YW Camp 2008, and a few other things

What a great time we had at camp this week! It was hot and humid (sooo grody!), but it was great. Here is just a slight recap of the week:

On Saturday evening I made out a long list of everything that I STILL had to get done before I headed to camp on Tuesay morning. When Barry saw it he was an absolute angel and jumped in to help me out where he could. He took Megan up to my parents for me on Sunday, and that was such a great help. He also took the kids out on Monday morning so I could have some peace and quite to get a few more things done.

Kayti left bright and early on Monday morning. She is a YCL (youth camp leader), and had to be at camp a day early to help get it set up and ready for the rest of the girls. I spent the day doing last minute things... sewing pj's for myself and girls, getting hand-outs ready for my devotional, gifts for bishopric members (which we forgot to give them when they came up... felt SO lame over that one!!), last minute shopping and packing. I had planned on getting to bed by 9:00, but that was about the time I actually started packing!

We headed out for camp bright and early on Tuesday morning (we met at 6:30 AM). It's actually only a 45 minute drive to camp, and we didn't have to be there until 8:00, but we usually have several late-comers, so we plan accordingly!). We also had the girls help pack up one of the trailers that we hauled up there, so it was actually 7:15 by the time we pulled out. We made one more quick stop for ice and drinks, and arrived at camp by 8:15. We had a couple of hours to get unpacked and set up, which was NOT enough time with a ward our size. The rest of the day was filled with workshops and certification. My SIL, Cari, came up and did the craft. It was fun hanging out with her for a while. I think that I got a bit of heat exhaustion that afternoon/evening, which was not fun at all. I had been in the sun for a while during one of the workshops and got a sunburn, and then had to do some stuff in our cabin, which was like a furnace, and I was feeling very sick afterwards. I ran into town with a few of the other ward leaders so I could sit under the AC and get something cold to drink. I started feeling more human again, but I kept a headache for the rest of the evening. Sis. K and I were sleeping in the noisy cabin, and so I was really not looking forward to being up half the night with noisy girls, but to our surprise, they were very quite, and went to bed early! Of course, two of them had taken Benadryl, so that helped out tremendously! We bought a fan for the cabin while we were out running errands, and it helped the cabin to cool down some, and by the time we were actually in bed (around 11:00), it felt really good! The girls even complained the next morning of being cold!

Wednesday was another hot day, but I learned my lesson from the day before, and stayed in the shade as much as possible. The girls hiked, and worked on certification in the morning, then after lunch they were able to have some free time. During that time we made another run into town for ice, and that helped as well to cool us down! Sonic is having a .99 cent shake deal right now, and I have to admit that we stopped for peanut butter fudge shakes while we were out! Wed. night is bishopric night, and it was fun to see ours. They came up for dinner, stayed for skits, then had a quick "fireside" with our girls (we were literally around the fire this time, so that was fun. Last year with the drought on, we were under a burn ban, so we couldn't have any fire at camp.). We have a tradition in our ward... when the bishop comes, he brings care packages from home! This is the girls favorite part of the night! After he left, and the YCL's ran to their nightly meeting, we had our nightly devotional with the girls. This was the one that I was in charge of, and we talked about chastity. We had to make it a little shorter than we would have liked, because the stake had a special activity for us around 10:30. We did a faith walk, reinacting Lehi's dream. The girls were all blindfolded, and had to hold on the iron rod (aka a rope!), while they walked down a path to a clearing. Ward leaders were stationed in the front and back of the rope (and since we are so large and had 4 leaders there, 2 of us were scattered along the rope with the girls), and we were allowed to have flashlights. When the activity started, the girls were told to not let go of the rope no matter what. Stake leaders were then stationed along the path, either encouraging the girls to hold on, or enticing them to let go. When we got to the clearing, their was a lit tree (the tree of life). The girls were then allowed to take the blindfolds off, and were seated on benches in the clearing. We had a great speaker, who spoke on knowledge, and how it is good to learn all we can, but we can't replace that with knowledge that comes from the scriptures... both are important, and our knowledge is the one of the only things that we can take with us to the next life. It was a great activity, and our girls really felt the Spirit during it. Thankfully we did not have any one in our group let go of the rope. We got done with that around 11:30. I was hoping for another peaceful night, but that was not to be... the girls got wound up after that and were up talking half the night. It didn't help that they ate an entire bag of candy! We did get to sleep in the next morning, but my dang internal clock had me up at 5:30! I went back to sleep for a little while, then I finally got up around 6:45. Some of the girls wanted to get up and shower early, and they asked me to wake them up. After I got them up I decided to go ahead and shower myself. It was a great way to start the morning, but as soon as I got out of the shower, the humidity struck me, and I just felt pretty nasty again.

Thursday was a pretty restful day compared to the others. The girls finished up their certification, although it didn't take most of them very long, so they had more free time that morning as well. It was fun to sit and visit with them. They had a lot of free time that afternoon, and while they were out having fun, I took a nap! Our cabin wan't too unbearable when at first, but it slowly got hotter as the afternoon went on. The stake cooked dinner for everyone that night, and it was nice to not have to worry about getting dinner cooked. We had several ward YW leaders come up to visit that night. Sis. K had to leave that night, so we had one come up to replace her, and another one spend the night to help drive girls home the next day. A couple more leaders came for just the evening. We had a great testimony meeting after dinner... a highlight of camp. Kayti got up (something she has done for a couple of years now), and I was very proud of her. I always love testimony meeting, and grow so much from these wonderful young women. After testimony meeting we headed back to our cabins. We had the intention of having our nightly devotional, but that never happened. We made smores, and let the girls just hang out and have some fun. We played the question game, with a twist... the girls had to be acting out a scene, or a situation while they were playing the game. It was so funny to watch them try to do the two things at once, and to hear some of the questions they come up with was just too darn funny! A few of the YCL's told us they had a special song to sing for us, and had us all gather in a circle. That should have been my first clue that something was up! They then stood in a smaller cirlce, facing us. They started out singing their song, then finished it by covering us in silly string! They were very proud of themselves for pulling this prank off! Finally at 11:30 we had a few of the stake come over to visit us, and ask us to please be in bed by 12:00. They also asked us to try and keep it down for the sake of the neighbors living close to camp. (These neighbors called the police on a group of YW once, so we thought it would be a good idea to quiet down!) We didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night, either. Our girls were still pretty pumped up, and just couldn't stop chattering!

We got up around 6:00 on Friday morning and started packing up. We had our morning flag ceremony, and awards ceremony at 7:30, breakfast after that, then back to packing up. I don't think any of us realized how much stuff we had there until it was time to pack it all up! We finally got all packed up and out of camp by 10:45. We dropped off the girls and their stuff, and then headed home. I got home around noon, took a shower, then a nap! It felt so great to be back home, under the AC!!

The theme for camp this year was, "Standing for something... Armed with light", and played off of the scripture of putting on the whole armor of God... we had a bit of a "knights in shining armor" them going. Our ward decided to play off of that them just a little, and we did a princess and frog prince kind of thing. We made the girls cute pj's from material with frogs on them, and our banner had a castle on it, with a mote (there were frogs in the mote). The girls then drew themselves on top of the walls and in the windows of the castle, with a torch in her hand, which they painted with glow-in-the-dark paint. Our banner read, "Princesses Armed with Light!" It was so cute! We made them crowns our of pink pipe cleaners, pink and green streamers, silver star garland, and pink gerbera daisies. They looked so cute with them on. We also made wands with their names on them that we used as outside cabin decorations. We had a lot of fun decorating everything, and I hope the girls enjoyed it as much as we did.

After I took a nap on Friday, Barry had to head in to work. He was off all week, and hung out with the boys while I was gone. He is now working all weekend on nights, which really stinks in my opinion, but I was glad that he was here with the boys! I felt a little restless, so I grabbed the kids and we headed off to see a movie... Get Smart. It was so funny! I wish that the kids could have seen a few of the old tv shows before we saw the movie, but they still enjoyed it.

One of the sisters in our ward threw a bridal shower for Jessica this morning. Kayti and I went to that, then we headed up to Fayetteville to pick up Megan. She had a great week with Grandma and Grandpa. She spent most of the week in the barn, from what Mom said. Grandpa did have her mow the lawn and lot that is right beside the barn. Megan loved every minute of that... especially since she got to use Grandpa's riding John Deere mower! She thought that was the best ever! Grandma took Megan, Austin and Emma swimming at Aunt Carol's on Friday, and they had a ball. Meg was not ready to come home, but she has a dr. appt. on Monday, so she had no choice.

My sleep pattern is all messed up from camp. I crashed pretty quickly after we got home from the movies on Friday night, and tonight I was asleep by 8:30. I woke up around midnight, though, and couldn't get back to sleep, so here I sit, posting on my blog. Barry will be home in a few hours, so I should probably try to get some more sleep. The bishop is teaching a combined YW lesson tomorrow, so as least I don't have to worry about getting a lesson ready. Hopefully I can sleep in some!