Girls Camp

The highlight of June was going to girls camp.  I love having a daughter in Young Women's with me!

I was assigned a fun group of girls in my van.  One of the girls gave us all nick-names.  Mine was Kool-aid.

We went to Stake girls camp this year.  The stake has some property down in Ephraim that we stayed at.  The orange tent behind us is where Lily stayed, the green one to the far right was my tent.

We arrived Wednesday, or should I say Winds-day, it was so windy!

They did different stations and the girls were all in different groups.  The camp was well planned and the girls really got to know one another and make new friends.  Can you spot Lily in this group?

Lily has a love of nature and found this perfect thinking spot.

The girls helped with setting up tents, dishes, making dinner, etc.  I felt like I didn't have to worry much because of all the leaders and girls helping out. 

S'mores selfie

The girls put on skits.  Lily's group did a Dr. Phil skit.  She was Oscar the Grouches sister.  See her holding the green garbage can?  They all had to incorporate the camp theme "Press forward like a super hero" (or something like that).

All of us leaders had to sign up to be in charge of something.  I signed up to be in charge of the get-to-know-you games because it sounded fun and a lot easier than some of the other assignments.  I had some of the laurels from my ward help and we broke the girls up into three groups.  Each group played a game and then they rotated.  We did "Never have I ever",

Do you love your neighbor", and the "sheet game"- who can say the other one's name first.

Although my throat was raw from enthusiastically yelling over the wind, I felt the games turned out to be quite fun for the girls.

That night the wind was so loud, the girls were so loud, and my bed was so uncomfortable because my air mattress had a hole in it, I barely slept.  No problem, we had to get up at 5:45am anyway!  Good thing I don't mind getting up when camping.  We got up early and headed to Palisade's Lake.
The lake was gorgeous early in the morning and although we wore sweatshirts, the weather quickly warmed up.

My worst nightmare... tiny little fish swimming around your legs!  Lily didn't seem to mind.

The girls had fun swimming, paddle-boating, and paddle-boarding.  Lily got the hang of it!

Since I didn't sleep well and I knew it would be a long day and since the girls could sleep in the car, but I couldn't, I decided to take a nap while at the lake.  Although it was the cooler part of the morning, I took a two-hour nap in my van and woke up quite hot and sweaty.  But the sleep was so nice!  Then I borrowed some shampoo and went up to the camping showers and took a nice shower.  We were at the lake most of the day, and although I was not in the sun much, I managed to get a bad sunburn on my neck!  I was helping to make some quilts for our refugee service project and was sitting in the shade.  However, the shade moved and I didn't realize until it was too late that I had been getting burned.  Most of the girls were pretty burned by the end of the day.  That's what we get for not putting on sunscreen.

Lily's favorite thing to do at the lake was hike up the big hill behind our picnic sight.  At one point, she was so high up, we could barely make out her blue shirt.  The leaders were worried about her and we were getting ready to leave, so they started blowing the bear horn at her.  As we tried to wave her down, she thought we were just waving at her.  It wasn't the first time Lily went off exploring and her group was worried about where she was.

After the lake we went into Manti.  We ate pizza on the nearby seminary lawn and just relaxed for a bit.  Then we walked up to the Manti temple.

We were excited to see the Manti Pageant, but a lot of the girls were feeling the affects of being in the sun all day, so I volunteered to go back to the seminary and get water bottles.  Luckily, the stake president and some other leaders were there and helped load up coolers to wheel up to the girls.  And while I was there, two of our beehives showed up!  Kensie and Livvy (daughters of my friends Tiffany and Chris) had to come up late.  I was glad I was there to help them load up their stuff and show them where the group was.  Lily was excited to see them too.

The temple was so pretty.

Since I knew the girls were coming up late, I asked Tom to set out a different mattress for Chris to pick up on her way down.  That night I slept much better on my four different pads!

The pageant went until late, then we went back to the seminary for donuts and milk.  We then had to drive the hour back to camp.  All the girls in my car slept.  I listened to my audio book and ate Hot Tamales to keep me awake.  We all made it back safely, but we had to figure out where Kensie and Livvy were sleeping.  There was a big to-do in Lily's tent when we tried to move her into Kensie and Livvy's and Lily's friend got upset.  The girls were both in tears, but we ended up not moving Lily.  By the time I got to bed, it was 2:00am!  I'd been up for over 20 hours.  No wonder I slept better that night!

The next day they let us sleep in until 8:00am.  Which was NOT sleeping in after a day like the one we had.

Friday was our last full day and the girls rotated between different activities at camp again.  One of the activities was the zipline.  I went up with Lily's group and we both got a turn.  Lily videoed herself going down the zipline.

It was a little creepy standing at the top of the tower and being told to jump off.

Another activity they did was one where they had to work together to get everyone on a plank without it touching the ground (it tipped like a teeter-totter).  I was impressed with how Lily helped take charge and coach the girls as to what to do.

Us leaders where trying to tell them what to do too, so they made us try it after to show how hard it really was.  One of my favorite things about girls camp was getting to know all the other leaders.  I had a goal to get to know all the other leaders names while at camp.  It was such a fun challenge and I really got to know so many new people and make so many new friends.  There were probably over 30 leaders at camp.  When we were doing the balance board together, these sisters and I were laughing so hard and having so much fun, I felt like a kid again!

The next challenge they did was the balance beam.  It was a wiggly beam and the girls had to get across without using their hands, touching the ground, etc.  Lily again was the leader and went across first.  She made it and they all said the first one is the hardest to do.

This is what the group looked like when we were all together.  However, most of the time they did things by age group, the Beehive's were at one camp, the Mia Maids were at one camp and the Laurels were at one camp.  I was with the Beehives.

That last night we had the bishoprics come up and we did a devotional and testimony meeting.  

Here I am with Helen (our YW president) and our Bishop 

Here's the group Lily was with the whole time, in their tent having their little devotional.

And these are the girls and leaders from our ward. It was so fun to be with these girls that I've grown to love so much.

Saturday we got up early, took down the tents and headed home.  When Lily and I got home, Tom was helping his sister, Maren move and the other kids were at his parent's house.  Even though I was excited to see them, it was nice to have a quiet house to get cleaned up in and take a nap in.