I survived Girls Camp! And came back with some pictures, too

It's really hard for me to not write about running. So here's my one running plug for the day: I ran for the first time in a week yesterday and it felt great. I ran slower than I have in awhile, but we're trying to prevent injury. Running is freedom for me.

Now, let's talk Girl's Camp.

The weather was perfect.

The bugs were minimal.

The lake felt amazing.

The girls were spectacular.

It was more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

But is a barrel of monkeys really that fun? Or mostly just a little scary? 

I'm sticking with fun. 

Here's some pictures.

With some captions.

Because this is a blog, and not Facebook.

The rifle range.

Of course I loved it.

Thanks for teaching me everything I know, Dad!

Lovely form for the back two girls.

Let me tell you something about Girl's Camp...

Sometimes when you put a bunch of girls together for a week

it gets silly

borderline weird

but the best part, is that everyone is silly and weird

so in reality, it's COOL.

See how cool?

She might hate me later...

We are oozing with coolness.

In fact, people were jealous of our glasses.

Also, we were trying to make nerdy faces.

Epitome of cool.

Also at Girl's Camp, there are random Rock Out! moments

this was one of them

Our whole gang.

all 6 of our girls

and 4 of our leaders

We have a familiar resemblance to some famous green turtles I think...

Horses!

I chose not to participate in this one.

I'm still a little skittish around horses because of what happened last time...

maybe I should write about it one day

My favorite summer thing in the world:

boating.

I could spend every day for the entire summer on a boat in the lake and I would be a happy, happy girl.

This is my favorite picture of me.

I think I look cool.

and tan.

and boaterish.

I'm only slightly conceited.

Boating again!

These girls were dying to go and it didn't take much to convince me!

Rappelling and rock climbing.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time so I only got to rappel.

I figured when we move to Idaho I'll have plenty more opportunities to try real rock climbing.

It looked safer than I was expecting.

I think I could do it.

Also, it's a good thing this picture was taken from the front.

With helmets and people to cover up the harnesses.

See the green tent?

See that red tent?

We slept in the red tent.

Our food stayed in the green tent.

They are less than 10 feet apart.

The first night I didn't sleep because I thought a raccoon was in our tent.

He was really trying to get food from the green tent.

The next night I found some earplugs.

I told ya I was really cool.

Our group was "from Britain"

so one of the girls made bonnets.

Legit bonnets.

It took her hours.

She's the bomb.com

See where I am? With the hat?

See the girl to my left, kneeling? She's the bomb.com bonnet maker.

Also, about a billion people thought I was one of the girls.

Do I really look that young?

...never mind, don't answer.

This wasn't even all of the gear.

It went into two and a half cars.

Headed home.

Dirty.

Sweaty.

Some covered in bug bites 

some not

And filled with fun, happy, memories of another spectacular year at camp.

Ticks were executed by fire and explosion.

Giant spiders in tent were killed with shoes.

Races with turtles were held.

All in all, the best week of my summer!

Thanks girls!!!

Oh, and I should mention we're moving.

In a month.

To an apartment that's closer to campus.

I am SO. dang. excited.

and happy.

My 10 minutes of fame

I'm famous.

Well, in the Mormon realm of the world.

and by famous, I don't really mean famous.

Do you remember this amazing woman? Who gave this amazing talk at General Conference?

 Elaine S. Dalton

General President of Young Women

She's pretty spectacular.

Some people know, some people don't, but I was recently called to serve as the 1st counselor in our Young Women's presidency in our ward. That's a huge calling!

So I had an amazing opportunity to attend a training meeting for all the Young Women leaders in the area on Saturday. Sister Dalton was there directing the training. During the meeting she did an object lesson of sorts, using people as visual aids. She made a comment about how many of the YW leaders these days look young enough to be the girls, and then how she needed someone who looked young to come up and act as a young women.

We had happened to get there early so we were in the 2nd row.
And I'm young. Really young.
And I look young.

She looked straight at me and had me come up.

She put her arm around me and talked about how I was the young women and how I needed a strong support group. So she had other audience members call out people who could be a support: mom/dad, yw leaders, young men leaders, home teachers, bishop, sunday school teachers, seminary teachers, grandma/grandpa, etc. They all came up and formed a circle around me. Then Sister Dalton came into the circle, took me by the arm and led me out. She commented on how easy it was to pull me away from that group, and how even though a young woman can be surrounded by all these people, one big temptation can come in and take her away.

So she had the people link arms around me and then she tried to get in. She said when they were all working together and trying hard to help support and protect this young women, it was much harder for temptation to get in. Then she had everyone go down and she put her arm around me again and talked and I have no idea what she said. Until she asked me how I felt in the circle. Then she said "and I know you're one of the strong one's because you have that sparkle in your eye." And she side hugged me and said thank you.

Uh, pretty dang cool!

I've never met a General Authority of our church before, not too mention have ever been that close in proximity to one. It was a pretty neat experience! Something I will definitely never forget.

It was a really spectacular meeting and I learned alot about myself, about the Young Women organization, and about my responsibilities as a leader. I am so grateful I was able to attend!