Tug O War

Friday at camp is typically a game day. I was in charge of games. I was super excited to have the girls try out all my crazy ideas. Unfortunately, mother nature decided to do things her own way and it rained all morning. So games were basically canceled. We did take wards in one at a time to the pavilion to play our Certification Jeopardy. It was very fun, but certainly not the way I planned on games going. But being flexible is an important part of life.

The day cleared up towards the end of the morning, just in time for the Tug of War. The Tug of War has a long and glorious tradition at camp. Some wards love it and others despise it. Part of me thought it might be time to do something else, but our current Stake Young Women's President resides in the camp of loving the Tug of War. So, we went for it.

I brought a bracket and we worked our ways through the matches. Despite my misgivings, it was truly fun to watch the girls come together with each other. Some pulled and many rooted on their team. Look at this cool huddle in 2nd ward.

Love Christy. She is tough.

We have some tough girls too.

This checkered flag says it all. You'd better not let it cross the line on your side.

Michelle took all these photos. They are pretty amazing. Look at Emma's face. Serious concentration.

Each ward is allowed ten people on the rope. This means 2 leaders and 8 girls. Look at our ward pulling. (June is in there! So is Robyn!)

Sister Bench is an awesome cheerleader. Pull girls, pull!

We didn't win all our matches. But we won at least one. There was sadness at losing and celebration at winning. This hip bump is quite the victory move.

Love this picture of Emily and Abby.

The wards did great. It actually came down to 6th ward and 8th ward. Eighth ward has never made it so far before. In their mind, coming in 2nd was basically winning. They did lose to 6th ward, but they celebrated with sparkling cider in their camp. (They are more of a crafty ward, but strength can be hidden.)

After the ward battle comes the Stake battle. Leaders against girls. Come on ladies, get ready to pull.

Carrie was up front. Cute birthday girl. Jolene passed the crown off to her.

Smiles all around at the beginning.

Now some game faces.

Rebecca was our anchor. She was amazing. We were kicking trash. The checkered flag was slowly inching in our direction.

Look at these girls feeling the loss coming their way.

Then the unthinkable happened. The rope slipped from around Rebecca's waste. Without our anchor well attached, we lost our momentum. And apparently, we are better on the front end than on the back end.

The girls triumphed in the end. They deserved it, especially for not giving up the entire time.

They rubbed it in our faces later at flag when they sang "We are the champions of old ladies" to the tune of Queen's famous song. (Ouch, that is a bit low girls. And did you have to spray us with squirt guns as well??) :)

It was really a fun afternoon. We went well past lunch as we let the girls battle it out in years. I would say it was one of the best Tug o Wars, but I haven't seen any others. It certainly was fun for me.

Service and Sodas

As I mentioned in an earlier camp post, our allotted service project was watering trees. It is a good idea at the end of July, but Mother Nature had us covered this time around. We still wanted the girls to do service, so several projects were assigned.

Some wards were assigned to give the pavilion a good cleaning. Lots of dust and dirt make their way into that structure. The girls did a great job, and from this picture, it looks like they had a blast doing it.

Many wards were assigned to clean thistles off the trails. Those thistles grow very tall and they are super pokey. I personally don't like the burrs. They are called many things, but they look like this when they attach themselves to your clothes...

My ward was assigned to help clean the grove where we do singing trees. We spent some time getting rid of thistles there and branches that were in the way. We actually moved quite a large log that took almost twenty girls to lift. Here are some pictures of people cleaning up.

After, we spent some time replenishing wood piles by the camps and getting more thistles by the roadside.

I would say it was a successful day with many hands making light work.

That same evening, we did Singing Trees. I really love it. Each ward has a song that they work on. We start with the stake and then each ward sings in turn. It is so interesting to see what songs are picked. The song our ward sang was so beautiful and I had never heard it before. You can hear a version here. And when each ward has sang, we sing our stake song together. This year, with the grove theme, we chose, In Quiet Grove. It was amazing to hear the girls sing all together.

It was pretty dark when we went up there, so I don't have any pictures, but we did have a little gathering before the singing that was really fun. We had a soda bar set up like those Sodalicious shops. I'm not a big soda drinker so I haven't been to those, but I'm assuming that we did something similar. You can tell we are at girls camp and not scout camp because of the decorations. Only girls would bring Chinese paper lanterns up into the mountains.

The SYCL's came up with a menu with different flavor ideas.

I didn't try any of those. Someone told me what I should put in mine, and it was delicious, although I can't remember at all what was in it. Here are my two cuties enjoying their drinks.

This was the day that they did the buns in our ward campsite. I got in on the action. I miss a lot of what they do there, but sometimes I'm lucky to stumble in at the right time.

It was a really great evening. Singing makes me so happy. For me, it is a stress reliever. Not that I was having much stress at camp. It is just bonus goodness there.

Waking Up Before the Sun

One of the traditions of camp is the sunrise hike. All these traditions are new to me of course since I haven't been going to camp, but I was pretty sure this would not be one of my favorite ones. After all, I'm not really a morning person.

But after the initial waking up part, the rest was rather nice. The hike is a little steep at first, but then it is a gradual rise out into open fields at the top of a hill. Here you can see everyone coming up.

It wasn't exactly dark since there was all the ambient light from behind the mountains, but you could still get fun silhouette shots. Do you know whose braids those are?

We all got to the top and sat in our wards and chatted as we waited for the sun to rise. Our ward found a good spot in the grass.

There was lots of picture taking. Here are the birthday girls of the day. Sister Hale and Missy.

 Love Sister Cox and her daughter Albany.

Really love those unicorn jammies.

Second ward is the biggest ward. There are so many friendly faces in there for me. I sometimes feel like they are our sister ward, but mostly because June has been friends with Hannah for so long.

 Here comes the sun. (Can you hear the Beatles singing?)

Such beauty.

President Murray gave us a short devotional up there on the mountain. It was nice to be up with the sun. (Yes, even for this morning person.)

Okay ladies, time to wrap up. Put on your serious faces and let's hike back down.

This is possibly my favorite picture of the morning. President Murray hiking into the sunshine.