And Santa Visited Us at Camp...

 I'm in the very back row 10th from the left. 

(Click here to see these pictures bigger.)

Last week was...well...crazy. As you well know I went to stake YW camp. Normally my story would have started on Tuesday like any other normal girls would have (except the YCLs who went a day early). But no. I'm defiantly not normal. My story started on Sunday when, as soon as I woke up, I knew something was wrong.

On Sunday morning I woke up at 6 for no reason. Really not normal. Then I realized my head was kind of spinning. Defiantly not right. Oh yeah...my nose was all plugged up. aaarrrrgggggg....So yeah. My week was already not starting right.

Thankfully the spinning stopped enough to go to church and by the time I got home it had stopped completely. But the stuffiness remained. And it got worse. My head was over taken by mucus. OK. OK. Enough grossness!

(This was about what I was feeling like.)

So Tuesday rolled around and I rolled out of bed with it. I was excited but a little bummed that my head was feeling like it might explode. Like that was going to stop me! I got everything ready and got over to the church. Everyone was already there so after everyone figured out what car they were in we were off. Well because of my sluggishness I didn't realize until it was to late that the only seat left was in sister Millers car. And all that was in her backseat was luggage. Ah well our 45 minute drive was the awesomest!!! Trust me sister Miller is amazing. That is why she was our ward camp director and is our new YW secretary.

Alright. So that picture of her is a little creepy...but you know.

So when we got to there we spent the rest of the morning setting up camp.

This was our amazing screened tent. It was a life saver! It kept the bugs and direct sunlight out but let the breeze in. And our huge ward flag was on the front of the tent so it kept a lot of sun out too.

 Our ward theme to go with the stake theme was "Indiana Jones in Egypt."
Or "We're S.E.T. Indiana Jones Style."

Then we had our official welcome by the stake leaders:

Very awesome! The camp theme was "We're S.E.T." (Seeking Eternal Treasures.) So each song had to do with self worth.

Then we split up into levels. We played a few games including Whack-a-Moo! (We were supposed to teach them to younger levels but that never did happen I don't think.)

But then we had some more important business to take care of. The glow stick dance.

Last year the 4th years did a glow stick dance. 

(Click here to see it.)

It-was-awesome! 

So I made it known that all 4th years need to do it every year. And so we, as a 4th year group, put together the second annual 4th year glowstick dance!

We did it to the song "Tonight, Tonight". And here is behind the scenes. (In the second clip I'm 5th from the left.)

So for the rest of the day at every spare moment we worked on our dance. And trust me by the end of the day and for the rest of the week my legs were sooo sore. All that crouching will take a toll on your thighs.

We ate our sack lunch at the craft pavilion so we could get back to the dance as fast as possible.

After lunch we had free time. We could do crafts or do "water play" (more on that in a second.) I did a craft but we had to work on the dance most of the time.

For one of our camp crafts we made these cute little jars. After we finished them we got a tea lights to put in them.

 Well we didn't have a real pool. So this was what our water play looked like...

 ...and for some reason there were girls (mostly first years) found this mud hole and they played in it everyday. All I could say (along with many others) was ewwwwww!

 And with mud holes come crawdads. This was one of the biggest.

So after free time we had a special devotional. It was a military guest speaker...who had also been my YCL my second year!

And then we had dinner. It was then that we realized meal times were going to be fun! We walked into the dinning hall and you'd have thought there was going to be a hula. There were flowers everywhere and the windows had "palm trees" on them. For dinner we had pulled pork on Hawaiian rolls. Mached perfectly.

 

So as I said, every spare minute was spent working on the dance. But on top of that we had to work on our skit. Somehow we pulled it off. By now I was starting to loose my voice of course. (I tend to do that when I'm sick.) I guess it was good I was playing a guy part. Does the tin man have a deep voice?

 

 So yes we did a parody of "Wizard of Oz".

  The third years did a parody of "Finding Nemo".

 The second years did a parody of "Star Wars".

The first years did a parody on the movie "Tangled".

 All the ward leaders were asked to come up and lay on this tarp and do what they were told. This is how it went.

 And last of all the stake leaders did a "swim routine".

Then we went back to more thigh hurting work and finally at 10:30pm we did our famous dance! (I would defiantly make this video full screen because, even after a lot of touching up, its hard to see.)

This was one of my YCLs laying in the pile of glowsticks...

So then after that we stayed up until who knows when. I had four friends in my tent so it wasn't hard. We had pretty decorations from left over glow sticks!

The next morning after breakfast we had certification. That took most of the morning but we had got pretty much all of it done so we didn't have to worry about it the next day.

So while we were at it we decided to pass off our song.

Sister Gadd, our camp music specialist, decided to pick a hymn for us to memorize and pass off. She chose "Carry On" and drew it on a sheet so when we passed it off we could sign it. Yes she drew that whole song by hand.

OK so we were passing it off and by now I couldn't sing at all. It just came out all choppy and awful. Thankfully she let us sing it together. So I just sat there with my head in my arms (we couldn't look at the sheet) and mumbled along...or what ever sound I was making.

For lunch we ate salad, made hotdogs and cooked baked beans in a dutch oven. Well of course I don't like salad and hotdogs so I just ate the beans. I filled my plate to the top. So as I was sitting down I turned to to my friend Jasmyne and told her that something was going to go wrong with a plate full of beans. Hint they weren't in a bowl. Not a split second after I said that my friend Chase accidentally placed her hand in my boiling hot beans. Talk about self fulfilling prophecy. She had been reaching for something and wasn't paying attention to where her other hand was. I tried saying sorry over and over but I couldn't stop laughing.

And then to add to the excitement I ended up spilling some of on my lap anyway.

So for free time that day our water play was upgraded. We got a blowup water slide. So my swimsuit wasn't all for not.

 

Dinner time was interesting. The ward leaders had a pudding eating contest.

Along with that the dinning hall theme was Christmas. Soooo as the title of this post says...Santa visited us! To make it even better there were a few people who had a birthday that day.

So those awesome lanterns we made came in handy. They were beautiful ambiance for what was called "singing in the trees". Each ward picked a hymn and sung it for everyone else. As hard as it was for me I chose not to sing because by now my voice was hideous. I sounded like I was breathing helium.

Thursday morning our fourth year leader, sister T, told us we each needed our hair braided in a particular way. Even with my short hair (OK so its getting a little longer) she was able to get a braid in. She told us that it would come in handy in a little while.

After everyone had a braid she pulled out a map and a few shovels.

We were off on a treasure hunt.

We walked the trail through the back of the camp and found red X's along the path. We were supposed to dig these plastic boxes up but most of them had been unearthed for whatever reason. In any case there was treasure in each box. In the first one there was gold cloth for pirate headbands. In another one were eye patches. Gems for the patches. Little silver danglies on wire to stick in our useful braid. In the last box were stick on mustaches.

Along the way we crossed this scary bridge.

This is what we looked like after our hunt.

During lunch we had entertainment by the YCLs. They had to suck on a pickle until it was gone. (The room theme was rain forest that day.)

The rest of the day we basically free time because the fourth years were done with certification.

So Jasmyne and I said adieu to the rest of the girls who had to go do other stuff.

Even then they were only gone for an hour so we played mafia until dinner.

 This picture may look awkward but its just me getting really mad because I was so into the game and I just had to kill off McKenzie. I was almost to the point of writhing on the ground. (Turns out she was a citizen) Oh yeah. And you see the duct tape on my arms? I found out that they make a great tan line! I mean I did it on purpose but I just had to let you know that everyone notices when you look like a tiger before and after you take it off.

The stake leaders did the napkin race during dinner.

After dinner was ward night. Normally the whole Bishopric comes. But our bishop was out of town and my dad had to work so it was only brother Bennion left. He did a great devotional by himself.

After the devo we had a few minutes to mess around so there was some sword fighting going on.

Then it was time for B.O.M. We went down to the "Chapel" (a little clearing on a hill with benches). Along the way there were actors acting out the plan of salvation. When we got to the chapel we were handed little scraps of paper that had Book of Mormon page numbers on them. When everyone was seated we were told to start reading. (We had been told to bring our scriptures) After about 15-20 minutes between all those people we had read the entire Book of Mormon. That was a cool experience. 

As soon as that was over testimony meeting started. It was over 2 hours long and yes I did eventually get up there. I was worried about my voice but it turned out OK. It gave me an excuse to explain to everyone that I did not normally sound like that.

 While waiting for breakfast I had a great view of some great friends.

Daily theme: Flamingos

For our breakfast entertainment 6 volunteers were put up to the challenge of blowing bubbles while standing on one leg.

And after breakfast was the second annual sleeping bag race. I got second again only loosing to Shelbe. Again.

After that we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until only our screened tent was left standing with a few chairs. We were the first ward to be cleaned up so guess what we did? We played mafia!

At lunch we watched as ward leaders pulled apart frozen solid shirts.

Sister Miller didn't win. But we and a few allies were determined to open the shirt if was the last thing we did.

As the last activity of camp we did testimony balloons. We wrote our testimony in a couple words and then went to the field and released them. Maybe someone will find one...

After that everyone packed up and left like normal people. But am I normal? Nope. My dad was on the last shift of priesthood so he had to stay until every last person was gone. So I stayed with him. And bishop Jarvis was late like always so almost all KC3 ward was left and we ended up leaving at the same time as they did so I didn't mind staying at all. (Remember they are my sister ward and I love them almost as much as I do my own ward.)

And as a closing you can look and my awesome friends...camp can really get to you in a weird way.

In case you were wondering and worrying: my voice was back the morning after camp (why not?) and now I only have to blow my nose a few times a day.

 Thanks for reading!
(And you thought the Chicago post was long...)