Girls Camp

Ok-I know I am a month late in posting these; but I have so many photos and had to go through them all. I picked a bunch of photos because I just couldn't decide which ones to do. We had such a great time. I felt great the whole week and I know it was because we were out and moving all the time-no time to sit and do nothing...Even though we did quite a bit of playing-we sure did a lot of work too. The leaders did most of the work and the girls reaped the rewards. I'm not sure I can really call it Girls Camp-I keep telling everyone that it was "Girls Retreat." It really was. We had the beach to go to each day-Bear Lake-which they say is "The Caribbean of the West!" It was absolutely breathtaking to see and the colors were amazing. I can't believe how blue it was. We went boating on Thursday-and I was out on the tube for over 4 hours. I could really get used to a life like this. We need to get a family cabin somewhere by the water, mountains, and country like this. The house was nothing fancy-in fact the family that lives in our ward that let us use it said it has been a work in progress for ten years-but it was wonderful and we relaxed and had so much fun. I think the girls know how spoiled they have been the past few years and are going to hate it when Stake Camp comes and they have to really camp, in tents, use latrines, cook over a fire and sleep on the ground. They have been coming to this camp for three years-lucky girls that they are. I spent Tuesday night to Friday morning there. Thanks goes out to The Jones Family for providing this wonderful opportunity for us. We had many spiritual moments too-the graduated Laurels (3) came up and did devotionals each night-WOW! I get chills just writing this. They are such strong young ladies-these young girls are so lucky to have such strong examples to look up to-each one of them you know will be fine out on their own and do well in the gospel. Two of the three get up once a week at 5:30 a.m. and go to the Temple to do Baptisms for the Dead. They have been doing this for two years-since they started driving. We also had a great speaker come up on Thursday night, Abby Stevens, who was a dancer, singer, etc... and was ready to be married in a week-in 1996-who was in a tragic car accident and lost use of the right side of her body. She is in our ward and talked about how she was guided through each day of recovery and has made astounding recovery-more than any doctor ever hoped or wished for. She now has her voice back and can sing again-not quite like she used to-she also got married a year later instead of a week later and has 4 cute kids. She totally touched our group and then we had a great testimony meeting. It was awesome to hear each of the youth let each other know that they have a testimony and are strong young women. They are a great group of girls and I'm grateful I get to work with them. I love it-even when I moan and complain because I have a million things to do-I still hope that they all love it too and are learning from us. I know this is a huge group of photos-but look what fun we had!!!!
These are the girls Ashleigh's age-the ones I work with.
Look at the BIG group of beehives. They are so funny!
The Jones Cabin that we stayed in.
Each girl got a set of dishes and put them in a cute mesh bag. They had to use them for each meal and then wash them-that's about as close to real camp as it got.
The big thing at camp is for the girls to do each other's hair in braids for the week and then at the end take them out and have BIG hair...cute.
Here is another one-Liz Quigley-cute!!
Sleeping quarters were tight-but who cares when you are having this much fun, right?
These are a crazy bunch of little "bees-"
At night they sang songs and this was hilarious.
Here are some more actions from some of the camp songs.
We had the theme of: The Amazing Race and didn't really carry it out but we did do a series of activities that were fun and the girls had to pass off each station to get to the next one. This activity was trying to get beans into a 2-liter jar. It's tougher than it looks.

After we were done with the beans we went behind the cabin and the men had set up a shooting bench with cans on it. Em did a great job of aiming and actually hit one!

Another activity was trying to memorize 30 items on the tray and then they had one minute to write them all down. We put them in groups to do several activities like this and they all teamed up and did great-it is amazing to me how well they all get along regardless of age, personality, interests, etc... so much fun to watch!
The leaders all took turns helping the girls polish their toes and nails-I'm not a big foot touching person-but I did it. I even had to help one girl get a humungous blister off the back of her big toe-that was disgusting but I did it anyway because I love this girl-she is amazing! A fabulous girl who has battled cancer, had to have two hip replacements, a joint in her elbow replaced and is a wonderful oboe player. Just amazing...
Ashleigh and Carly Parsell-just hangin' and relaxing at the beach...
We actually went down to the beach each day for an hour or two just for a break in between activities and then on Thursday it was a designated BEACH DAY! Awesome sun and fun!!!
Yes-several of the leaders got in a canoe and went out for a quick ride-they said that every time I paddled I leaned and it would make the boat tip-I beg to differ; but nonetheless we had a group of girls come to rescue us. It was quite funny. I had shorts on and my cell phone and watch on and didn't want to tip and get those items ruined...the girls were laughing histaricly at us-
One of the families have this banana boat and the beehives loved being pulled on it. I had never seen it before and loved it-would be fun to have if you had a boat.

So this is a story in and of itself-KC Willmore is a gifted girl. She is an amazing artist and created this mermaid on the beach-she is holding a flag that says, "Girls Camp" because about a week before we left for camp we had this flag that I made that we put in someone's yard and each girl going to camp had to find it and steal it out of another person's yard and put it in their yard and sign it. By the end of the week all the girls needed to get it and sign it-just a fun way to get the girls excited about camp.


This is Emily Holbrook-who is the MM advisor with me and then Carly Parsell who is a good friend to Ash. She is fun and has a great personality and is a free spirit! I really enjoy her-wish she was in the same group, grade and gang as Ash-she is a Jr. and so she doesn't really interact much being a Laurel already too. She too is an amazing artist.
We were tube addicted-we had so much fun on these tubes-but afterwards we were sore for days and I was pretty sunburned-all worth it, though.
The leaders of the group pretty much hung out on the beach most of the time that we were down there. A couple of them were sunbathin' addicts! It was nice to just chill and chat.
What a great bunch of girls! Can't wait for the next time we get to go-