My A-Camp Adventure!!!

To say the least it was FABULOUS!!! (heehee...) Bear with me... I have a ton of pictures, but that is how I remember things, so a story I will tell!

Chuck & I got called to be A-Camp Leaders for our Stake in April. We were told to pick our staff to go with us. And I decided we couldn't have picked a better staff!

Fawn & Devon Mortensen

Michelle & Riley Weber

Megan & Jake Richardson

So we had lots of meetings before camp to make sure that everything got done that needed to be done. It was like organizing a "miniature" girls camp... from sleeping arrangements to food to all the activities. And I couldn't have done it without my crew!

So we set out for Girls Camp (destination... Blue Ridge Reservoir) on Tuesday morning bright (or not so bright) and early at 5am. We didn't actually leave until 545am... but hey... we're running on MST (Mormon Standard Time). So this is all my girls waiting to leave! We had 15 certifying girls, 4 YCL's and 8 leaders.

Here we are at the dock... there was another group there getting into canoes as well, so we had to work around them, but all in all, it went well and everyone got on their way with all their gear in their canoe. Luckily no one tipped their canoes! That would have been tragic!

Me and Fawn...

Patiently waiting to load and head out!

Getting the canoes down to the waters edge.

Now that we all made it across safely, it's time to set up camp. Bro. Mortensen led the girls in setting up the main kitchen area.

I love clouds...

Most important was building the latrine. That's where the girls did their business (IYKWIM). The YCL's led them in this.

Stripping the back off the log so they would have a smooth surface in which to sit!

DON'T FALL IN!!!

Then we had some team building games led by Bro. & Sis. Richardson. They first did a game where they had to fill up a bucket with water from a can with holes in it. It was fun watching them work together to figure out how to win this one!

Then they had to try and get a highlighter and put in in a bottle and screw the lid on it, all using a rubber band controlled by the girls with string. It was neat to watch them do this. One team completed the task (without touching what they shouldn't...)

Then we had some free time in the afternoon, so the girls got in the water. Bro. Mortensen jumped in the water from a high rock and said it was safe, so the girls took off. I didn't post all the girls, but here are a couple of them jumping, just so you get the idea!

Chuck... my love... jumping and loving it!

This sweet girl didn't want to jump... but once she did, she went a few more times!

Canoe time!!!

Warming up after playing in the water!

The girls had to bring and cook their own dinner, so we decided to have a YUMMY dessert for them. After the night devotional (Astronomy by the Webers), we served them their dessert. It went over well, I think. FRIED DONUTS!!! The girls LOVED these (so did all my leaders.) If you want the recipe, leave a comment with your e-mail address.

This was funny. Chuck wanted to get his shoes to dry faster so he laid them by the fire. When I walked over I thought someone had fallen into the fire! YIKES!!!

Flag Ceremony/Morning Devotional

Our next morning consisted of shotgun shooting (led by Bro. Mortensen) and Geo-Cashing (led by Bro. Melser). So we hiked up the mountain (about 1/4-1/2 mile up) and got going.

It was fun to see the girls aim and hit clay pigeons.

One of my girls taught me how to take pictures of flowers while we were there. I'm going to have to experiment with it more later.

Geo-Cashing was also fun. It's such a fun alternative to using a compass. We had each girl take a turn and find one cashe. In the cashe was a colored bead (value colors) and a poem to go with the color/value. Then the last one had a poem, a treat and we had them sit and make a necklace out of the camp badge and the beads.

When we got done with those activities, it was raining on us, so we hiked back to camp and had lunch. And then the girls found a snake in the water so they all parked themselves around the water and watched and relaxed.

Then we had canoe games in the afternoon. Bro. Weber headed this one up. They had all sorts of relays of getting people across the lake one at a time with 2 people paddling. Then they had to do it blindfolded and the 2 people in the middle had to tell them which way to go. One team kept going in circles. It was quite entertaining!

Then they jousted with noodles... FUNNY!!! They couldn't sit down or fall out of the canoe. If they did the other team got a point. It was also fun to watch them do this!

After dinner this night, we all gathered at a big rock and sang our A-Camp Songs- one beautiful one in particular is a 3-part women's arrangement of A Distant Serande by Micheal McLean arranged by Sis. Judy McConaghie in our stake... it's arranged soley for the A-Campers. We sang out at the cliffs and it was so beautiful! These girls surely have talent.

Our evening devotional was centered around our Camp Theme "Solid as a Rock". I kept thinking about the song Like a Lighthouse and wanted to focus on that, so I went with it and it was a nice devotional. I handed out a lighthouse charm to each of the girls and hope they will wear it and remember their Savior will ALWAYS be there for them NO MATTER WHAT! We ended it with a testimony meeting and then gave them all a letter from home. What a neat way to end our camp.

After the devotional, we had S'Mores and we played games (like SPAZ, the cup game and some fun hand games) and one of our YCL's caught a crawdad and wanted to cook it up and see what it tasted like. So cooked it she did and 3 of the YCL's tasted it. One did not like it all too much, but the other 2 said it wasn't so bad!

GAMES!!!

A beautiful picture of our scenery!!! I can't wait to go back!

Polar Bear swim. We allowed anybody who wanted to get up and going to come on down and swim 1st thing in the morning. We had a few takers. I just went out in a canoe and took pictures!

Then it was time to load up and get out of there! The girls were all ready to go back and shower. We formed an assembly line and got all the gear down to the boat & canoes. Chuck had the fabulous idea of putting as much stuff in as many canoes as it would take and towing them all with the rowboat so that they only had to take one trip with the gear. It worked out wonderfully! See the picture below... what an ingenious idea!

When the girls got all their gear loaded and we canoed back to the other side of the lake, they loaded it all back into the trucks and trailers and we headed back to Lo-Mia! Shower time!!!

It's tradition that the A-Campers do the night program on the night they come back from A-Camp. So we had planned out to do "A-Camp's Got Talent" (put together by Sis. Weber). They took things they learned (or were suppose to learn) and made them into silly "talents". And as the leaders, we got to be the "judges" and give them funny comments. We had 2 commercials in this program as well. They gave us 2 Mormonad posters and we came up with a couple of short commercials (the rest of camp used these for skit night and had to do a 5 min. skit on them). Then the girls "graduated" into YCL's and then we had a slideshow of the whole A-Camp experience and then we sang our traditional songs (all led by Sis. Richardson). The night was absolutely FABULOUS!!! (How many times it that now?)

This picture is of my talent... blowing my whistle and the girls come running and salute. They didn't really do that at camp... but the whistle did mean to get to where you needed to be!

The rest of camp was great. We just followed the schedule and enjoyed ourselves. A few girls stole my camera one night and went a took a bunch of pictures of themselves... these were a couple of my favorite ones.

One last parting shot from Girls Camp 2008 "Solid as a Rock"