#excusemybaguette

Haven't blogged much in the last few weeks. Mostly because my life consisted of a giant to-do list with "GIRLS CAMP" written at the top. Now, everything is crossed off that list. Including "go to girls camp." (I didn't really write that on my list. That was just my clever way of telling you that girls camp is over.

Warning: This week has meant a lot to me, and I am already hormonal and sentimental. I will give way too many details and a million pictures of girls you don't know. Again, the primary purpose of this blog is documentation for my own sake. You have been warned.

This was the first calling where I really felt like I could throw my whole heart into it. Callings in singles wards are sometimes jokes, and the only real one I ever had was Sunday School teacher at 19. It was terrifying. In our first married ward, we were there for 2 years before we even got callings. (They didn't function super well). And then we were given callings as "ward missionaries" and our ward mission leader never had anything for us to do. It kinda sucked. We didn't feel involved or needed.

The second Sunday in our new ward, they asked me to be the camp director. I was terrified, Girls Camp is a pretttty big deal out here, but I was os dang excited. This is something I knew I could excel at. I had been working with teenagers for 3 years already. I enjoyed the outdoors. I was organized. It was gonna be awesome.

Then I met all the other Young Women's leaders and all the girls and I fell in love. There isn't a bad egg in there! Nathan and I got called to teach all the teenagers (boys and girls) in Sunday School ages 14-18, so I got to know those girls even better. I spent 2 hours of church with them every week, haha. This has been the most meaningful, stretching, and beautiful opportunity to serve I have ever had. I have been given so much in return.

And with that mushy rant, here's what we did with 467,833 pictures.

The Saturday before camp, Nathan, my bishop, Jenna (my assistant), her husband, and I went up to our camp site. It's at our huge Stake Property since it was a stake girls camp and we wanted to scope it out and start set up. We got a pretty good site which I was happy about. The problem is that all the camp sites were up a massive hill from where the stake was staying, and there was little shade. Luckily, our bishop is the bomb and had this MASSIVE canopy with tent attached. So we could store all our supplies in the tent and we moved the picnic tables under the canopy so we had plenty of shade. This is when I really started to get excited. So much planning and prep had gone into it, all I felt was stressed. Now it was finally time!!

Jenna and I took the older girls (YCL's, or youth camp leaders) grocery shopping the Friday before camp and then we precooked everything so meals were super easy. We froze it all and just warmed it up. BEST IDEA EVER. Jenna has done a million girls camps before so when she got called to be my assistant I was all kinds of stoked. Jenna and I were the only ones up there the whole time, but the rest of the leaders all took a day or so where they could get work off or babysitters and join us! The women I serve with are amazing.

We had 13 girls total come, but 2 could only stay part time. It's a lot smaller of a group than I was used to when I was going to Girls Camp as a teenager, but I loved it. It made for good bonding with the girls and leaders.

Monday was a day just for the YCL's. We took them up and set up camp, then took them back into town for pizza. We headed back and spent the day watching them do games and activities. Then we got our camp site all set up for the rest of the girls who would be coming early the next morning.

My YCL's! 

Everyone else got up there early in the morning and we got our camp all set up! Before heading down for the big kick off, we had lunch and got changed into our awesome ward t-shirts. The theme of camp was "The Amazing Race" and each ward was a different country. We were Australia!

Heading down the giant hill

They spent the afternoon running "races" to compete with the other wards. They had a lot of fun. They held the record for the straw tower, which surprised me. Because I kept telling them it wasn't going to be able to hold anything, haha. I am such an encouraging leader.

Real life version of Angry Birds. This was awesome.

Then we crafted, snacked, played cards (I am the master of Trump) until dinner. We ended the night with a campfire, because duh.

We got up super early the next day and left on an adventure! We got permission from the stake to go to Provo Falls and I am so glad we did. All the girls said it was their favorite part of camp. We loaded the girls into our cars and made the 40 minute trip. There was no one there and the girls got to explore, hike, climb, and play in the water. We spent a couple hours there and had a picnic. It was a lot of fun.

DeShelle, Jenna, and I! Don't worry about how massive I am.

We did some more hanging out and game-playing, and then the girls ran some more "races," this time going over to races held by the other wards. All the girls from the other wards came to our camp to run our "Australian race" too. I wish I had taken pictures, but we did a 3-part relay race. Fist girls threw boomerangs throw a hoop. (Nathan built me the coolest hoop stands!) Then they had to say certain phrases in an Australian accent. That was hilarious. Then they had to do a 3-legged race. It was fun to meet the other girls at the camp and I know my girls had a ton of fun doing the other ward's races.
After that, Nathan came to join us!! We needed to have a Priesthood holder there every night and I was so excited that Nathan could work it out to come. I freaking missed him. We made tin foil dinners and went down for a big devotional speaker.

We had a big dessert night then went back to camp for what I believe was the world's longest game of Big Booty that was every played! We might have played for 3 hours. All girls, leaders, and Nathan included. The girls love Nathan which makes me happy. He knows the older ones from our Sunday School class, and it was so fun to watch him play Big Booty and get out a million times.

Then we built a fire and roasted to our heart's content. S'mores, starbursts, cookies, bread, you name it. I slept so much better having Nathan in my tent with me. I knew that if a bear attacked, he could handle it. He also killed many spiders.

The next day was really nice and calm. We got to kind of sleep in, breakfast was made for us by the stake, and then the girls went on more races. This time I didn't have to run our race at our campsite, so I got to go around with them and watch them do the challenges. It was also cool and cloudy all day which was amazing compared to the heat we had all week.

We made the cutest dang bracelets and made pizzas after. Then of course, played Trump for the 9 millionth time!

We had a sort of "closing ceremonies" down at the stake camp and then had all afternoon and evening just for our ward. This night was so much fun! We had some awesome men from our ward come out and cook us the most amazing meal! All of the YW leaders, except DeShelle who was greatly missed, were able to come to dinner, as well as the bishopric and their wives! It started pouring rain right before dinner, of course, but luckily we had our big canopy. It got freezing but the girls were so dang hyper and we had such good company that we didn't care! We ate and socialized and then I gave out funny camp awards to all of the girls. It was so much fun. 

Bishop selfie!!

After dinner and dessert and being silly for a long time, we calmed down and so did the rain. We set up chairs and built a campfire and had a beautiful devotional and testimony meeting. It began lightly raining at the end but it kind of just added to the beautiful spirit that was there. Afterwards there were lots of hugs and then most of our visitors had to leave and then the girls' hyperness came back. We had a lot of fun that last night.

Grumpy rain faces.

Please realize these girls stuffed their sweatshirts and are not actually pregnant, hahaha. They just want to be me.

We melted glow sticks, haha.

The amazing YCL's! They really worked so hard and were amazing.

The next morning we were up early and had our awesome bishop and some other men come and help us take down camp and load up our trailer. It was bittersweet. I was ready to sleep in a real bed and take a real shower, but I didn't want the week to end either.

I really love each one of these girls so much. I was in a rough place when I got this calling. I had just found out I was pregnant and was dealing with the roller coaster of emotions with that, and they helped liven my spirit up and help me find joy in the moment. This summer was also hard to start because I was saying goodbye to teaching, but having them and this camp helped ease me into the transition.

The women I work with our incredible. I have to give a specific shout out to Jenna, who saved my life. She is a Girls Camp pro and put up with my endless phone calls and text messages and emails. She stayed with me the whole week and was my support when certain thing were going to make me crazy. She has my same sarcastic sense of humor and we had so much fun together. She's the bomb.

I am really thankful for this opportunity. I was super worried to be honest, but I survived! I was able to sleep pretty well at night (I NEVER had to get up to pee! It's a freaking miracle), I only got 3 bug bites, no sunburns, stayed super hydrated, didn't get too exhausted or was in too much pain.. it was a great week.

It's good to be home though. I think my cat missed me.