Into the Archives 16-First Year of YW Camp

6/16/2011

This was YW girls camp 2008. My first year! My dad who was in the bishopric came for testimony night. He had just gotten a new camera so he had to try it out. Wow that was a long time ago. I was only a little 12 year old beehive.

A few more memories about my first year:

The theme was "Tradition. Spirit. Honor." And much to my dismay...Pink. I have no idea why they had to pick that as a theme color. (That was the only time we even had a theme color.) But I made a point to take as much BLUE as I could just to bother people. My ward YW presidency decided to get all the girls...all 5 of us...camp chairs. Everyone got pink. I asked very kindly for a blue one. (Hence the blue chair I am sitting on in the picture above. I have taken it to camp ever since then.)

When we drove up I had a distinct feeling I had been there before. It wasn't until over a year later that I was watching a home video of me when I was only a young toddler that I realized why: in this video I was crawling and toddling around on this wood floor...and there were a lot of chairs...there were a few glimpses of the walls...and more chairs. As I watched this it struck me. That was the dining hall from camp! It wasn't just deja vu. I had actually been there before! My mom was a YW's leader back then and had come to visit the camp. But why I had remembered that particular place from when I was just a baby keeps me confused to this day. (just an extra note: we go to a different camp each year.)

There was a dutch oven cooking contest. My ward was teamed up with KC3rd ward because we were so small. Together we won the first place cooking spoon...that was pink and sparkly. Our ward ended up keeping it.

Each day the stake leaders would choose which ward had the most "camp spirit" and award them the spirit stick for the day. (There are two pictures of it in the slideshow. Its big, pink and purple.) Camp spirit included: singing while waiting for dinner, being as loud as possible when asked which ward had the most spirit..etc. Huh. Tough luck for my ward of 5 shy girls. Yet on the last day we, together with KC3, won it. We let KC3 keep it.

Each ward was awarded a random prize. Ours was "The Most Hairspray" award. This came from our skit:

A few weeks earlier we had set aside a whole activity to plan our skit. That year each ward was doing a skit. (Other years it was by cabin or Levels) We thought we had something...until we got to camp. Then everyone decided that it was lame so we came up with another one. Ten minutes before we were supposed to go to the fire pit to do our skit (rhyme not intended) we decided to do yet another one. Who knows why. Well it turned out everyone else had prepared a lot better than us. Jasmyne saved the show.

When we had been trying to figure out what to do ten minutes before, Jasmyne had been messing around with her bug spray. She realized it was like hairspray and thought it would be a great idea to put into the skit. We ended up just using a spray bottle instead of using a whole bunch of bug spray not to mention its just gross to have that much on you.

So I don't remember what the skit was about but I do remember it involved a whole lot of "hairspray". Everyone loved it! And that is why our ward got the "hairspray award".

(It is currently in my care...though Jasmyne should probably have it.)

And last but not least I got a personal award. The "Nature Lover" award to be exact.

I was almost back to my cabin one day when I came across one of my stake leaders, sister Keeney (who was also in my ward). She was crouched down on the ground looking at something. I came and looked over her shoulder. There on the ground was a little snake. She was trying to herd it into a little bag. I ran back to my cabin and grabbed my snake identification booklet (yes I take that kind of stuff to camp) and ran back. By then sister Keeney had it in her bag. I flipped through the book as we walked back to the main area of camp to show everyone. I found the page (p.11). It was a Northern Red-bellied Snake. And that is why I was the Nature Lover.

Epilogue of the snake story:

The camp director happened to be a snake lover like myself and found a box to put it in and kept it for the rest of camp. Only a couple weeks later I caught one in my own yard and kept it for a few months.

 OK for some reason all of my memories from camp involve awards. I'll try to think of something else. 

On the last day we did opening exercises-flag/YW theme/prayer-with...you guessed it KC3. (BTW I have nothing against them. They are all my friends because we were together so much my first year of YW.)

I still remember fondly of the camp song all the first years learned and presented to everyone. Our JC (now they are called YCL's) taught us the song. Her name was Tracy so we called her "Tracy the JC" (really original right?) This is how the song goes:

 Hunka-Hunka

Me a live in an itty bitty housey
Me a live on the thirty-firsty floor
Me a carry an itty bitty washer
Ruffles on the petticoat 10 cents more
Me a like a meow meow
Better than a chow chow
Me a like a hunka hunka
Happy happy me
Way down in Hong Kong
Big mama come along
Take away my hunka hunka
Poor poor me
Then I go to Hong Kong
Give the mama bong bong
Take back my hunka hunka
Happy happy me!

Yeah it doesn't make much sense. But it has stuck with me ever since.

Well OK that's probably long enough for now.
4 days until camp (2011)!!!
Happy Happy Me!