WARNING: Long Post ahead for journaling purposes.
This last Thursday I had the wonderful pleasure of going up to Girls Camp with my ward as a volunteer leader. Some of the YW’s leaders weren’t going to be unable to stay overnight with the girls and so they asked a few volunteer Mom’s. I was all over that one and ecstatic to have the chance to go! Girls camp has always been near and dear to my heart and I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to get to know more of the youth in the ward!
I arrived Thursday afternoon at Camp Koholowo after dropping the three boys off to Mum and Smurf (Thank you SO much for taking them), and after picking up my awesome back door neighbor Jessie who is 17. We had a lovely visit as we drove up Payson Canyon and I enjoyed getting to know her better.
We lucked out and arrived right at chow time (lunch) which consisted of taco salad and chips and salsa. It was really good and we took it back to camp and eat after we unloaded all our gear. Then it was free time for the next 2-3 hours! The camp was having a competition for the crown of Queen Koholowo and each ward had to pick a leader to compete. Jana our wonderful YW’s President was the perfect choice. The girls decided to do a skit with singing and dancing to the song “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga and make Jana “Lady Mormon Gaga” and when I saw that dancing would be involved, I couldn’t help but volunteer as a back up dancer! đ
For our costumes we each wore black pants (Jana’s were leather and completely awesome!) and then a tie-died camp shirt. Then we each got our hair ratted as big as it would go. This was a unique experience for me as I’ve never had my hair ratted and I didn’t even recognize myself when it was done! Wowsars! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find my camera in time to take pictures, but Jana took some so I’ll post some when I get them from her. Needness to say, we looked WILD! đ
The skit went really well and we had a lot of fun. Our ward didn’t win the title of Queen Koholowo but we had an absolute blast trying! đ The other wards all did a really good job too and everyone seemed to have a good time.
Later that evening after a tasty dinner of Spaghetti, salad, and rolls we had flag ceremony and then went on a faith walk and had a spiritual program. I found myself just in tears as I thought about the Savior and my feelings for him and how grateful I am for him. My life truly has been changed because of my absolute surety of his love for me, for his atonement in my behalf and because of the good news of his gospel. I know he is REAL, and that he lives and loves each one of us and I loved being at girls camp and feeling of his warm wonderful spirit in my heart.
After the flag ceremony we were able to go back to our cabins and have some free time with just our wards (Girls camp was done by the stake this year). Some of the girls hunkered down in the cabin to do some reading and relaxing, or to go to bed early.
Baily was the life of the party and kept us all giggling with her humor!
The wonderful Tiffany Pratt – giving me one of her dirty looks! đ
(We enjoyed giving each other funny looks all night)
Tana Hoover. Aren’t her eyes just gorgeous?
Lori Pond and Jana Norman – getting all ready for bed. They were amazing at girls camp and it was so fun to get to know both of them better. I’m seriously impressed!
Libby Wilkey, Miranda, and Ashlyn Bradley. These girls were great!
Hailee Hodgsen and Tabatha Goodale – They were so great and washed and styled almost everyones hair and did peoples nails. I felt like I was at a beauty salon! It was wonderful!
Carli, Amelia Olsen, and Milani Lau
Rylee Beckstead and Elyssa Marzan – Elyssa was another leader that went up and she was awesome! She and I ended up staying up the very latest (11:00 pm!)
Hailee, Tabatha, Jessie, Libby, and I – Playing Mafia around the fire.
At bedtime the stake came by and gave us all a “tuck in treat” and sang us a good night song. They were so great and really did a fantastic job with all of camp.
Brianna Burgess, Hayden Hullinger, and Amanda Barclay
The next morning we woke up at 6:30 for our “Hour of Power,” where we did Yoga and read our scriptures. Before going outside the cabin, we had a little visitor from your neighborhood friendly bear who had decided to get into the garbage can – JUST outside of our cabin door and then meander around our camp for a bit. Needless to say it made a few of us a tad bit nervous!
Group Picture: The whole kit and caboodle!
Such a wonderful group of women!
I loved all the flags they had from different countries!
That morning we were in charge of breakfast for the whole stake so we went down to the kitchen about 7:15 to help. Here are the girls cracking about 100 million eggs!
The stake leaders did most of the cooking. They were awesome!
The girls hard at work
Amelia helping dish out the sour cream and – too many cooks in the kitchen!
I loved how the girls got creative with display of breakfast.
Here Tabatha and Libby are showing off their juice art!
Brook also arranged the fruit cups quite beautifully as well
Tiffani, Brianna, and Ashlyn were great helpers too!
Amanda, Libby, and Tiani create a beautiful juice swirly!
The best perk of getting to help with breakfast…was getting to eat it FIRST!
That is one good lookin bunch of girls!
After breakfast the girls thought it would be fun to put on a little show! Bailey, Tiani, Libby, and Jessie did the singing, and everyone else did the dancing! Brook and Tiffany worked the piano!
Rylee, Miranda, Tabatha, and Amanda
Brianna, Hayden, Ashlyn, and Amelia
Tana, Hailey, Hailee, and Karli
