The last few months leading up to this week have probably been some of the most stressful months of my life! In February (I think) I was called to be the young women girls camp director for our ward. I have not been to a girls camp since I was a teenager, and I had no idea how much effort my leaders put into camp until I had to do it myself! I was really only able to focus on planning girls camp while Axel was sleeping and then when I was planning, it seemed like that's when my girls wanted or needed me for something. I would sometimes get so frustrated because I really only had at most 2 hour chunks of time to plan - which was probably plenty of time, but I felt so clueless that it didn't seem like enough! Many times I felt like I was either being a horrible camp director or a horrible mom...it felt like I wasn't doing either job to the best of my abilities despite my best efforts!
We all survived and I'm sure my kids still know how much I love them and I think - I hope - that girls camp was a success! It's so much different going as a leader than as a young woman! There were times that it was honestly really hard for me to feel the Spirit because I was either trying to get ready for the next activity or I was dealing with some drama within the young women. I will say that we have some awesome young women in our ward/stake!! They were so nice and accepting of each other and, other than a few hiccups, I was so impressed!!! We also have some awesome leaders and I am so grateful for their help in the planning and throughout the week! There are some things that I would do differently next time, but I really do think girls camp was a lot of fun and I really hope that the young women could feel the love that I and their leaders have for them and more importantly, the love that their Heavenly Father has for them!
The them for our stake young women camp this year was "It's A Jungle Out There" and each ward chose an animal to represent them at camp, then we each got to decorate a bucket for a totem pole that the stake leaders put together. Our ward was assigned the value of Faith and we chose to be a white lion. I asked one of my young women to draw our lion on our bucket and I think she did an amazing job!! One of our crafts at camp was to make flower crowns (because we are daughters of a king...so it was like our princess crown! Also because we were lions and lions are kings of the jungle...so, ya know! We got creative!) So we put a flower crown on our lion and I was very happy with our bucket and I'm so grateful for such talented young women! // I got to pull the trailer with all of the girls' luggage, etc. so I had Matthew take me to the church the night before we left so that I could practice backing it up...and I'm glad I did because I had to use those skills when we got to our campsite! I backed the trailer up into this little space with trees on either side of the trailer and trees on the passenger side of the truck! It was very tricky but I was so excited, so I had to document it!
We had some awesome priesthood holders/camp cooks!! One of our days at camp our priesthood went down and cut a bunch of firewood, so we made the girls hike down and load all of the firewood into the truck. They were hilarious and worked so smart to get this job done quickly!
I learned that teenagers are much like three year olds when it comes to listening to instruction and cleaning up after themselves! Haha! We made flower crowns, we made mason jar lanterns, we sang some beautiful songs by the light of flashlights, we did a really fun hike and Bishop brought his horses for the girls and leaders to ride while we hiked, we played, we sang karaoke and we had some awesome devotionals and a wonderful testimony meeting. I grew to love our young women even more than I did before! I am really looking forward to planning another camp - hopefully everyone is okay with that!
While I was gone for the week, Lyla and Alya went to Idaho with Grandma Sorenson and Axel got to hang out with Nana and Daxton! They all had so much fun and I am so grateful that I can go in the mountains and have no service and have very little stress about how my kids are doing! The girls got new swimsuits, they swam and went to Walmart (haha!!)...they got very spoiled! Axel went to the zoo, he went to Seven Peaks and swimming with cousins! I hope they were okay with coming home!
The girls were asked to draw a smiley face in primary on Sunday...Alya did a pretty awesome one!! I am so impressed!! Lyla decided not to draw a smiley face...
...and drew a camel instead! But how awesome is her camel!?
"If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops, oh what a rain that would be!" Alya tasting the raindrops!! I love this picture! I love the rain splashing off her tongue and the water pooled up near her eye! So cute!
