Girls' Camp 2010

I was called as the Camp Director in our ward in March.  Although I was anxious to get started working on our ward's activities I was pretty much stuck until May when our Stake Camp Director had had a chance to call her committee, meet with them and plan out the basics for the stake activities.  We then found out which things the stake would take care of and which things I needed to plan.  In all reality, it wasn't until the last week of June that we could begin our ward planning and then the month of July was consumed by camp preparations, followed by a crazy week of final preparations the first week of August, then camp the second week.  Following camp I was sick for almost a week, then school started, then we went to Bear Lake this weekend.  Needless to say it has been a crazy couple of months and I'm ready to go back to a more normal schedule.

In addition to the stake theme of "Choose Your Own Adventure" we needed to come up with a ward theme.  The Young Women President and I were both thinking of a theme having to do with heroes and the idea came to me in the night that our ward theme should be "Choose The Right Heroes" or "CTR Heroes".  While at camp, the girls made t-shirts with our CTR Heroes logo on them. 

Alena with leaders, Kristin and Tauni.  Luckily we got a picture of Alena wearing her CTR Heroes shirt so I can show you what they looked like.

The day before we left for camp I acquired permission for my Ashlie to come to camp, even though she doesn't turn 12 until November.  She was ecstatic and hurriedly packed her things - with help from Grandma Jackson, who ran to Wal-Mart to buy all the stuff she was lacking.  I was so glad to have her there with me for the week and she had a blast and her testimony grew. 

My Ashlie

My amazing sisters helped me make the cutest "Mail Center" out of those vinyl shoe holders that hang on the back of doors.  We individualized each girl's mail slot by scrapbooking her name in a cute way.  Luckily Jenny, Aubrey and my styles are all different so we were able to make all of them very different.  Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in all the stress of everything that I failed to take pictures of our beautiful work, for which I will be eternally sorry!

I decided early on in the planning (as soon as we decided on our theme) that we needed swords and shields.  I didn't know how to incorporate them into our theme, but I thought they'd be fun for the girls to play with.  Eventually the inspiration came to me: we needed to write a spiritual gift on each of the shields.  My sister Jenny took it one step further and individualized every single shield to make them perfectly beautiful!  I have to put them in a slide show because there are so many, but just consider the amount of time it took her to do all these!

Awesome shields, huh?

The super-awesome swords my dad made.  My sister Aubrey helped me paint them.

My sister Jenny figured out the most ingenius way to make swords that were super cheap!  We had been searching for an inexpensive sword idea (my entire camp budget was $5 per person!) and Jenny came up with this: make swords out of the really big paint sticks that are used for stirring 5 gallon containers of paint.  She took a few home from Home Depot and cut the ends to be pointy and painted them silver and they looked awesome!  Rob went to Home Depot and persuaded them to give him enough for us to make each person a sword with a cross piece by the handle.  Then my dad crafted them into beautiful swords with rounded edges and pointy blades.  Then I painted them and put their names on the cross pieces.  Because I was awful at taking pictures, this is the best picture I got of the swords!
On our first night at camp the YW President, Sister Driggs, and I presented our ward's theme for the camp and tried to help the girls understand what it was all about.  We ended our presentation by "knighting" each girl and leader with a spiritual "superpower".  I had all the swords & shields in 2 large boxes and randomly selected one of each.  We announced the girl's name that was printed on the sword, then when they got to the front of the group Sister Driggs dubbed the girl with the power of _____, then I read the description on the back of the shield.  The girls beamed as they received their superpower and cheered for each other. People frequently remarked how frequently people's randomly-selected superpower really was a spiritual gift that the person possessed.

Jenny also helped me create this Title of Liberty - as a symbol of what we're all fighting for.  I wanted to relate the story of Moroni from the Book of Mormon.  He was a true hero for so many reasons (as found in the book of Alma, within the Book of Mormon).  Even the good people in his society were becoming complacent about what was really important.  Moroni rent his coat to create a physical symbol of what was important and called it his "Title of Liberty".  This symbol helped remind the people what they were fighting for.  Moroni is one of my favorite heroes; I love the following scripture about him:

Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto ^aMoroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the ^bdevil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.    Alma 48:17

Our ward had two cabins.  Each held 14 people.  We used one for the older girls and the other for the younger ones.  We put up posters all over our campground (like the one in the picture below) of heroes from the Bible and Book of Mormon.

What our cabins looked like most of the time.

We had an awesome camp site because it was pretty much shady all day long! 

We had our schedules written out because they were kind of complicated.  Between ward and stake activities, we had very full days!

Here are a few of our stake youth leaders starting the group singing camp songs.  This was taken on day 1, so they weren't very enthusiastic just yet.  The ones from our ward are Karinne (second from left) and Ashlie (second from right).

This is our wonderful stake camp director, Julie Adams.  She is also in our ward and did a marvelous job.  She is a great example!

Some of the Right Heroes
I made a book of Amazing People out of the biographies I had typed up of people in the scriptures as well as people in history, literature and even some heroic people who are still living.  I just put the binder out on the tables for the girls to peruse at their leisure.  The book didn't get much use, but then I posted some of the bios in the bathroom stalls at eye-level when sitting and they were actually read!  Examples: Joan of Arc, Corrie Ten Boom, Jesus Christ, Eleanor Roosevelt, etc., etc.  Maybe someday I'll post some of the bios for you to read.  My mother-in-law, Joanne, babysat for me while I wrote most of the bios and did other camp stuff.

My sister Jenny and my brother Jon turned my idea into a reality.  I spent many hours creating bios for lots of heroes, as I talked about in the previous paragraph.  My original idea was to put a little bio of a hero on each girls' water bottle so that they could be exposed to more heroic people as they went about other activities at camp. However, I couldn't seem to make the bios succinct enough to fit on a water bottle label.  Well, Jenny came to my rescue and condensed each bio I had written to be concise enough to fit and then added a bunch more so we would have enough heroic women to make 25 water bottles.  Jon helped design the label so they looked ultra professional.  They even included a picture of the hero, laminated the labels and then attached them well enough that they didn't come off all week at camp - even when submersed in water!  Talk about amazing family support.

Amazing Familial Support Network
Okay, so I just want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my family members that helped make my ideas into actual awesome creations.  Because of your contribution we were able to create some things that made our camp visually stimulating, memorable and fun.  I was proud of our campground and
couldn't have done it without you!

Awesome YW Leaders
Next, I'd like to express my appreciation to the other leaders that were at camp from our ward.  Our amazing Young Women President, Kathy, was phenomenal, as usual.  She is probably the most prepared person I'll ever meet and is great at her calling.  I was so lucky to have her on my "team".  Every single leader was amazing and I kept commenting on how they were all so willing to do whatever I asked them to do and would look for ways to help when they had free time.  I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group to work with.  This year the following leaders came to girls' camp: Haley Murray, Tauni Dahl, Kristin Peterson, Marianne Williams, Kathy Driggs, and I.  Thanks so so so much, ladies, for all you did to make this year memorable for our girls.

My Favorite Calling
I loved having the opportunity to serve as our ward's Camp Director.  When I got this calling I was told it would be for two years, so I'm anticipating being able to plan next year's girls' camp as well, but I don't want to get my heart too set on it because I know sometimes circumstances change.  So far I think this might have been my favorite calling, although it will certainly be better to spread it out over a whole year rather than just a couple of months next time around!

Sleep...or the lack thereof
As was expected, I didn't get much sleep at camp, but the reasons were unexpected.  The night before we left I was only able to sleep for 3 hours because my mind wouldn't settle down.  I finally got up and worked on camp stuff for a few hours because I wasn't asleep anyway.  The first night at camp I had what I think was an anxiety attack which kept me from getting more than 3 hours of sleep that night.  Seriously painful - I don't recommend them.  Haley had the unfortunate job of taking me to the nurse, which was about a quarter of a mile uphill at the lodge.  I was a mess.  I got a priesthood blessing, though, and that seemed to help. The following night I heard mice in our cabin which kept me up for much of the night.  In the morning I found the remnants of the candy they ate.  Talk about disgusting.  I am certain there was a mouse in the bunk above me.  I tried to wake Daci up, but she refused to be awoken even when I told her I thought there was a mouse on her bunk!  The next morning she didn't even remember me waking her up.  On the final night one of the girls in our cabin (Solana) threw up in the cabin and on the porch in the middle of the night.  Haley got to take another sick camper to the nurse in the middle of the night while the other leader and I cleaned up the mess.  Let's be honest here: Tauni did most of the cleaning up and I mostly cheered her on! 

Pictures of Our Girls!
And now, for the photos you've all been waiting for...

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