The last week of June I was able to go up to Camp Koholowo up Payson Canyon for Girls camp. Adam was kind enough to take the kids for me all week in the evenings so I could go – and during the day we hired a babysitter to come in and be with the kids so Adam could work. I was so glad I was able to be up at camp the entire week. I so LOVE the girls in our Young Womens and enjoy any chance I get to spend time with them.
Camp itself was WONDERFUL. We left on Tuesday afternoon and after loading up the cars with all our camping gear and stuffing cars full of girls we were OFF. Unfortunately on the way up though 2 of our 4 drivers ended up having car problems requiring us to pull over and wait a bit. Luckily we all made it up though and the girls were all great sports about the delays. We had a ball just talking about life on the way up.
The second we arrived at camp though – we were told that we MAY have to turn right around and go back home due to the Forest Fires. What the? Really? Didn’t they just give us the okay the day before? We were all so confused. This instantly put a damper on the excitement of just arriving up at camp – but we did as we were instructed and drove down to the long line of cars where we parked without unpacking and then headed up to the Lodge.
Luckily within about 30 minutes of waiting we were able to hear back from the Forest Service who gave us the OKAY to stay. Cheers rung out in every ward in attendance. We were all just so thrilled to be able to stay up at camp. While we were waiting they passed out our “You are a daughter of a King” Princess sweatshirts and then they released us back to our cabins to unload our stuff and set up camp.
All the girls picked out their beds in the cabin and got everything set up for bed. Then I went out and helped set up the Laurel Leaders tent where Syd Olsen, Libby Quarenberg, and Bailey Beckstead were sleeping and then helped Elyssa Marzan our YW President set up her tent as well.
That evening we had hot dogs for dinner and then we had the privilege of listening to a 19 year old young man talk about his story of losing his leg to cancer. It was very inspiring and I felt a wonderful spirit. Later that evening we were supposed to have a movie night where we were going to watch “Hurcules” which our camp theme “Going the Distance” came from – but unfortunately they couldn’t get the projector to work so instead we ended up putting some bling bling on our sweatshirts. The girls seemed to really enjoy that.
That evening we played the “ME BALL” for a bit to get to know each other and then played a couple games of Mafia. Then I introduced the new beehives to a game I taught the girls last year called “In the manner of the adverb.” One of their very first adverbs was sensuously and all I have to say is boy can Amelia Olsen do the banana dance in the manner of the adverb! She had us all in a fit of giggles. I sure love that girl.
The girls playing Mafia before bedtime.
Abby and Delaney all ready for bed
That night we had a bit of excitement in camp when a black bear meandered over to Elyssa, Libby, Bailey, and Syd’s tent at around 4:00 am. Bailey and Elyssa ended up hearing the bear as it began pawing at the tents and huffing – but Libs and Syd stayed peacefully sleeping. Finally after a little while the bear left and Elyssa was able to talk to Bailey and have her wake up Syd and Libs. However, just before they were able to make an escape they all heard the bear come back and Elyssa instructed them to remain quiet in their tents. The bear ended up sitting just outside of the door to Elyssa’s tent for almost an HOUR. Pour Elyssa just sat in the middle of her tent with an axe in one hand and a hammer in the other. She wasn’t sure what she’d have to do if that bear got aggressive. But luckily the bear eventually left and the girls were able to make their run for it into the cabins!
They came in screaming and terrorized at 5 am and luckily Vicki Phillips our wonderful secretary in the YW’s was able to comfort the girls after saying a few choice swear words (which we still laugh about). I unfortunately had taken an ambien to help me sleep only 5 hours beforehand and was completely out of it and according to the girls I just sat on the end of my bed saying things like. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so scary.” ha ha. Bless my heart. You’d think I’d at least have the sense enough to get up and give them all a big hug!
Elyssa (our YW President) in the mean time ran to all the other wards cabins and tents to warn them of the bear and have those sleeping in tents get inside and then Vicki got in her car to go and tell the Stake Leaders so they could call the authorities. Elyssa saw the bear again though as she was running to and from different tents warning the girls. Sure made for one exciting morning to say the least and lots of great storytelling all throughout the week as different girls, leaders, and the bishopric came up.
So needless to say our morning started EARLY and no one was able to get back to sleep. At 7:30 we all headed to the lodge for breakfast and then later that morning most of us (except for the Laurel Leaders and Elyssa) went on our certification hikes.
A picture of our ward before going on our hike. Love these gals!
Vicki, Natalie, Madison, Hailey, Delaney, Abby, Morgan, Brianna, Bailey, Milani, Amelia, and myself
And a hiking we will go!
Morgan Draper
Madison Draper
Natalie Millet, Abby Hullinger, Morgan Draper, Hailey Bradley, Brianna Burgess, Madison Draper, Milani Lau, Vicki Phillips, Delaney Christensen, Amelia Olsen, and me.
The views on the hike were breathtaking!
Here is our “we conquered the mountain” pose!
We sang camp songs as we hiked back down.
Later that afternoon we were given some free time to put together a skit as a ward. I had brought up a big skit bin where the girls could dress up and put on different fun costumes and use those in our skit. Two of our beehives Hailey Bradley and Madison Draper were REALLY excited about the skit and so we let them have at it and they organized the entire thing. Unfortunately without much practice though it ended up being more of a silent skit as we hadn’t worked out many speaking parts. We did get the award for the best costumes though! 🙂 Below are some pics of the girls all dressed up.
This is our awesome ward banner we put together for camp. We were given the princess of Rapunzel and we all painted this at a pre-camp activity and wrote our names on the back. Miranda Tarter did the sketching of Rapunzel, I did the lettering, and then Jana Norman did most of the painting. I LOVE how it turned out! So cute!
Natalie as Rapunzels wicked mother. She looked GREAT!
Hayden Hullingers awesome hairdo.
Rylee Beckstead – love the goatee!
Mariah Goodale and Miranda Tarter
These two were a crack up! Syd Olsen and Libby Quarenberg
Elyssa our YW President telling the bear story for the zillionth time! Elyssa was SO fun up at camp and really has a special bond with the girls. She’s an amazing leader!
Sitting around our campfire we weren’t allowed to have. Many good memories were made here.
LOVE these girls!
Amelia Olsen
Syd Olsen
Libster!
Bailee Phillips
Bailey Beckstead
Brooke Bradley
Madison Draper
Hayden Hullinger
Megan Redhouse
Abby Hullinger
Juliana Millet
Rylee Beckstead
Miranda Tarter – she’s a really good gymnast!
Natalie Millet
Brianna Burgess
Milani Lau
Hailey Bradley
Morgan Draper
Singing Camp Songs!
Hailey and Morgan
Another smoke filled sunset – This one from the fire in Delta
We made sure we were the first to arrive for this activity! 🙂
At one point the ward next to us brought us over some leftover cake they brought up for someones birthday. I got a little carried away with it to say the least. They say the more you get on your face the better it tastes…er at least thats what Adam says! 🙂
For another activity each ward had to have one leader compete for the title of “Queen Koholowo.” Elyssa was chosen/forced into this assignment and she did a FABULOUS job. The girls did her hair and makeup and then she got up and told us how everyone tells her she should be on American idol – as she sang in an off key voice. Then she said that she had also been told she should be on “So you think you can dance” in which she broke out in some awesome moves. But she ended with her REAL talent of being able to ward off bears as she held up her axe and hammer. It was really funny and one of my favorite activities. At the end they had a “dance off” between the leaders that was completely hilarious. And then they had a 2nd one which was just as funny, and then they had the DJ’s have a dance off as well (while the judges were deciding). All three dance offs were awesome!
Here is the winner of Queen Koholowo! Her dance skills, makeup, and outfit were amazing!
The devious duo! Love them!
For another of our activities we made these awesome Rapunzel bracelets, headbands, and bookmarks using ribbon that Jana Norman found for us. They turned out so cute and were really fun to make. We certainly have some very creative people in our group.
On another night the Laurel Leaders and Miamades thought it would be fun to take the beehives on their first SNIPE hunt! They had the girls put their hoodies on backwards (as the snipes are smart and can tell the back of a shirt from the front), had the girls put toothpaste on their faces (Snipes like the smell of mint of course) and then everyone got a bag and stick or pillow case and stick to catch a snipe with. We taught the girls how to call for a snipe and sent them off. However, as we were walking around trying to catch snipes I pulled Elyssa our YW President aside and asked her, “how are the girls going to end the hunt?” She wasn’t sure – so I told her about how my Dad used to sneak off in the bushes and scare us and she got excited and encouraged me to go.
However, this ended up not being the best of ideas as you will shortly see. It didn’t help either that I was wearing a black hoodie while everyone else was wearing light gray ones.
As I stuck into the bushes I found a great hiding spot behind a big fallen log. It was about 15-20 feet from the girls but I was unsure of how to get their attention so that I could jump out of the bushes and scare them. So I did what any person trying to scare someone would do. I started to make some noise in the bushes and then put my mouth into my arm and roared!
At once a flashlight hit me – and at once the girls all began screaming like they were in grave danger – which would have been absolutely HILARIOUS had it stopped right there. But unfortunately for me – all the girls mistook me for a BLACK BEAR (remember the black hoodie I was wearing?) and I ended up scaring the pants off my poor Laurel Leaders who were already dealing with the emotional tramma of the bear encounter a few nights before. And it didn’t help that some of my dear beehives and miamads ended up tripping over logs and getting hurt on their hurry back to the cabin. So although I will admit that Elyssa and I were laughing our heads off – I also ended up feeling REALLY bad that I had scared the girls THAT much.
I wish the story ended there too – but no. It ends up that the cabins next to us heard the commotion and our girls screaming there was a “bear” which led to the screaming as well – going into their cabins and sending word to the lodge to tell the Stake leaders of another bear citing. Yikes! It was quite embarrassing to have to explain to all the leaders that the big “bear citing” was just Sister Egbert (me) in a hoodie trying to get a few laughs during a snipe hunt! ha ha. Luckily the Laurel Leaders, Miamades, and Beehives forgave me right away and all was alright. What a great group of girls!
All ready for the big hunt!
Those Snipes don’t stand a chance!
The Laurel Leaders split everyone up into smaller groups to take them out.
Another day the Stake had a big Olympics game where you competed with other wards to finish certifications the fastest. Most of the wards had NO IDEA what was happening half the time so we were all just kind of running around in chaos. But we eventually got it all figured out and finished the race. You can tell the girls are starting to drag a bit in the below picture. Several nights of little to no sleep will do that to ya!
Several of the girls in our group were AMAZING at doing hair and gave anyone who wanted one a fun braid or up-do! It was fun to see what they came up with!
Here we are building a Tepee fire. We also had to build a log cabin one too to certify. Easy Peasy!
Check out these super models with their hair blowing in the wind!
Jana Norman our former YW President came up for the last night. She was also the amazing woman behind the cute bracelets we made and had a big hand with much of the planning. I love and look up to Jana so much!
Group Shot!
Back row: Abby Hullinger, Bailey Philips, Ashlyn Bradley, Syd Olsen, Miranda Tarter, Juliana Millet, Natanlie Millit, Libby Quarenberg, Hayden Hullinger, Rylee Beckstead, Milani Lau, Amelia Olsen, Jana Norman, and myself. Front row: Madison Draper, Brianna Burgess, Morgan Draper, and Delaney Christensen.
We had most of the YW Presidency able to come up the last night of camp which was awesome!
L to R: Elyssa Marzan, Wendy Tarter, Sherri Thayne, Karalee Beckstead, Sarah Egbert, Melissa Draper, and Jana Norman. LOVE these ladies and all they do for our YW group!
I forgot to mention that my “assignment” while up at girls camp was to be the “Singing Princess” meaning that I was in charge of all the camp songs! I was SUPER excited about this but the stake wanted me to get songs going any time there was down time and we were waiting for other wards/girls to arrive. This was pretty much at EVERY single activity! Which I loved! – but because I had to pump breast milk 4 times a day (requiring 15-20 minutes of my time) I was often very LATE to a lot of the activities and knew I wouldn’t be able to be there to get things started. So I enlisted the help of Laurel Leaders in other wards (my Laurel Leaders were a little shy) who LOVED to do the camp songs and asked them to get things going if I wasn’t there. They did AWESOME! and I’m happy to say that at the end of the week – I came to know the words and actions to almost every single one of those camp songs. It was a BLAST! Below is a picture of most of the “regulars” that were up on stage singing songs.
Once again we made sure we were one of the FIRST wards to arrive (we missed roll call one morning and sort of got the evil eye from the stake) so we tried to be better at it the rest of the week. I love the look of all the faces in this picture!
The last night – as is tradition – the bishopric and their wives came up to join us. They brought us some yummy brownies and ice cream and then started our our testimony meeting. We loved having them there.
L to R: Roger and Jenny Hullinger, Jeff and Peggy Lau, Tessa and Bishop Bradley.
I don’t know what it is – but Libby has an interesting facination with the feel of butter! The below picture is her putting butter on each of her fingertips. We all got quite the laugh about this.
One of the last fun activities we did (right before testimony meeting) was a tradition that came from the Millet family who just moved into our ward a few weeks ago. In their former ward they would always give the girls glow sticks and tape to which they could put the glow sticks all over their body so that they lit up when doing their “singing in the trees” activity. Wonderful Susan Millet went and bought each of the girls (25 girls total) a package or glow sticks and some tape so that we could start this tradition in our ward. It was so very thoughtful of her and the girls absolutely loved it. They came up with so many fun ways of taping glow sticks to themselves that looked awesome. Such a fun sight to behold in the dark! Below is Bailee Philips sporting her glow stick look!
Tessa, Amelia, and Madison leading camp songs before Testimony Meeting begins
Unfortunately my attempt at taking pictures of these gals in the dark didn’t turn out too well – but here are some of the awesome creativity that came from the glow sticks.
We even decorated our room with them and made a HUGE chain along the beds.
To end the evening we played the “Me Ball” with our flashlights in the corner of the cabin (lights out was normally at 10:30 but we got special permission each night to leave the lights on until 11:00 so I would have time to pump and get ready for bed) and had fun sharing fun stories and interesting things about ourselves with others. Wendy Tarter and Melissa Draper joined in with us girls while Elyssa and Jana hit the hay. We stayed up until about 12:30 or so and then headed to bed ourselves.
The next morning we got up, cleaned the cabins and bathrooms, had ourselves some breakfast and headed home. I ended up riding down with Brianna Burgess, Natalie Millet, Amelia Olsen, and Milani Lau. What a great group of girls.
All in all Girls camp was WONDERFUL and I had such a great time spending 4 days with such awesome young women. They are such an example to me and were so kind, considerate, and loving to each other all throughout the week. I just felt honored and blessed to be surrounded by each one. They each are unique and beautiful and talented in their own special way and it was a privilege to be with them. I can’t wait for next year!
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