Girl's Camp: Freaking Magical! Part I

I had a fantastic time at Girl's Camp this year and I am so glad that I went. It was an honor and a privilege to spend this time with these special Young Women.

So much happened during those 3 days and I want to record all the funny and spiritual moments that I think I might have to devote a day per blog.

We headed out early Tuesday morning. I left earlier to drop off Logan (who was quite sad that we were leaving) and then I headed back to our church to pick up the girls. The night before we loaded the trailer at the Ure's house with all of our stuff. I was glad since I didn't want to load the stuff that morning since it would take forever. We got to the church and loaded up the rest of our stuff and headed out to the Stake Center to meet all the other stakes and have a small devotional.

After the devotional we headed to the Maple Rise campgrounds and began to set up our camp. We parked on the farthest end of the parking lot and we had the farthest campground. And unfortunately we didn't have the greatest campground, it was quite bumpy and with little shade. But we were the largest ward with 18 girls.

Rossy and Michelle

Bharti, Whitney, Keirsta and Kayla

Kara, Rachael, Sarah and Jade

Sidney, Keisha, Emily D, Taeler, Emily S and Taylor

After we set up camp and ate some lunch, we had a presentation by CAPSA (Community Abuse Prevention Services Agency) about what kind of services they offer and what things they should look for. I always thought that CAPSA stood for Citizens Against Physical Sexual Abuse. I don't know where I got that idea from. They also had us put together these red beaded bracelets that they will give out to ladies who are victims of abuse so they can be reminded that they are daughters of God. The presentation was very good and I think it was something that these Young Women unfortunately need to know. During the presentation the lady running it asked the Young Women if they are in a relationship and I noticed that a few of our girls raised their hands. I took note of who raised their hands and I made it a point to speak to them afterwards. I think of these girls as little sisters and as a big brother, I wanted to know. And I am glad to find out that none of the younger girls were in a relationship, they were raising their hands because of family relationships. Whew! I really didn't know where those conversations could have gone. 

After the CAPSA presentation we headed back to camp to practice our skit. Thank goodness I was not part of the skit that was to take place later in the evening but I went back to help them out. Each ward (group) was in charge of doing some sort of skit to introduce them to the other wards. The girls had a cute skit planned about being true and not following the crowd. After practice we went and ate a dinner provided by the stake and it was so tasty. One thing that I have learned about Girl's Camp is that you will definitely eat good. 

Both Kristy and our Camp Director Shonda got major cases of the giggles.

After dinner we headed back up to camp and got our stuff for our skits and headed to the amphitheater. All of the skits were entertaining and each group of girls did fantastic. Apparently Kristy must have been real tired because she got a serious case of the giggles during the skits thanks to one of our girls, Jade. One of the groups of girls had a bunch of glow sticks which Jade absolutely loved. She went off on them for a couple of minutes and then got quiet and then suddenly blurted out "I love glowsticks. They are freaking magical!" I looked over at Kristy and replied, "That is the quote of the day." and she absolutely lost it. We couldn't stop laughing. Not only was that the quote of the day, it became the camp slogan. Everything that was awesome was now freaking magical. I must have used that saying thousands of times before I came home. 

Some of the night pictures didn't turn out all that well. This was the best of the bunch.

At the skits I ran into someone I definitely didn't think I would run into ever! I ran into Melissa, one of the girls Kristy and I coached basketball. She was in the 9th grade when we coached her back down in Riverton! I stopped and asked her what the heck was she doing here. She moved up to Logan after she got married (she also has some kids!) and was in the Young Women. It was so fun to see her again, she was one of our favorite girls we coached. But it was odd that she was all grown up and now one of us!

After the skits we headed back down and we all got ready for bed. I slept alright that night, it was plenty hot but it was nice to have the whole tent to myself. And I did hear some animals come through the camp (we were warned of raccoons) a few deer and a cat which we found later.