Trying to catch up...again! The 4th and Girl's Camp

I was going to write last week but alas this computer was being really fritzy and kept turning itself off.  I gave up and decided to write earlier in the day this week, hopefully that will make a difference!

Monday we had our dental check ups, only a few kids had cavities, I will keep their identity secret.  I took up most of the morning.  For family night we watched Tim's Father's Day DVD Mall Cop--on Clearplay.  I exercised on the elliptical.  The kids have been dying to watch it.  It's pretty funny.

Tuesday was Tim and I, our 21st anniversary.  He took the day off and we went to breakfast.  We went to 7 Peaks once we all got ready.  Emily and her friends had planned to go and had planned on us taking them so it was convenient that we were already going.  We had a lot of fun and left early afternoon as it got busier.  Emily and friends stayed an one of their parents picked them up.  We stopped at Macey's for cones which ended up being our lunch!  On our way home we saw the fire in Alpine about 5 miles away just starting.  It raged all day and night.  The kids spent most of their time watching it from our porch.  Tim and I decided to take advantage of the early bird menu/discount meal--we are becoming old people!  We went to Texas Roadhouse.  It was yummy but too much food so we ate it for lunch the next day.  We went and saw The Amazing Spiderman, the new movie.  I was skeptical, I mean really do we need a new Spiderman movie?  This one is way better than the other 3.  Granted I like super hero shows so I am probably not a good judge for those who don't like them.  I loved Avengers and this is close.  I guess with low expectations I was pleasantly surprised.  We got home early and could see that the fire was huge.  By dark it was amazing to watch.

Wednesday was the 4th of July.  We had brunch at brother Charl's with the Louwside.  It was yummy! After eating and visiting, we took the kids to the park by their house to play.  Later we went to Tim's parents for the Pewside gathering.  We were early but they live near Charl so we hung out instead of going all the way home and back again.  They watched National Treasure and finished it just as the other families were getting there.  I napped.  I had bought an e-book from Amazon that I put on my tablet and it was so fun I had been staying up late every night!  It's a fantasy book, A Posse of Princesses.  The covers (I've seen 2) for it aren't very enticing so don't judge it based on that!  Emily has since read it and loved it too!  It would be a very fun movie.  We had a yummy BBQ.  After most of us went to the BYU Men's Soccer game.  Juan (bro-in-law) had got us all tickets.  It was super fun and BYU won 3-1.  After the game we stayed and watched the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire--it was spectacular!  We got home late of course and we could see that the fire had spread to the backside of the mountain.  It looked like lava.

In God We Trust

virtue=priceless

united we stand virtuous

virtue

LIBERTY

Thursday we woke up to rain!  It was a miracle, really--the fire went out.  It was a steady rain until 4 PM.  I spent the morning helping Izak and his friend Luke work on their Environmental Science MB--they started it at scout camp but had a few things to finish.  They had to do 3, 20 minute observations of 2 different places.  So they did it in the rain and then the sun the next few days.  But it is done, yeah!  I also helped Micah finish some WEBELOS stuff.  I worked on a the camp decorations and devotionals whenever I could.    It really was coming together.  Friday I ran to the store before my friend's sons came over.  She was taking her mom out to lunch.  Her sons were doing a midnight ride that night on Antelope Island with their grandpa so she didn't want them to be too active that day.  Once it was hot we rented a Redbox, Journey 2.  Zane had seen it at a birthday party but he liked it a lot.  They enjoyed it.  I finally finished all the banners for camp (see above from camp)  I thought they turned out pretty good.  The girls helped with some of it but I had to finish them.  That night we had a wedding reception for a guy from our ward.  It was really nice and we got to visit with a lot of neighbors there!  Saturday morning I finished the devotional stuff so I could give it to the youth leaders over it.  We made some last minute changes, one of the youth leaders wrote a Declaration of Independence and personal Constitution, all going along with our theme!  It was amazing and we wanted to integrate it into the devotionals so everything I had done in preparation had to be reworked.  It's unfortunate that some of our greatest inspiration comes the last hour!  One of the leaders came up with the genius idea of making the girld Smash books.  We put the declaration inside it and personal constitution with stuff for Golden Hour.  After getting things in order around the house we had a reception for a young man in our ward who got married.  He was one of Tim's scouts, his mom worked with me in WEBELOS, his brother and Timo have been really good friends for years, his mom taught Zane in Primary, his dad and Tim are in the bishopric together...so we all went since we love them!  It was fun and they had an ice cream sundae bar--yum!  That night I helped Izak on his talk.  Sunday Timo and I had BYC and then a camp leader meeting after that.  Izak did a great job on his talk.  He spoke on how he is preparing for a mission.  It had some funny parts.  He spoke with a young man who just returned--he was the drummer in Taran's band before the mission.  It was really good.  After church his family had  an open house we went since they live 2 houses down and are our good friends as well.  They had a meal for us so we ended up eating our dinner there and saving the food in the crockpot for Monday!  It's so great to see these young men who were already pretty amazing before come home even more refined and AWESOME!

Monday was crunch time to get packed and all the stuff for camp ready--we were meeting at the church at 7:15 AM so no time for last minute gathering.  Since our ward has the most girls we got to go up first--they staggered the times.  We had 47 girls--6 weren't able to come.  I felt bad I was in and out all day!  We still had family night, Tim talked about service from the Strength of Youth then they helped me put wire handles on our tin lanterns for camp.  I sewed our sign for the entrance of our camp.  We also watched our wedding video with the kids (the cans took about 10 minutes with everyone helping!).  They enjoyed it more than they have in the past.  It was fun for us to watch it too!  Once Emily and I were packed we took our stuff to one of the camp director's home where our ward trailer was set up to load.  Tim and I helped out with various things she needed until 10 PM and it was mostly done.  Tuesday I showered before going.  I also had Tim give me and Emily a blessing.  That was nice.  We had a short devotional and got up there at our appointed time 8:30 AM. 

The 3rd years, Emily's group

our tables

the walk way in front our our camp--we had a Don't Tread on Me Flag as well

Our sign: CH 8th Ward Virtuetown, Land of Liberty, you can't afford NOT to live here and Guardians of Virtue

the backside of our sign has the Declaration of Independence 

we all signed during one of our devotionals.

We set up camp and then we had stake orientation, some stake activities including lunch.  One of the co-camp directors and I ran back to camp after the camp photo of our ward to finish setting up the decorations.  The girls put up most of them--all the cans with battery tealights, banners and their own virtue banners they made to take home later.  FYI our theme we were given was the Revolutionary War and the value virtue.  The Stake theme was Modern Girls Vintage Values and each ward had a era and value.  The stake did the Restoration/Pioneer and faith.  So we were the first era and it went up to Future.  It was very inspired and clever!  That first night they did a faith walk and we walked through all the eras and they had quotes and the youth leaders (YCLs) dressed in their era clothing.  Then at the end of the walk they inspirational music playing while we wrote some things down--things we are grateful for, good at and things we want to change.  Wednesday we had our hikes.  I went on the 3rd year hike with Emily's group. It was all very up hill and then very downhill.

  It rained just as we got to Julie Andrews Meadow.  We were blessed to stay clear of lightning and it cleared up quickly but we were soaked!  My toes got a rug burn/type burn on the tips.  Luckily no blisters.  It was fun and we were back by noon.  We had pedicures and lunch when we got back.  We also had a craft they made to give to a stake secret sister. That night was the skit night.  We went first and we rocked.  one of our YCLs wrote the skit and it was super clever using musical songs that had words for our theme.  The stake leaders did "Kid History" of the pioneers and it was hilarious!  I think it was the best skit overall.  They wrote it and had kids tell it and they lip synced it and had some funny props.  Honestly all the skits were clever there were just 2 I couldn't hear so they may not have been as good but they all seemed really well done.

Thursday morning we had rotations with the stake, ropes course,
lunch with a cool speakers from the YW general board and the
stake YW President.  They were excellent.  Canoeing on Tibble

Fork Lake and the Zipline. We were going to make another craft but we decided to let the girls rest or write on each others Smashbooks on the front.  After dinner we had a fireside with Michael McClean.  The bishopric arrived just as we were leaving to go there--including Tim.  So it was fun to be with him.  Unfortunately I got the giggles during the flag ceremony--no sleep will do that to you!  I could not stop and you know how I snort so I fought hard but made enough commotion that everyone turned around and laughed at me (I had my head as far down as I could to keep from losing it completely).  Oh my, all I could do is whisper, "I am so sorry."  All I can say is that Michael McClean was amazing.  I thought it would be entertaining but it was AMAZING.  He really brought the spirit, it was powerful.  He was so good about telling the girls that this was the spirit sharing the love of Heavenly Father with them that their leaders had prayed that they could feel that at camp--he was so right!  I could go on and on but that is the just of it and many girls shared how his fireside was life changing to them!  After the fireside we went back to our campsite for testimony meeting (after a few of the girls, including Emily, met and/or hugged Michael McClean).  Testimony meeting was great of course and most frequent thing said was how they had come to know that Heavenly Father and their Savior love them.  This is huge, when we understand that we are children of God and he loves us we treat each other and ourselves with more love and compassion.  It was super!   The bishopric brought up ice cream for us and that was nice treat too!  We stayed up late packing things up to make it easier in the morning.  We got to bed after 2 AM!  Then up at 7 AM.  We had the stake secret sister exchange at 9 AM--vintage facebook is what they actually called it.  So every girl got a gift and somewhat met another girl they may have not known before!  Then we finished packing up and did our cleaning assignment for that day and went home! I got home around 11 AM since I was helping with the cleaning.  We had the girls help us unload the trailer and cars.  Then they went home with their stuff and we leaders organized everything and put it away in the ward shed.  By the time I got home it was 1 PM.  I made lunch, did laundry, took an Epsom salt bath and then showered then took a 2 hour nap.  I was interrupted here and there until I could actually go down at 4 PM.  Tim took care of dinner and took the kids (Izak on down) to see Madagascar 3 at the discount movie theater--they all liked it but Izak.
Saturday Micah had a lacrosse game in Spanish Fork--45 minutes away at 9 AM so he and Tim hurried out.  BTW Micah scored 2 and they won by 1.  I had chore duty and tried to finish the laundry.  We got all the camping gear put away.  Tim organized stuff, and tidied the garage a bit.  He took a load to the dump, he painted chalkboard paint on the wall in the playroom.  Hopefully he'll finish that tomorrow--he's putting up a metal piece for magnet stuff to go on and some trim.  I will post a photo next week.  It should be fun!  Emily and her friend Ashley went to see Annie some people from our ward were in it.  Izak took the little kids to a short play that some kids and their cousins were doing at the park while Tim and I had a little date to our Cedar Hills Grill!  It was yummy and the view beautiful!  Then we went and helped my mom with some stuff--actually Tim did while I visited with Teresa, and my parents.  Today was the farewell of Taran's friend Andrew and the homecoming of Derek who is the brother of his friend and roommate from BYU Scott.  It was a good meeting.  Tim was the chorister for Sacrament meeting and Primary today!  After church we went to Andrew's farewell and then to my mom's to 'celebrate' my birthday!  It was yummy and fun even though Charl couldn't be there.  We did miss them though!  So there you go!  Phew!


Oh, so I forgot to write about how my mom and neighbors watched my kids and Timo drove them to things while I was gone.  Tim also took care of them after work.  They got to go swimming, and to the Provo Beach Resort and other fun things so they didn't miss me at all!