Girls Camp 2013

I had the best time at Girls Camp this year. No, really I did. Even with the stinkiest pit toilets and porta-potties I have ever experienced. Even with loud snorers who kept me awake every single night. Even with strictly rationed showers (one shower during the week) and no sinks to wash my hands. It was a great year!

I like camp because I love the girls. They are amazing. And I feel lucky that two of these amazing girls are my own daughters.

Camp this year was held the last week of July/first week of August. I had the best job ever this year. I was a "YCL Mom", which means I was the shadow leadership for a group of older girls from throughout the stake who were leading the 4th year girls at camp. I was especially lucky because Bailey was one of the YCLs in my group, so I was able to see her in action and marvel and her burgeoning leadership skills.

One of Bailey's YCL (Youth Camp Leader) assignments for the week was to run some of the programs and flagtime gatherings. She was great at it, and everyone appreciated her sense of humor and confidence.

 Here she performs a skit with other YCLs on the Color War night.

I didn't stay with the ward camp this year, but instead camped in the "YCL enclosure" with the other YCL Moms and 6th year YCLs.  Because Bailey was a 5th year YCL, she stayed in a tent on the ward site. She really liked being with the ward.
 
She was lucky to be far, far away from the trio of snoring women who were in the YCL enclosure. My friend Becky and I tried everything to get to sleep before the worst snoring offender. As soon as we had all our girls safely accounted for, we threw on our pjs, jumped into our sleeping bags and stuffed heavy duty silicone earplugs into our ears. If we were very lucky, we could fall asleep before the cacophony began.
Aubrey was a 2nd year camper, and she seems to love Girls Camp just as much as her sister. I'm so happy about that! 
 

Here she is, with a few of her friends, on Color War evening.

It was seriously stinky in this camp. All day long a sewage smell wafted from the pit toilets right outside of the camps.
 

 Stinkiest camp ever! 

 But still fun.  This is all the girls in our ward.

Halfway through camp, one of the stake leaders had a birthday and someone smuggled in a decadent chocolate cake from Costco. I was one of the lucky leaders invited to partake of the chocolaty goodness. Even port-a-potties aren't as repulsive when one has eaten some really good chocolate.

One of the YCL responsibilities was to be a "big sister".  Every day Bailey led her "little sisters" in scripture study and also shared a spiritual thought with them.

 A group of wacky YCLs and other friends before one of the flagtime skits.

Bailey worked with a group of YCLs to plan certification training for the 4th year girls. Specifically, she taught first aid and how to carry an injured person.

 She brought our Barbie dolls so the girls could practice putting splints on Barbie's arms and legs. Good thing we haven't given away the dolls!

 Supervising a relay race in which the girls practice carrying an injured person.

 When camp was over, we headed back into civilization with stronger testimonies, good memories, and very dirty bodies and hair.

 

Almost November thoughts

I looked at my calendar today and realized that . . . . WHOA . . . . a month from today is Thanksgiving!  And then less than a month after that is Christmas. Once Halloween hits time seems to fly by, with twice as many things to do and places to be than there are hours in a day.

A few random thoughts from lately, in no particular order.

• This year Dan is teaching early morning Seminary again, and it's going great. He teaches a class of Seniors and this year they are studying The Book of Mormon. In order for him to be able to teach Seminary, he needs to spend most of his free time preparing lessons. Last year this was kind of hard. We literally couldn't even find time to talk about anything during the week, because he was either at work or preparing Seminary, and Dan perpetually felt like he wasn't giving enough attention to the kids and me.  For some reason, this year feels easier. I'm not sure why. Are we just more accustomed to the schedule? Is he able to prepare more quickly now that he has one year under his belt? Is it a tender mercy? I don't know, but I'm glad. The days do start early. Dan is up at 4:40 and Bailey gets up at 5.  I get up at 5:20 and start making breakfast and lunches for the two Seminary-goers. They leave at 5:45 and 6:00 respectively, and then there is a lull until it's time to get Joseph and Aubrey up and out the door at 7.  It's busy, but it's working out fine.

• I am very excited to have a new range/oven installed sometime this week.  It has two ovens - a small one on top and a larger oven below, which will make it much easier to cook Thanksgiving Dinner in exactly one month!  Dan and I have talked about getting a double oven for years, but our "tipping point" was the fact that we are preparing Thanksgiving dinner for our family and Brandon's girlfriend and her parents (who are flying here from Florida). 

• Joseph's soccer season is winding down, and I'm really sad about that. I will have to add a few pictures later. I love to see the smile on his face as he plays. He has had a great season, scoring almost every game and consistently making great passes and helping out his team.  He starts a basketball team this Saturday.

•  We had such a lovely October, with crisp, beautiful days and very, very little rain. The colors are extraordinary. There are even lovelier views around, but this is the one I see outside my window, so I like it. 
  
  I know it has to end sometime, but I wish it would last forever! I laughed at this quote in our local paper, "We moved here during the summer and we have been amazed at the weather this summer and fall. Is this typical weather for Washington?  Because we had been led to believe that it is very rainy here. If this is typical weather, then is everyone keeping it a secret from the rest of the country? Maybe you don't want people to know how heavenly the Washington weather is because everyone would want to move here?"  (Yeah, maybe we should check back with that person in February or March?  But it is a lovely place to live.)

• And, some sad news to share. The supplier of my winter therapy has dried up. I admit that I'm an addict.  I am feeling more than a little desperate.

 For the last few years Costco has carried these 2.5 lb tins of Starbucks dark chocolate Hot Cocoa mix. It is what gets me through every long and rainy winter.  All through the fall and winter I jealously guard my cocoa time, which is the free moments when I can drink my daily decadent cocoa in peace, savoring every indulgent drop.

But this year Costco stopped carrying my liquid gold.  Luckily, I had one tin of cocoa left in my emergency year supply, and I am carefully doling out the servings. At this rate, I predict I will be out by Thanksgiving. By the way, I was planning to complain to Costco, but I checked online, and apparently Starbucks is not making the 2.5 lb tin anymore. Instead, one has to either pay through the nose for hot cocoa made in the store or buy a measly box of 8 packets for $6.49. Obviously, that is not acceptable. (I was paying $10 per 2.5 lb. tin, using the coupon Costco offered every fall. There was a limit of two tins each time, so during the weeks of the coupon I would return every day to get two tins. I'm that addicted).  Costco now carries Stephen's Hot Cocoa tins. No offense to the Stephen's people, but it just isn't the same. Last year, after trick-or-treating, I shared mugs of my Starbucks cocoa with the 10-15 people gathered at our house. I must admit that this year my last prized tin will be stashed away, and everyone gets some Stephen's instead.

And that's it. Last night we carved pumpkins and tomorrow night is our annual Halloween Dinner.  So, let the holiday season officially begin!

Brandon and Angela

When Brandon started back at BYU he met a lovely girl named Angela. She lives in the same complex and is from Florida.  Most of my family had a chance to meet her over the summer when they were visiting Utah, but we hadn't been able to meet her, so we invited her to join us at the beach in August.

It was great to get to know Angela. She is a wonderful young woman and she and Brandon are a very happy couple.  We enjoyed having her with us that week!

Brandon did something completely out of character during that week. He repeatedly ASKED me to take pictures of him . . . . with Angela. They were happy to pose repeatedly and exuded such happiness that they made great photographic subjects!

Bailey made a sport of photobombing Brandon and Angela pictures!

 It is great to see Brandon so happy!

Our quest for family pictures

One of these days I'm going to gather up all our efforts at family pictures over the years and put it into one post. We have some great stories behind most of our tries for family photos.

For now, I'll just include some pictures of this year's attempt at the beach house. We decided to have Angela help us shoot some pictures with the beautiful coastline as a backdrop. 

Bright lights and Joseph don't mesh very well. The sun was out, and this was hard for him. (After awhile he also wanted to wear his jacket because he didn't like the breeze).  I need to learn how to "move heads" from one shot to another on Photoshop, because I would really love to order a large of this photo of the kids (below). I would just need to replace Joseph's picture with one of the photos where the sun wasn't in painfully in his eyes.

 Still trying, but the sun is still a problem, so we moved on.

Finally, we found a better angle, facing somewhat away from the sun.

 Love these kids!

 Maybe someday I'll actually update my facebook photo to something from the past decade? This one might work. It has my favorite stretch of ocean behind me and my awesome hubby.

 

 And then, off we went along the ocean to look for more good picture spots. Bailey taught us a dance to do as we walked. Don't we look cool?

 My girls.

My boys. Not sure why two of the three are looking away from the camera.  I wish I had made them stand still until I got more shots, but they were some of my biggest complainers (and maybe not just the youngest).

 And off again to our next photo location.

 Brandon and Angela are so darn cute that I'm going to do a separate post just with pictures of them.

 I love this one.

 

 Stopping at our bench to get our traditional individual shots.

 

  The girls including Angela this time!

 We love our bench.

Now we were walking through the woods for a few more pictures.  Everybody was losing patience with my insistence on photo taking.

 

 This one definitely goes on the wall.

 And that's it - we definitely captured the moment and also got some great shots of a beautiful place! Thanks to Angela for helping with the picture taking!