Camp!

So it's been a month since camp and I've been a real blogging slacker. Lets see if I can remember it enough to jot a bit about the calling that blindsided me!
Our stake was in charge of camp this year and as the theme was DOTS (Depend on the Savior), they took the polka dot theme all the way! We started at the church at 8 in the morning where we loaded the cars and gave our girls muffins and yogurt for the trip. We drove the hour up Weber Canyon to Zarahemla in Morgan. I'd never known this place existed but in Davis county apparently that's where everything camping style happens. We were assigned to our "cabin" #2. I put cabin in quotes because it's like a small shed with shelves for bunks and not much else. Our seven month pregnant Beehive advisor, Abby, and I had decided we were going to sleep in a tent, so as the girls and other leaders claimed their bunks and set out decorating the cabin with crepe paper and dots we set up the tent. The thing at the side of the door, is a picture of Jesus on a dot, surrounded by dots with everyones names on them. It turned out really cute!

Once finished, we blew up our respective mattresses and Abby looked longingly at my queen sized double deep mattress. I told her, "If I'm required to camp, it must be done comfortably." She called me Queen Julianne for the rest of our time there. We headed up to the amphitheatre for our first devotional and welcome to camp. Each ward was asked to write a cheer that would introduce their girls. We decided to be the DOT to DOTS and our cheer was, " We are the Dot to Dots. Sisters, sisters in the mixture. When connected to the Savior, we complete the picture." The stake leaders introduced the theme with the Stonecreek Stake version of Deal or No Deal.

The first suitcase opened was eternal life, and then the contestant (one of the stake camp leaders) had to open the other cases, to see if she would trade eternal life for one of them. Faithfully at her side, were her angel and devil, played by the Stake Young Women counselors. Each had to try to get her to take the right deal. Michelle Ferrall played the devil part so convincingly you'd never have guessed that her husband is in the stake presidency. Too funny! The options were: A date with Edward Cullen, a new porsche (complete with gas and insurance for life), and the starring role in High School Musical 4 (remember these girls are 12 and 13). Once the High School Musical case was opened the deal got sweeter. If she chose that prize, she'd also get the guy (forever, not just one date), the car (with a promised new one every year), the role, and a million dollars every year on her birthday. You should have heard the beehives agreeing with the devil for her to take the deal. At the end, she chose Eternal Life and was rewarded with boos from the crowd. Apparently our beehives have a lot to learn about the glory of Eternal Life! With that though they were taught that through Depending on the Savior, we all can gain Eternal Life. The stake had T shirts made up with the camp theme. This is not a great picture but you get the idea. Following the devotional we set off for the lodge for a lunch of taco salad in a bag and mingling with the other wards. Following lunch, we met together and made DOTS bracelets: then split into two groups. The first group stayed at the lodge and made camp journals, the second went to the pavilion and did a service project: Fleece blankets for the care center in our stake. After awhile, the groups switched places. Following that it was time for dinner which was hot dogs etc. Abby knowing that hot dogs would not be a good idea for her, mentioned that there was a Subway in Morgan, and I mentioned that I had a free footlong, so we snuck away from camp and headed to Morgan to get dinner. We came back and the girls were chowing down on dinner. We had 10 girls and 6 leaders at camp. The stake had given us 8 packages of hot dogs and buns, a giant bag of chips, a whole container of lemonade to add to water, and 3 watermelons. I think they expected the girls to be much hungrier than they actually were. We ate the watermelon for the rest of the week and I think one got thrown away. After dinner, there was the threat of rain, so with the help of some stake leaders, Abby and I got the rain cover on the tent, and we headed for the lodge to do skits. They decided to do skit in a bag and so each group was given a bag of props and they were required to do a skit that somehow showed how they would Depend on the Savior. Our girls decided to do a Confessions of a Shopoholic skit, where the main character, "Napoleanna Dynamyte" went in search of that one thing that would complete her life. She went from shop to shop encountering all different sales people, trying to get her to buy their product. After a long and exhausting try, she left the last shop empty handed and went to sit down on a nearby bench to think about what it was she was looking for. On the bench sat a girl reading the Book of Mormon. Napoleanna asked what it was and was told it was the Book of Mormon. The skit ended with Napoleanna declaring that it was just the thing she had been looking for that would complete her life and thus it was given to her and she walked away joyfully Depending on the Savior. After the skits were completed we wandered back to camp to get our pajamas on and met back at the lodge for PJS. Prayer, Journals, and Scriptures. We sat on the floor in the lodge and sang a bunch of hymns and primary songs and then wrote in our journals, read our scriptures and then had camp prayer. Thursday we woke up and headed down for devotional. After devotional, we packed our lunches and got ready for the hike. Now those of you who are faithful blog readers will remember when I got this calling and I talked about how hiking is one of the things I really don't like. I wasn't going to go, then decided it would be fun to go so I could take pictures. This is all I got:
This is very near the top of the hike. As you can see I was still in the middle of the group at this point. Until we stopped for lunch, I was at the back, just in front of the two priesthood brethren whose instructions were to stay at the back and not let anyone be behind them. We hiked down Big Mountain which is part of the Mormon Trail, only the pioneers went up. I don't know if down was easier. There were so many rocks and I was so afraid I would roll an ankle and require the girls to have some real life practical first aid experience, so I walked pretty slowly. I tried really hard to have a good attitude about it but I was hot and tired and my feet hurt somewhere in the middle of the second mile. It was rough and my calves hurt for like a week after. Not my favorite part of camp. I was pretty sure I would never walk again. When we got back to camp they set up a slip and slide, and while I recovered from the hike on my air mattress, Bobbie (the young women's counselor in our ward) went over with my camera and got some good pictures for me. After the water slide it was time to get dinner going because the bishop and his wife and the YW presidency were coming up for testimony meeting and faith walk. Dinner was to be dutch oven lasagna and apple crisp, but it took forever to cook and we were fairly sure it would be leftover hot dogs. While we waited for dinner to cook we made magnet boards and magnets to go with them.
Dinner still wasn't done so we played a game called Ride that Pony. It's a fairly hilarious game that requires you to trot around the circle while everyone sings a song about riding a pony and then when the song gets near the end you stand in front of someone and you dance in front of them then turn and do it to each others backs, then to the side, and then you do si do and that person becomes the pony. It was hilarious to watch and then the Bishop got picked and I've not been able to look at him the same since. (Side note: I taught this game to my family and my niece Kaity now constantly wants to play it.) Finally just before it was time to leave for the faith walk, dinner was done and we snarfed it!For the evening devotional before the faith walk we went down to the amphitheatre and they thanked the stake presidency for the support and gave the counselors who were there dot ties to remind them of our theme. Another funny thing was whenever something was lost at camp they made the girls (or leaders)win it back by doing a dance in front of everyone, while singing "Gray squirrel gray squirrel shake your bushy tail aha! repeated twice. Our girls thought it was so funny they were purposely putting each others stuff in so they'd get to do it. The woman on the right is part of the stake camp team, the girl on the far left is from another ward. The other three are our girls.

For the faith walk, they had the Bishop stand at one end of a mass of chairs and each girl in turn stand at the other end. The goal was to get to the Bishop who would be quietly directing each blindfolded girl around anything that might get in her way, while the other girls and leaders would try to make it so she couldn't hear him or just generally lead the girls astray. My favorite one was Rachel, whose mom Holly, is the Young Womens President. Holly was trying to get Rachel to go the wrong way, and in an exasperated tone said, "Rachel, I am your mother! Would I ever lead you wrong?" Rachel stopped in her tracks, turned toward Holly's voice, and said emphatically, "YES!" We all laughed and Rachel got safely to the Bishop. The girls got pretty cruel at the end, laying across chairs, sticking out body parts so girls would trip, etc. but Bishop Burgoyne was able to lead them safely through the danger. After the faith walk, we met around a big bonfire for testimony meeting. It was a huge group and the wind was blowing really hard and it was incredibly hard to hear and I was pretty frustrated. We had wanted to do a ward testimony meeting and were defeated by the stake who thought that a stake one was a good idea. Maybe next time they'll bring a microphone. We went back to camp to roast marshmallows and ended up having a small testimony meeting because none of the leaders had a chance in the big group and then we taught the girls some camp songs and had a lot of fun. After the bishop and YW presidency left, the leaders sat around enjoying the fire and the girls went Snipe hunting.

Friday morning (after a long and extremely cold night) we went down for the devotional which our ward was in charge of. We did the devotional and each ward did their cheer for a final time. One of the wards changed the cheer for this particular morning and I don't remember everything about what they said but somehow they likened dots to water balloons and threw them at everyone. We then had breakfast and took down camp. We were supposed to meet back at 11:30 for closing ceremonies but there was one matter of unfinished business in our camp. We had combined with another ward because they only had 3 girls and their camp director had been in the calling for 4 years. They had a tradition that every girl had talked about and it must go on! We agreed that it would be fun and so Haley (the 22nd ward camp director) had snuck out of camp Thursday to buy ice cream. I brought chocolate, caramel, and whipped cream from work and we created ice cream sundaes in these long bowlish plate things. We doused the ice cream in toppings and whipping cream and sat the girls down two or three to a plate and without spoons, encouraged them to go at it. Haley did her part to make sure each girl got in the ice cream (by pushing their heads in) and all in all it was a messy and fun tradition and we were glad to be a part of it. Tie your hair back gals, it's going to be a long ride!Just getting into it!Alex, Morgan, and Tara were pretty enthusiastic about this idea!Mikayla and Rachel. Rachel hates whipped cream and would never actually put her face in the stuff. I asked her to put her head close to it so I could get a picture and Haley shoved her head in. She doesn't seem too mad at us. Makenzie and Carley. Doesn't Carley just look like she's dying to know why we're taking pictures of her in this state!Amber and Megan get into the fun!Emily is diabetic and so we got her sugar free ice cream and put the chocolate on her nose so she'd look like she got into it. She came out better than all the others.

Makenzie got pretty excited about this activity. Even her glasses got in on it while Carley watched in surprise!

Megan (from the 22nd ward) laid on the grass and let us attack her with a can of whipping cream!After they all got cleaned up we headed down to the amphitheatre where we had closing ceremonies. Then we packed up the cars and headed home. Here's a few last pictures:Leaders: L-R Brittany, Heidi, Bobbie, Julianne, Abby, and Haley. I told everyone I needed to be Juliannie because I didn't fit the e sounding theme we had going on.

Girls: L-R top Emily and Amber

2nd row Megan, Morgan, Makenzie, Tara, Carley

3rd row Alex, Rachel, Mikayla