Stake Girls Camp

     For the past few months I have been working with a WONDERFUL group of ladies to plan girls camp for our stake. We have laughed together and cried together, spent lots of late nights working on camp stuff, and this week everything finally came together. After the rather dramatic start to our girls
camp planning, I must say that girls camp ran very smoothly and the girls got what we wanted out of it!
     We took the YCLs (youth camp leaders), up to girls camp a day earlier than the rest. We needed them to help us get the camp all set up and plan a few things for the week. After we got to camp, we had our lovely YCLs set up tents and decorate the tiny pavilion for us. As leaders, we figured out where camp spots were and tried to get everything arranged for the wards coming up. Best part of the day was when Corri needed more aluminum foil for dinner so Corri, Jesse, Katie, and I all jumped in the truck, drove to duck creek, and got aluminum foil. But not only did we get foil, we also got some pretty dang good ice cream. Shh, don't tell anyone though, it was a secret ice cream run!  I ended up leaving around 9:30 to head back home. I am in the YW presidency with my ward, so I needed to be there Wednesday to drive up with the girls.
     Wednesday morning I ran to the store to get everything that Corri forgot to get before she got up to camp. Then we met at our church. It happend that I rode with Amanda Hansen and we had no girls in our car, which was a good thing. Half way to girls camp, we came across a van that was broken down and a bunch of girls were on the side of the road. We pulled over and found out that it was a van from a different ward in our stake, and they were also going up to girls camp. We had the girls jump in our car and we got up to girls camp.
    Because I was on the stake committee, I had a pull in what camping spot my ward got, which was great, because I think we got the best one! We met up with the rest of our ward and got all unpacked. The girls were so excited, which made me happy. They need time to spend out in the wild unplugged from life. The next few days were full of fun, and a little bit of drama. As a stake we planned lots of fun activities for the girls to do, but some of the girls in my ward just thought they were better than that and didn't have to participate. It was a real eye opener for them when they realized they didn't have a choice in the matter. I am sure that I upset a few girls. But I do believe it was a good experience for them to mingle with other girls in the stake, while participating in activities.
    I had a hard time drawing the line between when I was needed with the ward and when I could help with the stake. I felt bad just leaving my ward by themselves, but I also felt really guilty not being able to help the stake committee out when they needed it. The first night there was so cold! I was able to stay mostly warm, but it wasn't quite comfortable. The second night was perfect. I think all the girls and the leaders were praying for warmer weather. I was toasty. I went to bed and seriously didn't wake up until the next morning. I even got into a deep enough sleep to dream, (which usually doesn't happen while I am camping).
    Friday we took the girls on a hike. It was a hike to Mammoth Caves. The girls loved it. There were a lot of them, especially from my ward, who had a blast crawling around the caves. When we got back to camp I kind of cheated and took a shower, but I really needed one. One of our camp directors taught us a way fun game. It is called rooster on the roof. All the wards that watched us play it thought we were probably crazy, but that is ok. It was so great. Paul came up to camp today. All of the girls from the other wards that we took on the fourth year hike, came and played with paul and he got into a water fight with them. They loved it. He is so good with the youth. The grand finale for Friday was a video that corri put together. We had a slide show of the 4th year hike, pictures of girls throughout camp, a few mormon messages blended in there, and we also got the girls to secretly share little bits and pieces of their testimony. It was so spiritual. We had our own ward testimony which was great. Very spiritual, then I left to head home. The rest of the ward stayed up for the night, but I had to leave for an ultimate frisbee tournament in the morning.