about. I can't go to church for other people, I can't follow the commandments for other people, I can only do it for myself. I can try hard to be an example and teach those I get to be around what's right and wrong but ultimately it's up to each individual to choose the right or not.

As I've been typing this I've thought of more and more girls who have graduated or moved away in my 5 years and remembering really fun times we all had together. Wednesday night activities seem so easy and so relaxed. Sometimes I don't think they can really make a difference because it's just a 'fun night' but it really does make a difference. The girls are able to connect with their church friends and have good wholesome fun, or learn a new skill. It is important. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with all the stuff that my calling has involved over the years because it seems like the girls don't understand how much WORK and effort and thought goes into each activity, each sunday lesson, each attempt to go support them in their various activities/sports. Then I realize that's not the point. I don't need to tell them that I spent 2 weeks preparing a lesson that is getting eaten through by random chit chat before the lesson starts, I don't need to tell them that we stayed up until midnight packing girls camp totes, that we spent 15 minutes trying to label one of those totes. When they grow up and are leaders, they will realize how much their leaders did for them and they will (hopefully) be thankful, just like I am for the leaders I had. I never realized how much work they put into everything. I hope I'm being a good example to them and that they can learn just one thing from me. They are worth all the time I've spent and all the energy I've put into this calling.

That's why I'm grateful to go to camp again this year. Even though I have some issues with different things and sometimes would prefer to stay home, in my sweats where I can have my own 'space' I'm able to overcome that a little bit at camp, forget about how uncomfortable or tired I am and make sure they are ok, that they are well cared for and are having a good time.

I'm so excited for camp!! I get a little nervous for all that still needs to be done (cleaning/packing/loading/grocery shopping/food prep/cleaning.....) but I know it will get done and it will be a great time.

Happy Birthday to ME!!

Well it's not even my birthday, that's still several weeks away :) but did that stop me from buying myself a birthday gift? Nope. Not for one second.

I decided to sign up for a new college program that our area is going to offer starting in the Fall. It's BYU Idaho courses online for like $60 a credit, good deal eh? Since my NY Photography thing sucks and I couldn't stand Skagit College, this was a good option. Since I decided to start that, I needed a laptop so I can work on call stuff anywhere. More specifically when I'm at work at night, I can be productive instead of just watching Netflix on my iPad.

This got here today:

Ahhhhhhhhh. It's nice. Since making the switch to Mac about 2 years ago, I've been really happy with their products and have decided to streamline everything and just convert all my electronic devices to Apple. In August we will be getting iPhones after Ty gets home from Chile (in 54 days!!) then the Apple transformation will be complete.

I really did everyone a favor because now when they ask me what I want for my birthday, I have a small list of macbook pro accessories I'd like to have ;) I've started a Pinterest Birthday Board 2012. I'm always over ambitious with my lists but it's ok, I forgive myself.

PS Girls Camp= 6 days away!! We have LOTS of fun planned for next week, I wish it was here already so we can stop preparing/emailing/buying/packing and just be there!!

Girls Camp 2011 Wrap Up

So girls camp was last week. We got home Friday evening. It was such a fun week. I'll be honest, I hated girls camp when I was a youth. I remember only liking 2 of the years that I went, the others don't bring fond memories to mind. I don't know why that was, probably because of my anxiety and whatnot. But I'm happy to say this is my 2nd year as our wards leader and I LOVE camp now. Seriously I wish I had been able to have better experiences as a youth. It's like we're in this safe bubble, free from the world and all it's temptations. Even during free time when everyone is acting goofy, you can feel the spirit. It's so neat to be surrounded by good, wholesome, like-minded people.
Here is our week in a nutshell (beware, this might be a pretty big nut):

 waiting for the ferry for 2 hours gave us time to explore nature...we were the starfish this year at camp so we gotta represent :)

 On the windy ferry. I love ferry rides, I wish they would have lasted longer!!

Goofy girls, 'milking the cow'...some old guy thought that was hilarious for some reason :)
After we got to camp, we spent time setting up camp. Half of us had cabins, the other half stayed in tents. I was in a cabin with four of our younger girls. So we helped set up tents then unpacked in our cabin. After that they had certification time. 

Later on that night we had the faith walk. That's always one of my favorite parts of camp--I had to miss it last year :(-- this year they had 3 ladies read part of a talk from Women's conference which was really good then we went on a walk down to the pretty lake. The sun was setting and it was perfect!! Every girl lit a luminary (white bag with sand and a candle) and put it on the dock. It was pretty cool- even if the dock did start to sink.

Finally a group picture of ALL our girls. We had 7 girls this year!! Last year we had 3 (plus 2 that were youth leaders) Seriously I'm pretty sure we have the best girls in the stake, if not the world. They are all such good examples and they are all amazing friends. We didn't have any problems or issues.

The next day was Wednesday. We woke up to RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN. It was a bummer to see but actually it wasn't that bad, it was quite warm actually. This was also our hike day. Me, being the spaz that I am, forgot to bring shoes besides my crocks and slip-ons which are not hike friendly...so I got to drive a load of girls up to one of the trail heads on Mt. Constitution. After dropping them off, my assistant Hannah and I went into town to pick a few things up from the store. Then we decided to drive to the top of the mountain to see the view, this is what we saw:

Fog, and more fog. BUMMER. But it worked out. The girls got done with their hike early so on our way down I picked up a group of girls and brought them back down the Mt. Then went back up to get another group. That's when I found out two of the girls from my ward were LOST somewhere on this blasted mountain...
I don't remember panicking because I knew they would stay together and they wouldn't veer from the trail. So I never thought we wouldn't be able to find them I was just worried someone had fallen and broken their leg and they were stuck on a trail. But I knew we would find them, there wasn't another option. I volunteered to drive back up the mountain to the other trail heads to yell for them. No girls. I went all the way back to the top and grabbed two trail maps so we could start planning our rescue. In my mind I kept repeating please go to the road or stay put on the trail. If you go to the road, we'll see you if you stay put on the trail, we can find you faster. I didn't realize until I started driving down another group of girls back to the campsite to get a few other leaders that I was shaking uncontrollably and felt like I was gonna vomit. Prolly not the best to be driving down this crazy switch-backy mountain (For the record, I was up and down that thing 6 times in one day :))
So I loaded up the last girls and started driving down while the two other leaders stayed at the trail head just in case (PS NO cell service). After driving down almost the whole mountain, we saw two girls walking UP the road back towards the top. They had made it almost to the bottom of the mountain in about an hour and were going back up...crazy. I honked my horn so loud and they climbed in the car. We turned around, went back to tell the other leaders then back down to camp. The girls said they were fine but that would be totally scary. At least it wasn't longer than it was!!

After the hike, we had free time. I stayed close to the cabin to get my gitters out. We had the 'cool' hang out cabin. Last year our tent site was the hangout of choice for most the girls and it was the same this year. We made bracelets, ate, talked, laughed. It was a nice tension reliever.

Our two lost girls after their adventure. SO glad they are safe and not hurt!!

Tuesday was our skit night. It was good. Pearl was our 'pearl of great price' perfect. 

 Even JBeibs made an appearance at camp. Apparently it's tradition for our ward to use a cardboard cutout in our skit...last year we got Taylor Lautner, the girls went CRAZY. This year half the girls were excited, half can't stand him haha.

This night I ended up going home. We had a really sick leader so I drove home with them just in case. We got home around 2am. Then that next day I went to the airport to pick up my aunt and uncle from the airport (just got back from their mission to russia!) 

Then I hopped in a car and drove back to the ferry to go back to camp. This was a funny story (now looking back, at the time it wasn't). The ferry left at 4 and we live about an hr away and we left at 3...we ended up parking at the top of this hill and had to run down to the ferry. I'm not a runner by any means especially with a heavy backpack and a pillow...luckily they held the ferry for us for about 5 minutes but we made it!! It was well worth it plus the dinner that was waiting for us was delicious!! As were all the meals!!

It was bishop's night that night which is always fun. We roasted marshmellows inside since all the other fire pits were being used. Then we walked down to the lake and played (laid) on the floating dock. We almost lost our YW pres. when people got a little excited on this dock..woops.

I wish we could have stayed out longer but 10pm was the curfew. 

That night we stayed up a bit too late and painted nails and did hairs. 

After packing up camp and testimony meeting, we headed back to the ferry. We had about a two hour wait. Bye bye Orcas Island!!

Overall it was a great week. And I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to go again this year. I'm not grateful for all the unpacking I STILL have to do but that's ok. It was fun!!

Like a Chicken...

...with it's head cut off...

hmm perhaps that's a little dramatic, I've always had a flair for that ;). It must run in my genes or something. Anyways I have been a little crazy busy trying to get ready for Girls camp, going to the dentist (4 times in one month, going for a record!! Still got one more to go), photographing weddings, helping my grandparents remodel their house etc... So I have been absentee blogger.

Tomorrow I leave for GIRLS CAMP!! This is my 2nd year going as a Leader and I gotta say, going as a YW was not nearly as fun as it is going as a leader. Seriously. My least favorite part of camp was always the certification and as a leader, you don't have to do any of that stuff, yippppy!! I just get to hang out with awesome girls and eat awesome food and have an awesome time. This year is a little different since we aren't going to the same place we've been going to for years but I'm super excited still. we are staying on a fun island in cabins (and tents) and we get to hike up to see one of the top 5 water views in the United States!! Last year was a good experience but I am so much better prepared this year and know what to expect and what do to and stuff.

We have our activities planned and ready, badmittin, thread for bracelets, nail polish, volleyball, swimming etc...

we have our snacks ready. cuz who can go camping without snacks? I'm pretty sure that's WHY people go camping...just saying ;) Have you ever roasted starburst? If not, try it. It's pretty legit. Not sure why it's so good but it just is.

We have the girls' small gifts ready. This year I am taming it way down. I went a little overboard last year so I gotta be more realistic this year. So We are giving them sour apple suckers that have a little saying on them (that goes with one of our devotionals), a long piece of rope to make these bracelets together, then their 'big' gift this year is a necklace we made that has a starfish, a pear, and a heart on it. Our ward's theme is Pearl of Great Price and our animal is the starfish. The heart was supposed to be an anchor because the stake's theme is anchored in christ but nobody had anchor charms!! GRR. We are giving the necklace to them with a fun little story.

{A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

 

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”

 

The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,

 

“Well, I made a difference to that one!”

 

The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved. - adapted from the Star Thrower by Loren C. Eiseley}

 

So hopefully everything will go well this week and we'll be able to enjoy each others' company and have a good/safe/fun time. I'm going to bring my big camera so I can take some good pictures (last year they were horrible from my P&S) then maybe I'll post them when I return. 

 

My aunt and uncle are returning from their 2 year mission to Russia on Thursday (!!!!) so I might actually leave camp a day early to meet them at the airport, but we'll see. 

 

Be jealous!! 

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Please enjoy this photo blog with limited 1-2 sentence descriptions. I will call it, my life the last week or so.

some of the ingredients to make the best potato soup. recipe to follow?

2 ikea blankets for my photography. the white one is heavenly!

i started making this hat last night. it will be amazing.

buy one get one $.88 shirts at Penny's. Also new doors down the hallway.

big tub of girls camp stuff. it's coming up quick!

40% off fabric for this book.

the HUGE pile of clothes i got rid of. if it didn't fit, i got rid of it, heeeheeehoooo

one remodel pic, it's ALMOST done we are sooooo close i can taste it.

and just for the heck of it, the kitchen sink ;)