Monkey Highlights Nine, a.k.a. GIRLS CAMP

It has been two decades since I have been to a full week of Girls' Camp. I can't even begin to tell you how much I missed it. There is something special about being in the wilderness that brings you closer to your Father in Heaven and helps your testimony grow along with other sisters in the Gospel.

Amazing.

That said, getting photos organized in the wake of this exciting week is pure chaos. I actually brought a nice camera and used it plenty, but there were times when I didn't have my camera out because I was involved in activities and so I found photos from other people. So a huge thank you goes out to Michelle Willis, Rebecca Francis, and Jes Myrick for taking amazing pictures and letting me use some of them.

I'm happy to have so many great photos that they won't fit in one post, so I'll break up Girls' Camp into events. So not everything will be in order, but all the basic ideas will get on there hopefully.

Let's start with: GETTING TO CAMP

As a Stake Leader, we went up on Monday to get everything ready. We met at Melinda's to pack up our cars and trailers. We were all pretty excited. Our SYCLs were Sarah, Emily, Maddy, Jacque, Hannah, Alisha, and Allie. They were a great group of girls.

We had a couple issues with the trailer. I believe that the tarp flew off and Amy and Michelle had to wait for cops to help and then go and buy a new tarp. I missed most of this since I went up in my own vehicle with Rebecca. But we all eventually arrived safely.

 It was raining when we arrived. And that was going to be our lot for most of the week. We still got our area set up as much as we could. Check out these paver stones. I think they are supposed to be in the value colors, but they have seen some love.

I know this picture is blurry, but I love these ladies and this shows about how much light we had in the cabins. Not much.

There was so much wildlife bustling about. Pot guts, squirrels, deer, and even a bear. While we were there, they ended up shooting a bear that was too close to camp grounds and wasn't leaving. We didn't see it happen. We just heard dogs one morning and found out later. The pot guts were everywhere. You could just plan on them getting into everything if you didn't close doors. This fellow was pretty chunky. I decided they were eating well, until I heard a story about a pot gut having babies in someone's shoe. Maybe this little guy is really a girl?

Amy did a great job on our decorations for the amphitheater. Our Theme was 'Find Your Grove' with the daily themes being 'Find Your Questions, Find Your Time, Find Yourself, and Find Your Heavenly Father'.

The rest of the evening consisted of dinner and getting our skits in order. Michelle was working on being Emma Smith for our Faith Walk. (She did such a fabulous job. I didn't have any pictures from that night.)

Here is our cool flag. Our value was Faith and our tree was the Aspen tree. (Each ward had a tree to go with the Grove theme.)

Sadly, the evening was not the best for me. I got altitude sickness and got a killer headache that didn't go away until I threw up all my dinner. After that I felt much better. And for the record, I didn't feel ill the rest of the time I was there. But we were at camp and the girls were all coming the next day. Yay!