#9: Girls Camp

In our church, each summer they take the girls (ages 12-18) to camp for a week. This year I got asked to be the camp director for our ward. So after weeks of our garage looking like a foam, hot glue gun, mason jar, and paint bomb exploded, Ammon was more than ready for girls camp to be over. (When I was working on projects I had to get up at 6 just to work on them in the garage before it got too hot at 7:30! Each morning this old lady in our neighborhood on her morning walk would stop to see what I was doing, and each day, without fail, tell me I was crazy. Agreed.)

 

I think I underestimated the job of feeding, entertaining, providing camp equipment for, and taking care of 12 girls for a week in the mountains would be. It's hard enough packing for our family of 4 to go camping overnight, let alone trying to think of everything hormonal girls may need to survive, phoneless, in the mountains... tampons, tylonol, candybars, panchos, shovels to dig trenches for the 90% chance of rain that was predicted everyday, and lots and lots of crafts and treats.

  Ammon was a stud muffin and took the whole week off so that I could leave him alone with the kids and head up to Kolob. (What's wrong with that picture- he uses precious vacation days so I can leave him alone? We should be using those bad boys to go on a cruise or something- right?) We did get his parents to watch the kiddos for a night so Ammon could come up to camp for a night, so he could understand a bit of the 'girls camp madness.' So, after many hours prepping, we loaded up all the girls in vans, and all the camping crap into a trailer, and said goodbye to 109 degree St. George. Good riddance. The theme was P.O.W. (Powerful Outstanding Women) with a superhero theme. Each ward was assigned a color, a heroine from the scriptures, and a Young Women Value. We were supposed to come up with a superhero team from our value. We drew Diving Nature. We tried to come up with cute and clever superheros, but the girls (against all my encouraging) picked a lame superhero identity. Wait for it. . . 'The Divine Goddesses.' What??? They wanted to dress up like Greek Goddesses, (because white togas and camping dirt totally goes together?) and I have no idea how a Divine Goddess relates to a superhero, but whatever, right? So, I had the task of trying to make our ward campsite look like Greece. Lame.  

This was the best I could come up with.

Here are the cute Divine Goddesses in their human form.

We spent lots of time crafting. . .

And attempting to keep the girls happy with semi-clean hair after the promised showers broke on the day they were scheduled to have showers.

Tie-Dying

And attempting to keep dry in the downpour and still manage to cook them each meal. Don't be jealous you weren't all there, I know it's appealing.

I guess I didn't take too many pictures, the week was filled with lots of other goodies, like zip-lining, canoeing, scavenger hunts, movie nights, campfires and lots and lots of giggling girls.

I am happy to report that we all survived (for the most part), and let's just say, if I get released before next July, I don't think I'll be to broken up about it, BUT I am so glad I was able to go this year.