Just Us Webbs: Girl's Camp

It had been on my mind for over six months and was pretty much the only thing I could think about for a month before... Girl's Camp! Seriously, as time was running out in the final week or two, I didn't do much else other than make sure my kids had food at each meal and clean clothes to wear. I felt bad that every one of my kids requests was answered with, "I'm sorry, but I have to get this done for girl's camp." With about a week to go, I finally heard it. Natalie grumped, "I wish girl's camp was over!"

About a month before camp, I realized that I needed some serious help. I am the camp director, but I was never given an assistant. I didn't ask for any specialists because I figured we could cover it with the young women's leaders. But then, none of them, with the exception of Chrissie Hancock (YW President), were able to go. The two of us were going to need some help! We found one more person, Leora Whiting (who is the Primary President), who could come for the whole week. I put Leora in charge of all the camp certifications, and Chrissie split the devotionals/evening programs with me. It was such a huge relief to get their help.

Girl's camp was June 9th-14th. My family went up the Friday before so I could get things ready. On Saturday, Nate and I went to Walmart in Show Low to buy all of the groceries we would need for the week. It took us a while and two very full carts, but we actually managed to get everything we needed. I spent most of the rest of the weekend finishing up handouts for my devotionals.

Monday, June 9th
The girls arrived at camp around 4:30 p.m. We camped in Pinedale at Petersen Ranch, which belongs to Nate's parents. The ranch house burned down in a fire, but there is a little cabin where we cooked our food and the priesthood holders stayed in the rooms there. The girls and us leaders camped in tents a little way down from the cabin. The first thing we did was set up our tents. That part always seems to take such a long time. And when it's over, I always think, these tents really aren't that hard to set up (once you know how) so why does it always take so long?

Our camp theme was "Doubt Not, Fear Not" which comes from D&C 6:36 and after dinner, I did FHE to set up the theme. We mostly focused on fears and how we can overcome them. The girls had fun throwing the "sword of truth" (knife) at our fears, which were written inside balloons. At the end, everyone got their sweatshirt. They were pretty excited and put them on immediately, which may have had something to do with the fact that we were all very cold at the time.

We actually took this picture at the end of camp... but here are all 10 girls and 3 leaders.

From left to right: Leora Whiting, Isabella Perello, me, Kaeli Rollins, Tabitha DeFazio, Saphyre Cones, Sariah DeFazio, Lizzie Hunter, Savanah Hunter, Chrissie Hancock. Front row: Lizzy Dunford, Kaela Hancock, Ginger Whiting.

Tuesday, June 10th
Our days at camp turned out to be jam packed. I thought we scheduled plenty of time for our activities and had a fair amount of free time scheduled, but it turned out that we were always running behind. And that's how we started out our first day. We had asked a forest ranger to come and help us pass off some camp certifications, but he wasn't supposed to come until Wednesday. But he showed up Tuesday morning, and was a bit long winded. It set us behind, but we eventually were able to get off for our hike. We did a four mile hike up to the Juniper Ridge forest service watchtower. By the end, I think everyone was convinced that it was way more than four miles. At one point, maybe about halfway there, we caught a glimpse of the watchtower.... WAY off in the distance. I think everyone thought we were almost there, so it was a bit disheartening. But we did eventually make it and were able to make some good comparisons between the journey of the hike and the journey of life itself.

Kaela stopping to be the Lorax. Brother Bain (who is in the bishopric with Nate) was our priesthood holder that day. He later edited this photo to give the full Lorax effect.

Once we reached the top of the mountain, we got to climb a whole bunch of stairs so we could see the view from the watchtower. (where we encountered another long winded forest ranger. I don't think they get to see people very often...) The views from the top were beautiful and it was worth the hike.

Leora, me, and Chrissie.

There was a hummingbird feeder hanging at the top of the tower and a constant flow of hummingbirds that came to visit. It was pretty cool, especially because the hummingbirds would actually land, instead of just hovering.

Devotional at the top of the hike. This is one of the few pictures I am actually in, because it didn't come from my camera. :)

We were nice and decided not to make the girls hike back down. But, our vehicles were still parked four miles away at the base of the hike. Brother Bain and I speed walked back down the trail (and I didn't find out until later that I was going way too fast for him...), giving us both an 8 mile total for the day, and got the vehicles and drove back up to get everyone.

Wednesday, June 11th
We worked on camp certifications in the morning after breakfast. Due to the very dry conditions, we weren't able to build fires. So Leora taught building and extinguishing fires with edible materials, like M&Ms for a rock circle and pretzels for sticks, etc. It was a fun idea. This is Kaeli and Lizzy making their "fires."

Our service project was to plant pine trees on a hillside at the ranch where the fire (the one that burned down the ranch house about 12 years ago) came through and burned all the trees. The girls worked hard and I think we planted about one hundred trees. This is Savanah and Sariah in the middle of this picture.

My family came out on this morning. It was fun to see the kids and they always have fun playing out at the ranch.

I think Kelton was helping fill the buckets with water for the newly planted trees.

The hillside where we planted is on the left in this picture. It was a bit steep!

After lunch we drove into Show Low and went on a one hour horseback ride. I had been on a horse before, but I'm not sure I could say that I had actually ridden one before. The horses were trained to stay in a line with each other, so I'm not sure this really qualified as "riding," but it was still fun. Though, I do think I look a little silly on a horse.

Our horse train...

Thursday, June 12th
Our day started out with camp certs again--first aid this time. We almost got to have a real life demonstration for the girls. As we were finishing up breakfast and getting ready to start, Kaeli ripped her finger open on a barbed wire fence. Not only did us leaders use our first aid knowledge on the wound, but Kaeli went into shock and exhibited all of the major symptoms, and we had to treat her for that too.

By this day, we were all very tired. We had been going non-stop and a bunch of the girls just wanted to take a nap. So did the leaders. But, we had a trip to the lake planned for after lunch. We gave the girls the option of what they wanted to do, because really, we were fine with skipping the lake. But, exhausted or not, the girls wanted to go to the lake.

We went to Fool Hollow Lake in Show Low and started out by renting three canoes and a double kayak. We all paddled around for an hour exploring the lake and trying to catch up to other canoes so we could splash each other. I thought this was a pretty picture of the lake. You can see the tiny canoes and kayak in the back middle of the lake. Just beyond that you can see the boat ramp road thing that goes down into the lake. After we turned in our rentals, we drove over to that spot and let the girls swim.

Here's me with Isabella and Ginger. I learned that I much prefer the kayak to the canoes. It was so much easier to handle.

I think this was the night that I became infamous. It all started by Kaela jumping out and scaring me in the cabin. Then later, when us leaders joined the girls after dinner at the tents, I, as in just me, got accused by Kaela, Kaeli, and Lizzy for... something. It was actually pretty funny. Someone had apparently shaken their tent and scared them. They thought it was me getting them back for the scare earlier. They didn't believe us for the longest time that all of us leaders were at the cabin cleaning up dinner. It was finally discovered that the culprit was Ginger. Then later, after devotional at bedtime, Chrissie, Leora, and I were in the tent having our nightly leader meeting. All of a sudden, Chrissie hushed us and said that she could hear the girls right outside our tent. We went outside and sure enough, we found Kaela, Kaeli, and Lizzy preparing to try and scare us. We sent them back to their tent with a "nice try" and resumed our meeting. Only they didn't go back to their tent. They were much sneakier this time and waited about ten minutes before reaching through the side of the tent and roaring and scaring Chrissie, who was right there where the scaring was being done, half to death. I should probably mention that Kaela, who is the ringleader of the three amigos, is Chrissie's daughter... just FYI. Anyway, after all of that we weren't going to just let those girls slide. It was time to fight back. So I came up with an idea and left Chrissie and Leora in the tent laughing and making noise--so the girls wouldn't think anything was up. I snuck around the back of the tents and put the hood of my sweatshirt over my head. Then I leaned over and approached the three girls' tent and, courtesy of You Tube, played real bear noises. I heard them say, "Shhh, shhhh! Bear... there's a bear!! LEADERS! There's a bear! We're not joking!" Then they got completely silent because they weren't sure whether or not they should be making any noise with a bear so close. I went right up to their side of the tent and even scratched on the fabric a bit. What I didn't realize was that I was being backlit by the full moon on the side of their tent and I actually looked like a bear in my hunched over position. Then I roared and scared them. When I went in the tent, they were so mad! They were actually crying and completely terrified because they really, truly thought they were going to be eaten by a bear and die. Really. It was funny because Savanah, who was on the other side of the tent, was like "What did you guys expect? You've been pranking the leaders all night!" She had actually figured out during the "attack" that it wasn't really a bear. After I left to go back to my tent and go to bed, I heard the girls in that tent singing "Be Still My Soul" and "Nearer My God to Thee." I scared them pretty badly! I did feel bad (though all their parents think I did a great job) and would have done it a bit differently had I known they would be so scared. But, I've left my mark. Not a single one of those girls will ever forget me for as long as they live. Like I said... infamous. :) And they all like to laugh and joke about it now...

Friday, June 13th

We got up early to get on our way to Snowflake so we could do baptisms at the temple. We split up and went to both my in-laws and my parents houses to take showers so we could be clean to go to the temple. It was great to be inside the temple, as always. One of our priesthood holders and his wife came with us. They had brought a few family names for the girls to do, including her mother's name. I sat next to Sister McCurdy as the proxy baptism was done for her mother. It is always amazing to feel the spirit that is present when that happens. After we finished inside, we had a devotional outside on the lawn right next to the temple. I thought the whole morning was really nice.

When we got back, we spent the afternoon working on our craft. We made temple blocks and each girl used pictures of their six favorite temples.

That night was our last night at camp and I had put together a final "program" for them. I had hoped and prayed that it would go the way I envisioned it. I stressed and worried about it, because I wanted it to really touch these girls. I prepared a lot, but when it came down to it, I really prayed for the Holy Ghost to direct my message and to teach each girl what she needed to know.

We waited until dark and then sat everyone in a circle. Then, unlike the other nights at camp, I had everyone turn off their flashlights and instructed the girls to be absolutely silent until the activity was over. As we sat in the dark, I had the girls think about what it would be like to live in perpetual darkness--what it would be like if the sun didn't come up and we never had light again and how that would change our lives. Then I recounted several examples from the scriptures where there was darkness, including the most detailed account that happened in the Americas after Christ's death. Then, I released the leaders who interspersed themselves along a trail. Then I had each girl follow the path...alone, in the darkness with no flashlight. The moon was still full, so there was enough light to see to walk, but it was still dark outside. Anywhere the path would fork, we had a leader there to point out the right way. This path was about a quarter mile long and was in an area where the girls hadn't been. At the end of the walk I had a table set up with a large framed picture of Christ and this sign:

When we had all arrived, I spoke for another minute or two. Then Nate, who was representing the bishopric, wrapped everything up by talking about how Christ is the light that we have and need. Then we ended by having our testimony meeting. I was happy to hear the girls talk about how walking in the dark affected them. It was different for each girl, but it seemed to make a lasting impression on them. In their own way, they each understood how it applied to them in their life. I was happy to call it a huge success.

Saturday morning we packed up, had breakfast, and headed home! We survived the week at camp. :)

Other Randomness

Our journals were a central part of our camp. I came up with the idea for these journals and we made them at mutual beforehand. They are made out of fabric and the pages are sewn in. They turned out so cute! Not only did the girls do their daily journal writing in these, but we made a handout for every morning and evening devotional, and the girls glued them into their journals. I also printed out pictures taken at camp for the girls to glue in. I wanted them to have something that would remind them about their fun and spiritual time at camp.

This was our craft on one of the days. We hand stamped metal washers with our theme to make necklaces.

Another one of our crafts was making sock monkeys. The girls were all really excited about these. But, because they had to be hand sewn, some of the girls lost interest really quickly. But there were others who wanted to use every spare minute to work on theirs. This picture shows the dedicated group of girls who really wanted to get theirs finished.