“Walk Like an Egyptian!” {part a}

Last week, I got to go to girls camp with the young women in my ward.  It was our lucky year, where we got to go to Heber Valley Camp.  I had never been up to Heber before, and was looking forward to experiencing it.  Our ward’s camp director had a baby earlier in the year, and was unable to go, so myself and my Secretary, Ragena were the leaders for this camp.  I have never had to plan the activities and food before, and I was quite stressed out about everything.  There was a lot to get done, and I only had a week and a half after returning from my vacation to get everything pulled together and done.  I wasn’t sure we would pull it off, but we did, and we had a great time!  We had 14 girls from our ward, most of whom were either brand new beehives or girls who had moved into our ward recently.  It was fun to get to know them in such a fun setting!  I hope I didn’t scare any of them too bad, (I can get quite looney at girls camp!!)

I want to remember all the fun things we did, so I am splitting it up into a few different posts.

At Heber Valley, the girls are all required to ride chartered buses into camp.  (I heard it was an agreement the Church made with the city when buying the land.)  In any case, I was glad to not have to drive up there, so I could leave our car home to my hubby and kids for the week.  Jason is such an awesome man!  He is always willing every year to take the time off from work to be with our kids so I can go to girls camp.  I love him so much for it! 

Once we got there, it was a whirlwind getting everything set up and put away before our first activities.  I started at the challenge course with half of my girls.  I got to teach part of the “low course”, and got to watch several of them do the “high course”.  At the end of the session, they let any leaders who wanted to, do the high course/zip line.  I am TERRIFIED of heights, but really wanted to try, so I did.  The climb up the pole was really easy for me, I have done quite a bit of rock climbing before.  Once you are up there though, they make you turn AWAY from the pole and walk across another pole.  This was the hardest part for me.  I was shaking so badly!  It was great to get to the other side.  Of course, then I was hooked up to the zip line and told just to leap off!  That was also pretty terrifying!  I was kind of a dork, and held myself up on the ropes at first, (which is why I look so stupid!)  but eventually trusted in my harness and had a blast!!

Our Stake theme was “Destination: Exaltation, It’s an Amazing Race!”  Each ward chose a different location to be.  We talked about a lot of different places, and then voted to be Egypt.  We had so much fun with this theme!!  Ragena made everyone their own “Cartouche” (their name in Egyptian hieroglyphics) out of iron on transfer paper, and we made each girl their personalized shirt.  These were so much fun!!  We also had an activity earlier in the summer where we each made our own headdress out of a headband and beads.  The girls all looked so cute!  We also made a pretty sweet flag that you can see in this picture.

Each morning and night at flag ceremony, the stake would have “minute to win it” challenges and the winning ward would get a treat.  Our girls really enjoyed participating in these.

We made up a camp song about our ward’s theme and performed it.

We got rained on the first two nights, and so we REALLY appreciated the warm and dry cabins and the ELECTRICITY that came with them!

We discovered hidden talents of our girls.

And we bundled up to go brush our teeth!

Our 2nd day of camp, my group of girls did certification.

This is my awesome “Super Senior Junior Leader”, Hannah and me!  She was fabulous, and I relied on her a lot during the week.

As part of the stake theme, we all got passports and were to go around and visit the other “countries/places” and learn something.  One ward was India and dressed all the girls up in “sari’s”.  Another was Old West, and had the girls play a cup game.  We also went to Paris and learned a scripture about love.  The ward that was Japan has us put together relief kits to send over there.  The other two wards I didn’t make it to, but I think California had the girls decorate their own star, and Mexico taught them a dance.  We had a phrase in hieroglyphics for the girls to decipher.

There was lots of yummy food!

We enjoyed our Stake leaders visiting us for a meal!

We made the Stake craft—luggage tags.  (they were the “travel company”)

I demonstrated the awesome other uses of these tags to the girls—they make pretty nice earrings!!

We had some fun crafts in our ward too.  We made tie dye pillowcases.  I found the coolest tie dye kit at Target that comes in spray bottles!  I thought it would be less messy….nope!  Just as messy, just a little more convenient for camping!

That dang rain wouldn’t stay away, and ruined two nights of us enjoying campfires.  We finally decided to make our banana boats in the stake’s ovens! 

It worked just as great!  I couldn’t get over how NICE everything was up there!  We loved taking advantage of all of the nice modern conveniences (like SHOWERS!).  I also super duper appreciated THIS lady, and all she did to help me, calm me, drug me up, and have so much fun with!!!  Thanks Ragena! 

Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the girls camp tales yet!  Many more fun adventures coming your way!!!