Sunday, June 26, 2011

Hurray for Girls Camp!

This is what girls camp is like up here in Oregon (at least in my stake :). They rent out this way cool camp ground and divide up the cabins. All the areas are a little different, but I lucked out and got the newest cabins with my group of 1st years. We had 2 cabin moms, 3 counselors and 9 first years in each cabin. It was so much fun. Here I have been whining about having to go (we all know whining is one of the things I do best) and then I ended up having more fun than most of the women up there. I loved being around these girls (and these other amazing women). Believe it or not, my testimony was totally boosted being there. It was an amazing week and I can't wait to go with Joelle next year. (If the truth be told, I don't know if I would have had such a great time if I hadn't been in these fantastic new cabins - some of the other cabins are pretty old and rustic. We were the only ones with bathrooms in our cabins - other than the leaders).


Isn't this beautiful. It was like being on vacation. I could not believe how green it was. The hike we went on was awesome. Of course I only took pics. this one day because I knew that David wanted to see it all. Every cabin had a theme. Our counselors (5th year girls) came up with the theme of each cabin. Our them was "the 70's". That little banner says "Groovy Baby." My counselors were so cute. I loved getting to know them.

This was the "adult" room in the cabin. My bunk is there on the right. Believe it or not these mattresses were pretty dang comfy (that or I was so tired at night I just slept well).


This is like a big common area in the center of our little cabin. Straight ahead to the right is the little bathroom area. There were two of these rooms in the cabin as well. Each one had 6 bunks. The girls didn't even argue about what bunk they were given. They were all so cute! This little one was a daughter of the cabin mom that was with me.
This is just the other side of that room.
Seriously, have any of you camped so well for girls camp? I will be so sad next year if I don't get to be in these cabins again :).
This is where we ate and sang all those crazy songs you sing at meal time.This area is called Toby's. It is just a big open area with a stage (to the left that you can't see). We would gather here every night for "campfire" (which is funny since we never actually had a fire). This is really the main gathering hall. It is actually pretty big even though it doesn't look it. This is where all the good stuff took place.
They have this little pond (it actually looks bigger in this picture than it actually is) where you can catch tons of little newts. I don't know if you can see the little boat to the right or not, but they have about 12 of them. They are little 2 seater things and the first years went nuts over them. It was funny because you rarely saw any girls older than a second year in them. I guess they get their fill that first year, or they just grow out of it. The water in the pond looks so nasty though, you couldn't have paid me to get in one of the boats. I would have died if I had fallen in that water. :)
Aren't these girls so cute. Who wouldn't want to spend a week with them? It was neat how accepting they were. I loved being pulled back into the fun (yet crazy emotional) life of a teenager. Though I would never want to be one again, it was great to feel their energy, and love.
This pool was massive, and freezing. I don't know how anyone could handle swimming in it. They do a polar plunge every morning at 6:30 for anyone who wants to. If you do it 3 out of the 5 days you get a bead. All my girls got their beads - nuts! (although the pool had been closed the first 2 days so they only had to do it once to get a bead - still crazy though).
This is the meadow. They do most of their certification here.These were my counselors. Cutest girls ever! Yes they have their tooshes stuffed for our flag call that afternoon. They were always so happy and took such good care of our cabin. I hope I get to hang with these girls next year because they were awesome. I wish I could have gotten a picture of my YCL's (the 6th and 7th year girls that taught all my classes). They were amazing. I loved spending so much time with them and just seeing the strength and beauty that is out there in the youth of the curch. It was very humbling at times.
This deer was hanging around all week. There were a couple of baby deer too, but this one was brave enough to be out with all of us at all hours of the day. At this point I was maybe 3 feet away from her. She would just come and snack in the meadow. The girls loved her, but were good about keeping their distance. Overall it was a fantastic week. I know this isn't the most exciting post, it was more for journaling puroses :). I really had a great time.

Piano Recital

On Wed. June 8th Emma and Joelle had their first piano recital. It was so cute! They had a ton of fun doing it. Emma was very nervous for the entire week before, but Joelle wasn't nervous at all. She finally got a little nervous right before hand. They both did so well. We were so proud of them.





Saturday, June 4, 2011

"The Boy Who Lived"

Last night Jacob was attacked by Lord Voldemort! He battled hard and barely made it.....
....But seriously, don't you love being ripped out of a nice deep sleep at 2:30 in the morning by a crying child to rush into their room and find them, and their pillows and their floor covered in blood. Then you are supposed to be able to think clearly enough to help the child who can't stop crying and is not really awake himself to understand what is going on. So you rush him to the bathroom (dripping blood the whole way because you are not awake enough to realize that your little cupped hand won't catch much blood at all). You start by having him lean over the sink (duh - really not that smart to have him leaning forward) to wash out the wound, which then starts to get blood all in his eyes and causes more crying because the water is so cold and makes him even more cold than he already is and sends him into more shock than he already is. Finally you come to your senses and realize how to handle the situation. You start asking your husband to grab things for you and he looks at you with a sick look on his face and says he needs to sit down because he either got up to fast or the look and the smell of the blood is really getting to him. So you put a cold compress on the head of your child and have him lay on the ground next to his Dad who is laying down so he won't pass out. Dad holds the compress for the next 40 minutes while you commence in cleaning the counters and carpets. You go through a whole bottle of peroxide (thank heaven for peroxide) cleaning everything. Then finally you clean your child, change his clothes (which you throw away because you can't deal with cleaning anymore blood), put a bandaid on his head (when really you should probaby take him to get stiches but you are all so tired you decide the wound isn't really that bad) and you all go back to bed (3:35am). In the morning you walk in to check on your son and see that the bleeding hadn't stopped as well as you thought it had and there is caked blood in his hair and his pillow now has to be thrown out because it has a small puddle of blood. Oh the joys of being a mother.
It is now 10:00 in the morning and Jacob has been bathed and has a new bandaid and is pretty dang excited to have a "Harry Potter" scar. All of my kids are jealous and I have asked them all not to try to fall out of bed and land on the corner of their end table just to have a Harry Potter scar. It is not worth it. We only need one "Harry" in the family and they can all just choose to be the other characters that don't have scars. Jacob did amazingly well with all of this. After we calmed him down and he was laying by Dad, he was just the sweetest little thing. He is such a good little boy and I am so greatful to get to be his mother. I wish they didn't have to grow up and I could just keep my little family like this forever. I love little boys!

Friday, June 3, 2011

a bunch of nothingness

Okay, so it has been forever since I blogged and still I don't have much to offer. I thought I had a lot more, but I realized much of it is on David's camera and he has to format it for me so I can put it on here. I am not so good with all that mumbo-jumbo, so I don't know how to do it myself. But hopefully we will get those pictures on here soon (especially since his pictures are so much better than mine - I really need to learn to use his camera-- so he can then buy a new one :). Right Dave?).
Anyway, this was our egg coloring day. We ended up going to Wendy's house to say goodbye over Easter weekend so we did all our Easter stuff the Friday before. It was really fun. I love that all my kids still like to find eggs. The older 3 were really good about helping the younger two find eggs. It was really sweet. All those pics are on David's camera of course :). (I can't believe it is June 3rd and I am just now getting around to blogging Easter - Crazy!)



We also got the joy of meeting all the new puppies in our Port Orford group. The kids loved playing with these cuddly little guys.We can't wait to see Little Bear when my parents come to visit. Joelle needs some puppy cuddle time. She is totally puppy hungry.



These are horrible pictures, I know, but I figure I blog everyone else's birthdays, I should do mine too right? This was an awesome cake that Wendy made me for my birthday (which is crazy that she even made me a cake since she was moving in 3 days - She is an amazing sister). It was so sad to see them go, but I am so happy that life is good for them right now. I don't know if it was because we were so sad that they were leaving, or we were in denial, or what, but we didn't get any other pictures that weekend. No pictures of their cute kids, or Wendy and Jose, or anything. How lame! I am glad we got to go spend that last little time with them. We will miss them, but we know that they are in the right place :). BTY - My birthday was April 24th and I turned 33 - just thought I would get that in there so I can look it up next time I can't remember how old I am (which happens all the time).
Katie's new hobby is cooking. She loves to be in the kitchen making soup or salad. Jacob loves it too and is usually right by her side, but he was off playing at this point. They will sit for hours cutting and spinning salad in the salad spinner. It is really cute. Thank you Wendy for the idea of giving them butter knives instead of real knives - that has been very helpful :).When we all sit down to watch a show as a family and we ask the kids what they want to watch, Jacob's answer is almost always "Take Home Chef". Love it!