At long last, I have finally sat down to jot a couple of things down about camp. To finally sift thru the hundreds of pictures and just pick a couple to represent the experience....and yet there are still so many.
First up - pictures that I'm actually in. Woohoo, I was there and there is proof. These collages print out pretty small when they are in the printed version, so I doubt we will ever be able to see what is really in them without a magnifying glass, but on the computer you can at least click on the image to get a bigger picture and play a nice little game of "find Heather."
Next up - pictures that MJ is in. She was a hard working dedicated leader while at camp and these pictures prove it. Everyone always calls Jordyn my mini-me, but Emma's got my get down to business and take things seriously -while trying to have a little fun- part of me.
The break down- (pic below)from top left to right - we made fun of our priesthood. We played minute to win it games by the fire at night - while trying not to fall in. We slid across the water -yes there is water in NM- in canoes - we hiked those canoes a mile up hill to said water and then we blew those things up before we enjoyed said water. We made (and we had the ym make us some) little regatta boats to race down a stream. We took pictures with our awesome incredibles - made by our camp director. We had a faith walk - we used blindfolds (which was the masks I tirelessly made with painters tape over the eyeholes) I was one of the evil people trying to sweet talk people into letting go of the iron rod - trusting voices can be the most deceiving muwahaha luckily I was able to tap into my nice side and ask the girls what they are supposed to do when they find themselves unable to find the rod again. We had a day of service where we went up to a cabin. A member of our stake presidency has a cabin and a couple of neighbors. One of the neighbors recently lost her husband and the land has fallen into disrepair. It was creating a fire hazard, so we used nothing but human muscle to move huge fallen trees and debris - it was hard back breaking work and our girls were troopers. There were lots of girls doing nothing but sitting around or trying to look like they were doing something when they weren't. The other thing we did was make grass seed balls. There is an actual recipe for them and they were fun to make - they get scattered all over the ground and then when it rains they dissolve over time and regrow areas. We did level certification and we did trust and team building exercises with the girls in our ward. You can see from my failed attempt at a "trust fall" that I have trust issues. :0) We, of course, did the other stuff like singing and performing skits, went to devotionals etc...
The picture below isn't all of us, but most of us before we grabbed canoes, all our gear for the day, and headed up the trail to the water. A funny story while we were at the lake all day- there were no bathrooms so you had to pee in the woods. I don't think boys fully appreciate just how difficult it is for girls to do this. You've got to worry about peeing on your pants, your shoes and possibly falling over while trying to balance yourself - it's not pretty. All the girls were being especially modesty concerned - for some unknown reason - we had a tarp screen for girls to change behind when they got wet in the canoes and when a bunch of us went and sat behind the screen -quite a distance off- they got freaked out. They also would only change 1 girl at a time - it was really slowing us down. Don't they have to change in locker rooms at school? Seriously people. So, when another camp leader and I announced that we were trotting off to the woods to pee, we should have know that we were going to gross some girls out. I wasn't about to hike a mile off, just far enough that you had to really look to know what was going on. Well, apparently some of the girls looked and got grossed out. Emma told the girls it was their own fault because we told them exactly what we were doing so they shouldn't have looked. My friend was even more hilarious when she called out to me and said, "hey heather, look, I'm using the bear hug technique." Oh my goodness. If you've got to pee in the woods, you should at least have a sense of humor about it. PS, she swears by that method. I would rather use a fallen log to pee over so when the pee starts heading down hill -which it always seems to do no matter what direction you are headed - it will run into the log and not my shoes. Hey! Everyone pees - don't worry, I won't go into what else everyone does! lol
The cabin of the first counselor in our stake presidency along with everyone who was up at camp and at the service project.
Below is the widow's cabin that we were at.
On our way back from camp, the trailer that was attached to Bro Z's truck was too much weight for the little engine that couldn't. We didn't get very far before his truck started sputtering in protest and we had to figure out what to do. It was decided that we would stop at the next avail pull out that was safe and switch the trailer from his vehicle to my super manly truck. Well, when we came up on the perfect spot - a state park- we just drove past it. I was getting a bit tweekish at this point and then we ended up stopping further down the road - we are on the side of a winding mountain with zero cell reception. There was a road that was closed so Bro Z pulled in there and I followed to help disengage the trailer. Well, slight problem. The rest of our caravan were parked on the side of a winding mountain and we were on an incline. We could not get the trailer high enough to get it off the hitch. Luckily the fact that I was a girl was not a hinderance to them listening to me about what we needed to do. I have a lot of experience in trailers and neither of the other 2 men did. I suggested that we go back the mile to the state park where the rest of our caravan would be out of harms way and we could find level ground. We arrived at the park and it was a dream setting. First of all there were outhouses and I needed one - my nerves make me have to pee! Second, it was perfectly level ground. The problem still remained that the weight of the trailer was pulling the truck down too far to remove it from the hitch. I wanted desperately to call my husband for advice while the 2 men were having the girls climb on the back of the truck to see if they could get it to go down. At this point I said we needed to say a prayer so that our minds could find a solution to this problem because there was a great potential for danger. We had already tried using a pretty flat boulder to get some height, but it broke under the weight. I was sure there was a fix that we weren't capable of seeing. As manly as I act, I am really just the gofer to my husband - he calls the shots and I follow - well......sometimes I argue and then follow. I was able to hear my husbands voice for a brief moment (there wasn't enough service to carry a conversation) which gave me the confidence to keep at it. After the prayer, Bro Z spotted a fallen tree that had been cut into logs and sent the girls to go and retrieve one of them and we were able to get the trailer off his vehicle and onto mine with the added height under the jack. Prayer works, every time. Luckily we had a different set of balls (oh come on- trailer hitch balls) that were the right size so that the trailer could be put on my truck. Then I drove that thing home like a boss!
Thanks to my hubby, I was the most outfitted leader up at camp. If someone needed something, chances were, I had it. I had everything imaginable - including my super sweet tent heater - delicious! My manly side was definitely on display while up at camp, luckily I'm such a sap that no one forgot that I am a girl.
Last 2 pics - the ycl's (youth camp leaders) from our ward and then everyone that was up at camp the whole week (I say week, but it was wed-sat) Bro M was with the the whole time and provided much entertainment - he's more girly than I am :0) Can you guess which one is the German super star?
Not sure when I will have the opportunity to be at camp again, but I would go every year if I could. It is more than just camping in the woods. We are building people and testimonies and relationships and strength and leadership.
No comments:
Post a Comment