Lift Your Eyes

I didn’t sleep the best on the cot, but I didn’t wake up super early in pain, so I’ll take it. We woke up fairly early for our sunrise hike. I got the girls up. The ones in the hammocks were so cute curled inside. Everyone dressed quickly and we were on our way. The location Tyler chose was not far away. He found a reservoir with a nice path to it. Look at all these happy smiley faces in the morning.

This is one of the activities we brought Nova on. Naturally she pooped right away. It is possible that everyone argued over who would take the poop back to the garbage near the trail head and Tyler just took it while everyone was debating. What a hero.

It wasn’t a long hike and we didn’t even do the whole thing. However, we were walking towards the mountains so it took forever for the sun to rise. The light sat at the top of the mountain taunting us for ages as we walked.

My secret sister gave me sunglasses on the hike. How perfect!

We walked until we came to the reservoir, but people were hungry and some people (ahem...Robyn) don’t walk far, so we headed back. But look...we saw some deer.

Finally, the sun came up. We basked in the long awaited light. I didn't think we could get up early enough for a true sunrise hike, but thanks to the mountain, it worked splendidly.

We took a few pictures on the way home. It was a great way to start the day.

Back at home, Ivory had a fun idea for breakfast. She wanted to roast cinnamon rolls over the fire. Except, it didn’t really work at all. If you stick a whole cinnamon roll on a stick, it takes forever to cook, and as it gets soft, it tends to ooze all over the place and fall off your stick. The best method is to wrap it around the stick like a breadtwist, but even then, it is still hard to get an even cook. I finally took mine inside and cooked it on a paper plate in the oven. And guess what...it worked great. Luckily most of the girls are fine eating doughy things. And I'm still proud of Ivory for coming up with something we hadn't tried before. Daisy also had the morning devotional. She talked about looking to the Savior for an example.

The morning was then divided into workshops. The first was Henna. We each rolled and got a person to put Henna on. Dad had me and I had Ivory. Each person could choose whatever they wanted for their person. I loved all the ideas people came up with. Everyone did such a cute job. Sadly, we knew it wasn’t going to last long, since we’d have to take them off for lake day a few hours later.

Our next workshop was painting with Robyn. It was Paint Nite style and Robyn painted a picture before and then walked us through the steps. She chose such a cute picture. It was a moose on a hill with the moon behind it. I liked how they all had their own unique style. I don’t think I blended well enough for my moon, but I like how my moose turned out. Dad made a stallion instead of a moose, of course. Robyn made hers into a Christmas scene since she had already done it before. When they were all finished, we proudly displayed them in the front room. I love them all. 

Our last workshop was the Challenge Course. Ivory had several games ready for us. The first was minefield. She put junk all over the driveway and some people were blindfolded while others helped them navigate the course. We mixed it up and had some people move objects in front of them. Then we also had the voice change from the good side to the bad side. They would tag hands (which the blindfolded person couldn’t see) and suddenly the voice you thought was good was leading you astray. Confusing. But everyone who couldn't see eventually made it to the other end of the driveway.

Then we played a fun game with cement blocks. You had to walk across a board without falling off and then throw the board back so everyone could get across. June, Dad, and I all died once from falling into the lava. Usually it was because of a bad throw. For instance, I killed June by throwing the board in the wrong place. Sorry June. It was really fun to try and get everyone across. We did it eventually. 

We also did the grain/farmer/wolf/chicken game where you have to row everyone across one at a time. I was the wolf and kept trying to eat chicken Daisy. Yummy.

After the challenge course activities, it was lunch. Ivory’s choice again and she chose hot dogs over the fire. That was actually a great choice. The day wasn’t too hot and we didn’t’ stoke the fire too much. Just enough to get the dogs toasty. And they went down well with chips. Inside during lunch, we played lots of Zoo. It was fun to see what people came up with for animals and I liked June’s idea that you move when you mess up and you become a different animal.

Then we packed for the hotel. We just needed overnight bags. Even so, people still forgot things. Daisy forgot a toothbrush, Robyn forgot her bra and June forgot extra underwear. Definitely annoying for them. We all went over in suits ready to play right away. The drive was about 20 minutes away. Tyler was trying to find a place that had a nice pool. He had to go by pictures online. Even so, he thought the pool didn’t look quite as nice in person, but no one complained. 

Ivory was in charge of 'Lake Day' pool games too. (She had a lot to do today.) She had lots of fun games. We started with Spoons. She brought metal spoons so they sunk to the bottom. But the cards got so thrashed. They were wet after the first round and soaked after the second. It was hard for the littles to play. They didn’t like diving for the spoons. It was brutal. Dad joined eventually and he was so funny, because he just pushed people out of the way. He always got a spoon. :)

Then we played lots of other games. We played Colors where someone stands at the edge and thinks of a category. Then they list things off. If they list the thing you thought of, you have to swim across. If they hear you, they turn around and jump in after you. You can splash and fake them out. It worked on June every time. She was always turning to look. I stayed on the wall for quite a while. No one called my things. But I eventually got my turn to be "it." That game was fun.

We played a flip game like that where you hold someone and when they guess the right thing in the category, you flip them over. I was only a flipper, not a flippee. We played Sharks and minnows and a little Marco Polo. Ivory brought balloons and we played a little keep away and then I made up the game of Frenzy. There were all different colors of balloons. Everyone hits them back and forth when you say ‘Frenzy’. When you yell stop, everyone gets a balloon, but if it happens to be the color you chose at the beginning, they take your place and get to yell out instead. That was fun too. We played for a long time and it was nice because no one got sunburned. Indoor pool and all that.

We didn't take many pictures because it was a pool and phones tend to get wet, but you get the idea that we had a lot of fun.

Then we came back to the room and made dinner which was paninis with the little Foreman press and fruit salad.

While I cooked, it was mandatory shower time. We all took turns getting the only shower of Girls camp we were going to get. But it wasn’t bad since we were only out there three days.  We had a devotional from Dad. He talked about paying it forward. Once a struggling young lady was given a free dinner by a man who ran a diner. Later, when she is successful, she comes back to find that man and help him when he is down on his luck. He cried a little when he told the story. (Ha. I made it through my devotional.) We had a funny skit by Robyn and Dad, where Robyn was a lawn mower and we all tried to start her. Then Dad came in bragging that he could do anything better than we could. And he started it just fine. Because all it needed was a BIG JERK. Funny.

Roll call was fun every time we got together. The girls were really creative with what they came up with. Dad liked one I did that was a tribute to a Bastille song.

Eventually Dad had to go back to the rental because Nova was alone. He wasn’t planning on staying with us. I got out all the glow sticks and we turned off lights and wore them all. (All of them. I brought over 70!) Then we sang songs in the dark. I had all the words printed out and that worked fine because you could see if you put a glow stick near. We sang the camp song, which I really like “Lift Your Eyes”. We sang songs people requested and I put a few extras in there. It was really beautiful.

When we finished, we went to turn the lights on, but we couldn’t figure out how. Turns out, the power went out while we had the lights off. Ironic. 

It was just in our area. Tyler still had power at the house. In fact, he sent me a picture of a light fixture he installed. More irony. We went and played outside while there was still a little light. We played lots more Zoo. Then we played Little Sally Walker and Hey Girl Do That Thing. We had some people looking at us funny, but that didn’t matter. Eventually we went inside. It was almost time for bed. With no lights, we just made do the best we could.

There were two beds and one pull out couch, but the mattress on the pull out couch was terrible. So Robyn came and slept with me and Pearl. It was quite squishy, but better than someone hurting in the morning. I know how terrible a bad bed can be on your back.

It was a little muggy in the room, with no AC, but not terrible. The funny thing was June wearing hot pajama pants. Ivory finally said, “Why are you wearing those?”

“Remember...no underwear.” said June. So Robyn loaned her some cooler pants. What nice sisters.

Despite the heat, we all eventually drifted off to sleep. Even at the hotel, we got a camping experience with the muggy weather and crowded bodies in bed. I wouldn't wish for it to have been different.