Young Women's Camp, 2024

So yes, this was my second year going to girls camp, and it was so much better than last year!  Some of the challenges we had to deal with last year weren't an issue this time around (namely, trying to keep Lena healthy and get Avery to each location), so that certainly made things easier.  I also had the pleasure of getting to hang out with my bestie Sarah, so that was awesome!  (Sarah was YWs president in her ward during Covid, so she never had got to go to camp.  But she just got called as a seminary teacher, so someone suggested it might be good for her to spend some extra time with the youth to get to know them before classes began.)  And then I also just felt like the girls were all getting along really well and being their best selves which meant we could have a lot of fun together.  What more can you ask for?

Oh, I know what more you can ask for: good weather!  And we were extremely lucky (blessed?) there, too!  It actually drizzled off and on a fair amount, but it was perfect: just enough rain to cool it down from the 95℉ heat we'd been experiencing for most of July, but not enough rain to actually drench you or put you in a bad mood.  It was such a relief!  (I learned later that Charlottesville had experienced torrential rainfall the Tuesday night we were camping,  so I was especially glad we didn't have to deal with that!)

So yes, we arrived and managed to get everything into tents or under our shelter before it began raining, and then we huddled under the shelter eating our lunches until it was time to gather and split the girls into their battalions.  And by that time the rain had stopped so all was well!

Kendra, Sabrina, Maisie, McKinley

Ella and Violet

Lilyann, Marianne, Lydia, Ember, Julia

Lilyann was Queen of the Camp here!

Playing catch

I am so glamorous!

Kendra was a Youth Camp Leader (YCL) for the first time and that was quite the adventure for her!

  (And notice next to her is Emma, who was in my trek family last year!  Emma was one of the three previous YCLs chosen to be a Youth Camp Directors (YCD) this time around, and it was fun seeing her being totally awesome!)

I just really like this picture of Violet that Missy took!

All the battalions were named for gemstones, so Kendra's group were the Opals, and she had all three of our ward's First Years in her battalion, so that was fun!  I felt like they were pretty lucky to have Kendra!  

Anyway, they got together and made flags and got to know each other a bit, and then we got back to our wards and made dinner together.  Our ward was in charge of meals for the first day, and after that the kitchen staff took amazing care of us (which was great, since I'm not very good at camp cooking-- that's usually Craig's job!)  In addition to making food, the girls also got involved in some face painting, so here's Ember as a fox:

And McKinley and Maisie got to work building fires, which was their favorite thing to do the entire week!  I had totally broken the rules and snuck in some dry firewood, since last year everything at the campgrounds was damp and impossible to light.  THIS year we had amazing fires!

The camp had a bunch of activities we could do at this time, but our girls just wanted to hang out and play games and do crafts, so that was what we did!  They used paint pens to decorate their copies of the Book of Mormon and just enjoyed one another's company.  (Also, I should point that we'd had a Tuesday activity the week before tie-dying bucket hats, so that's why you see so many of those in our group!)

I actually didn't sleep too badly that first night, probably because I'd barely slept the night before (because I was stressing about camp, of course)!  And then we were all up bright up and early for flag in the morning:

Lizzie, Jadyn, Lilyann, Ember, Julia, Lydia; you can see it's a gorgeous morning!

Throughout the day the girls were involved in all kinds of activities: learning the camp dance, watercoloring, kayaking and swimming in the lake, first aid, archery, and shooting...  And while they were doing all that awesome stuff, they had a ton of stake training for all us grown ups.  😣  I really struggle with that stuff.  I understand why they do it (mostly because we're all there already!) and I appreciate them using this time well, rather than taking me away from my family more evenings throughout the year...  But I never can sit through these things without feeling like I'm doing everything wrong.  And when I'm already camping for three nights and feeling like I'm doing a lot, it's very disheartening to be told I should be doing a better job.  So, a big, lame-o Sigh for that.  Fortunately I managed to sign up to help out with the water activities for the 4th training session, so at least I got to skip out on one of them!

When I wasn't feeling terrible sitting in those training sessions, I was either hanging out with Sarah, writing notes to all my girls telling them how much I appreciated them, or sitting out on the front porch of the dining hall reading my book.  All excellent ways to spend some time!

Here are all the girls wearing their camp shirts (different years got different colors), anxiously awaiting their skits!!!  Usually skits are outside near the waterfront, but it had just been raining so they got moved inside where it was incredibly noisy and I honestly have no idea what any of the skits were about.  But the girls seemed to have a great time, so that's all that really mattered!

Kendra with her battalion.  They'd asked her to take special care of the girl with the fan, who is on the autism spectrum and proved to be very challenging!  (But oh, did she love Kendra by the end of the week!)

All the grown ups (I'm way in the back on the right)(with my eyes closed.  Of course)

Goofy shot

This picture does NOT do it justice, but McKinley had brought packets that you could throw into the fire to turn the flames different colors-- it was super cool!

So the thing you don't expect from camp is AMAZING food but ohmygoodness the food was so great!  The hardest part about coming home was having to cook for myself again!  Anyway, starting from the right, we have Anita, Tony, and Megan, all members of our ward!  So not only did we get delicious food, we got to see their smiling faces every meal!  These people worked their tails off all week and I appreciated them so much!!!

Here's everyone meeting at the amphitheater near the lake on the last morning.  It was too wet to use this location very much (it gets very muddy here), but it's probably my favorite gathering spot at the camp!

And here's everyone gathered around the Tree of Life that Emma set up for the Faith Walk (if you really want to see me (like, say, if you're my mother!), I'm in the back right):

And here it is lit up at night.  As Pres. Schill said, "This is probably this tree's finest moment!  How lucky that we get to be here with it for this!"  💜

Olivia, who just finished her freshman year at BYU, was asked to come as a camp specialist and she was awesome helping out at the waterfront all the time and busting out this ukulele so everyone could sing around the campfire.  I was so glad she was willing to come!

Julia ended up having to leave early (her parents were there as the quartermasters, but then there were some problems with the house they'd just built and were trying to close on, so they needed to find themselves an Airbnb quick-- what a nightmare!!!) so everyone gave her the biggest hug ever as a sendoff.  This family just moved here within the last year, so it was nice to see Julia literally being embraced by everyone so quickly!

Our three first-years playing a handclap game after they finished breakfast on the last morning

I just think the t-shirts all around the campfire pit look so pretty and rainbowy!

All the Young Men arrived Wednesday morning, which is such a weird thing because suddenly I knew that Craig was there and I just want to hang out with him, but he's busy with the boys, and I really should be busy with the girls (and that blasted stake training!), so honestly we barely saw each other.  But I know he's there somewhere!  Anyway, he did get to join us Wednesday night for Bishop Time and a testimony meeting around the fire (and then the ukulele and singing was next!).  And then right before all the girls headed home, we invited all their brothers who were there to come see their sisters.  It was really very sweet to see all these siblings together! 

Jadyn with Daniel, Olivia with Sawyer, Steven with Violet and Ella, Ryder with Kendra, and Calvin with Sabrina!

And I realized we needed a group shot of just our ward and our bucket hats!

Look-- proof that I did find Craig!  And aren't we glamorous!

All the YCLs and YCDs.  Kendra is in the back towards the left

Doing the camp dance

Kendra is right in the middle here, wearing her yellow YCL shirt and a backwards hat

YCDs leading our closing ceremonies

I liked this woodsy amphitheater, too!  It was further back in the campgrounds, so we didn't venture here until the boys had arrived and we were trying to avoid them!

Anyway, camp was wonderful, but I was still awfully glad to get home to my bed and my shower!  Bentley had been home looking out for Colton and Camille, and then my friend Megan had taken them Wednesday night as a reprieve for Bentley!  She was very kind and fed them dinner Thursday before returning them to me, which meant I had plenty of time to shower, get unpacked, and start laundry before I tried to turn my attention to them, which was really nice.  (They had so much fun at the Huff's, they were actually begging to spend another night, but I hadn't seen them since Monday and was anxious to have them back!)  And Bentley had the house so clean when I returned, so that was lovely.  He's such a good kid.  I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful family!

There are a lot of things I like about camping, but I think one of my favorites is how much you appreciate everything in your life once you're home!