Girls Camp 2014...Love can thaw a frozen heart...

Not long after I got home from Alabama, I packed up again to head to girls camp. I was the camp photographer again this year. I love it. I love getting to know all the girls in the stake, and by the end of the week can put EVERY SINGLE FACE with the right name! That's a lot of girls! I farmed my kids out this year, and I'm so lucky to have such awesome friends. Tucker went to the Mortensens, of course, he spent a few nights and came home with Ben a few nights, I forget which. Taylor went up to the McLuskies. It was Riley's first year at camp, so we made a trade! :) She said she would watch Taylor all week, as long as I took care of Riley! :) It was a deal, and Taylor actually just stayed there every night all week! She had an absolute blast! It was like she had the 4 older sisters she'd always dreamed of.

We met at the Stake Center, like always, and they had to say good bye to Riley and I had to say good bye to my Taylor...

To say that Taylor was excited would be an understatement. Her and her mom for the week. I'm glad that Katrina was excited too! There's nothing better than great friends that you can trust to fill in and really love your kids while you're gone!

Got to girls camp on Monday to all the expected cheery and happiness that is at girls camp...

Is it just me, or are these girls getting younger and younger every year? They sure are so dang cute!!! I swear I was just a first year like last year, right?!

Monday and Tuesday were spent doing typical girls camp things. Singing, cheering, certifying, eating, swimming, things like that. Then on Tuesday after lunch, the emergency siren started going off just as we were starting a dance party at the fire pit. They had told us that there were some wild fires in the area, but that we shouldn't be concerned. BUT... that if there was a need for evacuation that a certain siren would go off and the girls were to get to the kitchen area as fast as they could. I've never seen girls so fast! It was a bit scary at first because we didn't know how close the fire was, or how much time we had.

This man from the parks department came and got on a table and scared the crap out of all the girls!!! He stood up there and said the fire was about 3 miles away and spreading fast and told the girls to go just get their valuables and return to the kitchen area. The poor little girls were in hysterics. I found sweet little Riley and she said to me, in tears, 'I know what I'm going to get, I'm going to get my scriptures!' and Riley had invited a non member friend, Colby, to camp and Colby said to me 'I'm going to get my swimming suit, because my mom just spent a lot of money on it.' These little girls are so cute! The girls were in hysterics, and we didn't have buses to bus them out, so after they ran hysterically through the camp ransacking their tents for their 'valuables' (which I'm sure none of them really even had at camp) we took a head count, and shoved them in our cars. Since most of us had pretty big cars up there, and we were really just trying to get out as fast as we could, we just shoved as many as we could, like 15 girls in a suburban etc...

It was pretty crazy, and although most of us adult leaders knew that it would most likely all be ok, that guy sure scared the bejeezeesies out of the girls. This was a photo one of the leaders on the 4th year canoe trip took just as they had gotten into the camp that morning. He said it was just around the bend from Camp Naborlee:

The local high school a few miles down the road had been set up as the 'disaster relief' site in the area. So, we had to go there to get out of the fire zone.

I was one of the last  leaders to leave the area, and hopped in my friend Heather's suburban and headed to the school. BUT...on the way to the school, in the tiny little town Heather and I were too tempted, so we stopped and got some diet cokes. We couldn't help ourselves, it was too tempting. So we stopped at the tiny little market all the while unbeknownst to us, her husband, Jevonn, who was at camp as the Priesthood leader, noticed that we hadn't made it to the school yet, so he came back looking for us, only to find us walking the streets of the little town with our diet cokes in town. He wouldn't let us live that one down, that we were taking our sweet little time getting diet cokes while girls were in hysterics at some random high school gym in some random tiny town.

Anyway...we were holed up at this high school from about 1pm to about 5pm when they finally told us that we couldn't go back. We still had all of the workshops that were supposed to happen at that time, and we had some snack shack treats that the cooks thought to grab. Anyway, by the time we found out we had to evacuate for good, we had arranged the busses, and they came and took the girls back to the Stake Center. It was a lot of work making sure that all the families and bishops were notified, but we got the girls off, and half of the leaders went with them back to Spokane. The other half of us got to go back to the camp to pack up EVERY.SINGLE.THING.

Now remember the girls had ransacked their tents searching for their valuables, and none of the girls were there to even help us decipher who's stuff was who's. It was a difficult task, but we literally took all the stuff out of each tent and put it on a tarp, folded up the tarp, labeled it with the year, and piled them in the trucks. THEN...we still had to take down all the tents, all the decoration. Pack up all the food, sound system, all the waterfront stuff, I mean everything. We were there for another 4-5 hours doing that.

I snapped this picture of the sunset as we were working...

I do have to admit that I was very excited to sleep in my own bed that night. I thought for sure girls camp was going to be cancelled and it was going to be over at that point. But I got a call bright and early the next morning that they wanted to continue it, that some members in our stake had offered their land as a place to continue camp, but first we had to get all this crap back to the girls. We hauled it all out on the lawn by the Stake Center/Temple. We told the girls to come at 4 to gather their things, and then we would continue with Bishops night at the pavillion.

My friend, Katrina dropping off Riley and has my Taylor girl with her...

I honestly didn't know how many girls would come back after the whole ordeal, but I was so shocked at the cheeriness and happiness and enthusiasm these girls still had for girls camp and being together. We had a wonderful bishops night, and all but 4 girls came back!  

The 6 of us who represented the Spanish Branch at camp this year; President Lopez, me, Hna. Gower's two granddaughters, Jenny and Karrina. I love these girls so much!

And, of course, President Mott did the U-tah-tah dance he's done at girls camp every year even since I was a camper!!! These are the awesome leaders of the Stake, the Stake Young Womens Presidency and the Stake camp director (I missed Emily being there this year) But these women were so awesome, and totally turned what could have been a bad situation for the girls and turned it into a great experience and one that the girls will probably never forget!

We got to sleep in our own beds on Wednesday night, well, I did the rest of the week. But we had the girls meet us up at the Guinn's property on Thursday morning at 7 with their camping gear. They had the most perfect wooded and open area property that we could do everything. They even had the most gorgeous pool for swimming time. It was a great set up. We set up camp again, and had all the girls in their levels, and really it was the best experience. The girls were awesome, the leaders were awesome, and the workshops and spirit was awesome. I wanted to add this picture of Brother Toth giving his workshop because honestly, it was probably one of the best lessons I had ever heard. I love this man so much. I had never met him before camp, but I tell you what, his lesson touched me, and I was in tears. I kept going back to it at every rotation so I could hear it again. It was about love. And also, let me tell you that I was so NOT excited that the theme was frozen, my first reaction was, 'seriously???!!!' But, I absolutely loved it. It was all about forgiveness, and letting go of things we can't control and learning to trust in the lord, and even about relationships, we can't control other people, we can only control our attitudes, and thoughts and feelings. I just loved it! One of the little things I got from the Stake was a quote that says, 'EGO is the only thing that gets in the way of good relationships, so skip the E and let it GO!' I really worked on that and remembered that daily for the few weeks after girls camp, and it's still something I am striving to remember daily, I really loved the message this year.

Evening firesides complete with the roll call songs. The evenings were so beautiful!

I had to add this picture of Tori. She is awesome, she made me get in a picture with her because she knew I hadn't been in any. She was so thoughtful and sweet all week to me, even though I had never met her before camp, I just fell in love with her! This was right before I was leaving for the night, another perk of not being 'in charge' of any girls is that I didn't have to sleep up there with them! :) I got to sleep in my own  bed!

Oh, and another benefit of camping at the Guinn's, polar dip looks like this:

Not too shabby!!! :) I had a great time this year at camp. I love being with the Young Women. And for all the craziness that happened, it was probably one of the best years yet! Another bonus about camp this year, is that I cracked my soda addiction! It was so hot that I started just drinking so much water, because soda wasn't so readily available to me (except our little diet coke run during the evacuation!) :) but I started drinking so much water, that I realized my body really liked it, like it made me feel really good, so I started to just buy those big packs of water bottles and every time I felt like I wanted a soda or needed something to drink, I'd grab a water, and it makes me feel so good, I love it! It's now March as I'm typing this, and I've been soda free since girls camp, 8 months! It feels great! I've had a few sips here and there of Ben's soda's when I see them out, but usually I take a few sips and it seems to be enough. I don't crave it, and my headaches have so gone away! I used to think that I got headaches when I needed a soda, but I realize now that the soda, for me, was causing the headaches, and I love not feeling like I need a soda all the time. Water really does feel and taste so good to me, now! Anyway, lots of good at girls camp, lots of great experiences, lots of love and happiness, and I feel so grateful that I get to go up and get to know the girls and usually some friends of mine are up there, so I get to hang with them and meet new awesome ladies in our stake, and this year was no different!
Although, this is what my feet look like when I get home. All dry and cracked and dirty and hairy. I could maybe do without that, but I guess it's a small price to pay! :)