Youth Conference 2025!

When they told us that the stake would be taking the youth ages 14+ to Palmyra, NY this summer, I have to admit that I was not especially excited to go.  We literally just did that!  Do I really need to make that drive with a van full of kids again?  But the stake people asked us to be a Ma and Pa (they unnecessarily made it very clear that our van was a big factor in that decision), and we really couldn't say No.  So here we were.  Again.  

There seems to have been a lot of drama beforehand-- one couple dropped out at the last minute.  People were grumping and complaining about not knowing which kids had been put in their groups ahead of time.  Having dealt with stuff like this on the ward level, I decided my goal was to be the easy person who doesn't complain.  I've often joked that I may be lacking in any of the skills Mormon women pride themselves in (crafting, quilting, keeping a clean house, homeschooling my kids, or whatever else one might brag about), but goshdarnit, I show up.  It's the one thing I truly pride myself on.  So I wasn't complaining.  And Craig isn't a complainer ever, so we were set.

Everyone arrived in Harrisonburg Wednesday night and they started things off with a dance.  They'd asked everyone to pack ALL their stuff (including sleeping bags and pillows) into a garbage bag clearly labeled with their name.  So while the youth partied, we lined all the bags up along the hallway so they could find theirs easily.  This is just the girls' side:

That's so much stuff!  Then we went in and watched the last dance and Craig got this fabulous picture of Kendra that I love so much:

Then they got everyone settled down

Funny Kendra!

and had all the Ma and Pa couples perform skits.

So that was terrible.  It was hard enough coming up with a skit two years ago for trek.  Coming up with another one???  I'd had this idea that we could do some sort of parody of Taylor Swift's "Welcome to New York" except make it about Palmyra.  And-- not to brag about myself, but-- I'm usually pretty good at writing song parodies.  But this time I just couldn't make it work.  It turns out that you can't cram words like "restoration" or even "Palmyra" into a song with such inane lyrics as "Welcome to New York, it's been waiting for you / Welcome to New York, welcome to New York."  (And I say this as a HUGE Taylor Swift fan!  But this song is really just dumb, okay?)  So, yeah, I tried to write something and it was so bad I couldn't even finish reading it out loud to Craig.  (Also, while I'm hating on this song-- she barely even sings it!  It's mostly a chant!)

The Gaskins, on the other hand, had a very funny skit where Amy was wearing a bald wig and being Edwin, and he had a blonde wig and played Amy

So we finally just sang a silly camp song ("Alice the Camel," if you've heard of it?) and made the youth sing along.  It was pretty dumb, but they all got involved and it was mercifully short, unlike the couple that made everyone sing ALL the verses of "There's a Hole in the Bucket" back at trek.  

Here we are teaching them the song

That was the hardest and worst part of the whole weekend, so we were very relieved to have it over with!  Then they divided us all into our "families" and we spent a few minutes trying to learn the names of our eleven kids, and we let them decorate our van.

The "Just Married with 11 Kids" part cracked me up!

l-r: Abby, Reese, Helen, Claire, Morgan, me, Seth, Jaxon, Eaghan, Liam, Craig, Elden, and Spencer!  The Smith Family for the weekend!!!

And then they sent the everyone off to various members' houses in the area to sleep in their basements.  They'd split up boys and girls, so we were paired with the Papins (Pres. Papin is our stake president-- were they trying to keep a close eye on us?) and I was SO excited to get to hang out with Sarah Papin and get to know her better!  Here are the boys headed to the Walton's house for the evening.  Anyone who didn't have their own huge van got a rented one, and some of them had high ceilings!  I was so jealous!

They all had to have their garbage bags of stuff on their laps.  It was a short ride, but still-- that is one crowded car!

Us girls were at a different house, and it was very clean and lovely and set up well for us.  I was so grateful, but how weird must that have been for this family?  No big deal, just 12 teenage girls and a couple adults you don't know sleeping in your basement for the night!  There was a guest bedroom in the basement, so Sarah and I took that.  I let her have the bed and I ran out to my car and filled up the air mattress I'd brought.  I'm WAY too old to sleep on the bare floor!

I somehow managed to sleep terribly AND not hear Sarah when she got up.  So that left me scrambling, trying to shower as fast as I could.  I was prepared to skip breakfast, but then we figured out that we had the timing wrong and we actually had an extra fifteen minutes, so I very happily munched on some granola and a banana before we loaded all those girls and their garbage bags back into the van and drove back to the church.

At the church, we put all the garbage bags into trailers and collected the rest of our family back into my van and then we were off!  We had very strict instructions about driving carefully and not speeding, so naturally I got stuck behind President Papin when he didn't notice that the speed limit had gone from 65 to 70mph, and after waiting a few minutes, I finally just passed him.  No wonder they don't trust us!  We ALSO had a goodie bag filled with games to play as we drove, so that was cool.  They included an escape room, trivia questions (which proved FAR too easy), Mad Libs, and skit-in-a-bag supplies.  So I drove while Craig acted as Activities Director and kept the kids engaged and having fun.

At one point Craig passed his phone around and let everyone add their favorite song to a playlist and then we listened to the whole thing and tried to guess who had chosen which song...

We stopped for lunch at a Sheetz and Ryder's family (the Shepherds!) pulled up and they ate there, too!  But for the most part we didn't actually see the other families all that much on the road, which surprised me.  We were supposed to pull up at the Peter Whitmer Farm around 3 or 4 and we made it there without any problems, as did several other vans.  We got to watch the 20-minute video about the events that happened there, and then sit outside for a bit while one of the missionary guides explained about the farmhouse to us.  As she was talking, a bird started singing so beautifully in the tree we were under.  There was a gentle breeze and the temperature was PERFECT.  And I thought to myself, This is a perfect moment.  This, right now.  I love it when you can actually recognize those as they're happening!

You can see Kendra in the middle left-- her shirt says "Smith" on the back!

Seth and Jaxon were good buddies

Oh, hey, there's Kendra!

The other four of our six boys, Spencer, Elden, Liam, and Eaghan

Kendra with McKinley and Kirsten

Our girls, Abby, Morgan, Reese, Claire, and Helen

I love that all the boys are clustered around the Kids' Corner part of the visitor's section here!

And on a totally different note, we got this fun picture of Ryder in the Shepherd Family van!

Once we were done at the Whitmer Farm, it was just a short 10-minute drive to our campsite.  Everyone's bags were already there, so we had some time to set up our sleeping bags and everything in the cabins and eat dinner before it was time for skits!  

Me, Abby, Morgan, Reese, Claire, Helen, Seth, Spencer, Liam, Jaxon, Eaghan, and Elden!

They had a fireside which was nice, and then it was time to try and get everyone to settle down and maybe sleep?  At this point I learned that they'd changed the cabin assignments around, and I wasn't with Sarah Papin after all!  That was a bummer, but my new person, Rebecca Leavitt, was great, too.  She was also Kendra's "mom" for the trip, so at least I got to see a bit more of Kendra this way!

Once things were relatively quiet, Craig and I met up and walked around the campgrounds for a bit and debriefed.  That was nice.  There was a glow in the sky that I thought was the sunset, but Craig pointed out that it was awfully late for that.  It wasn't until after we'd parted ways that I realized I had been seeing the moon rising!

So I made all the girls in my cabin come out and take a look before we turned off the lights.

I managed to shower first thing in the morning before it was time for breakfast.  And when they weren't eating, there were plenty of people playing gaga ball (Ryder was in heaven).

The morning was cool, almost chilly.  I wished I'd brought a sweatshirt or something.  But I was glad it wasn't sweltering!  The plan was to do a service project cleaning up a trail, but they kept sending us the wrong way to get there and then there would be a swamp or a creek in my way that I had to go around.  I got separated from the group, and finally decided to just go and look at the waterfront for a minute instead.  I'm the WORST at service projects.  But I did see this cool heron!

And then it was time to load up into the vans and visit more historic sites!  Ryder's group headed straight for the Hill Cumorah, where they had completely redone the Visitor's Center since last year!

The Shepherd Family, which included Ryder, Truman, and Eli from our ward!

Our family went to the Smith Farm and Sacred Grove first.  Here we are in the attic of the (replica) log cabin:

Liam, Jaxon, Seth, Spencer, Elden, Craig, Clair, Helen, Abby, Morgan, Reese, and me (where did Eaghan go?)

And then in the frame house, everyone got a turn "hefting" a (much lighter weighing) replica of the gold plates!

That's my terrible "these are much heavier than I was expecting" face.  How embarrasing...

(Meanwhile, Ryder's group was climbing the Hill Cumorah:)

After the frame house, we got to spend time inside the Sacred Grove, and after letting our kids have some time to themselves, we gathered them at the little amphitheater and had a short spiritual thought. I really do love the Sacred Grove-- I pretty much always love being in the woods, but it's definitely different here.  It feels like being inside the temple (even with the mosquitoes!), which is wonderful. 

Someone else took these photos, but I'm happy to steal them and share them with you here!

And then I got a picture of all of us with the Palmyra temple in the (rather distant) background:

We also snagged pictures with the log cabin, since we'd forgotten to do that at first!

And then it was our group's turn to visit the Hill Cumorah!  Craig had a very fun time telling our kids all about when he was there as a teenager working on the pageant.  I loved this because a) I always love Craig's stories and b) it gave me ample opportunities to catch my breath as we climbed the hill!

Possibly the least flattering picture I've ever taken of myself?  But it's hard to fit 13 people and a tall statue into the frame!

Once we finished there, we met up at a stake center where they fed us lunch outside in the picnic area.  There was a baseball field and a hill, and someone got out a giant pipe and the kids would roll it up the hill, climb inside, and then push the pipe until it rolled down the hill.  I can't even imagine how much I would be throwing up if I did that, but the kids all had a blast!

 

Some of the grown ups were a lot braver (or stupider?) than me!

And then we were off to our next destination, the Grandin Print Shop!  Our boys were all still dizzy and slightly sick from the tube, so they were much more subdued than earlier-- it was kind of nice, actually, even if we were a little worried that Eaghan was going to pass out...

The sister missionary who led our tour was awesome-- she really knew her stuff and made it so interesting!

Eaghan, Seth, Liam, and Jaxon

We also walked over to Alvin's grave, where we had our spiritual message (that one was harder to get the kids to listen to-- they were pretty restless by then) and then we walked a few blocks to where we could see the Erie Canal, which is pretty cool.  And then, we treated our kids to ice cream at the Chill'n'Grill.  This wasn't part of our itinerary, and we swore them all to secrecy.  And if they hadn't liked us before then, they absolutely LOVED us afterwards!  (But I'm pretty sure they liked us before that.  Really!)

We learned later that Helen's parents drove by and saw us there, and didn't want to interrupt our fun, so they didn't get ice cream like they'd been planning to do!

Once some of our kids were done, but waiting for the slowpokes to finish up (no ice cream allowed in the van, sorry!), they decided to stand by the side of the road trying to get the passing cars to honk at us.  It was such a stupid thing to be doing, but they were screaming with joy and having the absolute best time doing it, it just made me laugh so hard.  When you take away kids' cell phones, they're so fun!!!

Finally as we drove back to our campsite, the kids had a fantastic Disney Sing-along and it was just the absolute best.  Craig got a video of them all singing their hearts out to "Let it Go" (even the boys!) and it just makes me so happy!

We had dinner and then there were a bunch of games organized for the kids, and ours were SUPER competitive, it was hilarious to watch.  One game involved lashing some sticks together to transport a "wounded" person and Eaghan immediately took charge and did an awesome job:

Helen wasn't so sure about it, though! 😂

They also had to do an art project, and the boys all scattered, frantically trying to gather anything in nature that could be used for it.  They were just so anxious to help each other out and win! 

They decided Abby was the most artistic one, so she was in charge of painting while everyone else tried to glue leaves and stuff to the canvas

Next we pulled sticks.  I was wearing a knee-length dress, so I didn't participate in this one.  But it was hysterical to watch Spencer pull Craig right off the ground and even out of one of his shoes!  Then Craig managed to beat Pres. Papin, but then Pres. Papin beat Spencer, so I guess the three of them are like paper, scissors, and rock!  This was also where I learned that Spencer was the little brother to my sweet Emma from Trek!!!  There are only so many members in the Franklin, WVa ward, I should have figured that out on my own, but it cracked me up once I knew!

Bishop vs. Stake President!

Brother vs. Sister!

And finally we had some relay race that involved three-legged races, sack racing, wheelbarrow racing-- all that good stuff.  Right as we were finishing up, it began pouring on us, so we hurried back to the dining hall once we were done, and had a lot of screaming and table-pounding as each family was given their "awards" for the night.  Our kids got a rousing game of BS going, but they had so many people participating that it didn't work at all, which was also pretty funny...

We also got dessert, which I definitely didn't need after the Chill'n'Grill but which I totally ate anyway.  I heard later that Ryder got three!

Happy Ryder!

I was kind of hoping that with the rain, the kids would all hunker down in their cabins and settle down easily for the night, but no such luck.  Eventually they were all at least in their cabins, and then I managed to get a nice hot shower with no one around, which was lovely.  I'm fully converted to showering at night when I'm camping.  It is THE way to go!

Kendra was excited about this frog that she found

I slept fine, all things considered.  In the morning we had breakfast and then testimony meeting.  I was pleased with how many kids from the Rivanna Ward shared their testimonies, and took notes so I could tell their parents about it (not that I've actually done this yet).  I was also pleasantly surprised when the first kid in our "family" to get up was our very shy Abby!  I was so impressed with how brave she was!  After her great example, all of the boys in our group also got up, but none of the other girls did.  I could never have predicted that-- people surprise you all the time.  But it was a good testimony meeting, and I thought they kept it to a good length, so that was nice.

Then we had to clean our cabins and bathrooms and once we were checked off the appropriate lists, it was time to drive home!  The weather was gross for most of the drive-- this was pretty much everyone's view:

Our kids were pretty happy playing music and singing along, so we had a nice time of it.  And we got to Harrisonburg exactly on schedule.  I loved this van's running tally:

We had to wait around for a while for the rest of the Rivanna kids (especially Kendra!) to join us, then we loaded them all with their garbage bags for the last hour back to Charlottesville.  THAT was very crowded-- we ended up with all our youth except Sawyer.  But we made it.  And it was awfully nice to get home and give Colton and Camille and Bentley hugs!!!

It may have been even nicer to shower and sleep in my own bed again that night.  What an adventure!  We were so happy with how everything went, and we couldn't believe how lucky we'd been to have had such a great group of kids-- Craig and I just loved them so much!  That really made it so special.  I hope our own kids "parents" felt the same way about Kendra and Ryder!!!