I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills!

(To be truthful, there were no flowers, no daffodils, and especially no firesides when all the lights are low.... boom-de-ah-da..... no fires allowed in AZ wildfire season)

Girls Camp 2009

This year the theme was an ANGEL ACADEMY and our ward was assigned the value of "Good Works" with its accompanying yellow hue. We are a lovely bunch of mellow yellows, wouldn't you say?



Here's a pic of all my cabin-mates. They did a good job decorating while I hosed the place down with Raid. (Me no likey the spiders.) But seriously, I was lucky enough to share quarters with these 4 fun ladies. 1 other leader and 3 sweet, sweet girls. Sorry your face is a little blocked out there, Jen!

We also shared camp with a few of these brave little guys. They were EXTREMELY tenacious in their quest for our crumbs!



A large chunk of 2 days at camp I was assigned to help out with a service project for premature babies. They had a station set up where every camper had to come and spend an hour doing a blanket stitch around these little fleece blankies. I kind of ran around teaching the girls the stitch and keeping supplies ready for them. Sometimes I could sit down and work on a few of them myself. In the end I had spent 6 full hours making blankets -- our entire camp finished 216 of them!



I also had my first- ever attempt at a little archery! Check out that form! She's Robin Hood, I say!

Only 2 of the six even made it onto the colored part of the target. Geesh!

My YCL's did a great job at teaching the certification requirements to the younger girls (this was the thing I was in charge of). Thank goodness my earlier organization meant that there wasn't much to do once I got them started. Hence, I had some "down time" for lots of leisure.... chatting, snacking, a massage train, a rousing game of Curses, and what I hear was a well-photographed nap. Too bad nobody thought to take pics with MY camera, oh darn.

I still owe you a backrub, Vievie!

On the last night, the older girls decided to do an "initiation ceremony" for anyone at camp for the first time. This included yours truly. The first 90 minutes consisted of me desperately trying to convince 8 hysterical first-year girls (ages 11 and 12) that they were not going to die. They were out-of-their pants scared. Tears dripping from chins kind of scared. They took us one at a time, blindfolded, to another cabin filled with chanting, low lights, scary costumes and spooky make-up. As each person was taken away the remaining girls became more and more panicked. At one point Genny (another leader) arrived to help me out. Whew! We got them through it somehow, although they insisted that I go last so that none of them were left alone in the cabin waiting for that last turn. Now before you think it was some awful satanic ritual, it was just a silly act to distract you from a small prank at the end. (Which of course I fell for, and I will not give it away.) Too bad I don't have pictures!

And last, camp enabled me to reclaim one of my earlier callings in life: braiding hair.

Check out the concentration!

Only some of you may know... I LOVE braiding/styling girls hair!!! That was THE thing to do when I was a youth at girls camp. We braided hair till the cows came home, and I was world-famous for it. Only a slight exaggeration there, honest. Once I grew up and there were no more little sisters to victimize, no little girls running around THIS house (ironically annoying, huh?), and french braids kinda went out of style, my once illustrious pastime fizzled out. Now and then I get the chance to fix up a niece or a neighbor, but it's rare, and still I love it.

On the last night of camp, someone asked me to braid their hair and I said SURE! Well as soon we were spotted, then a line started forming. I think I did about 10 heads total between that night and the next morning waiting for our bus ride home. FUN!!! (Although I must say CLEAN hair is much more pleasant to braid than the 4th day of girls camp hair.)

So there you have it! Some highlights, anyway. Good fun, good weather, good food (all prepared without open flames!) and some beautiful surroundings!