I'm still in One Piece

Just returned home yesterday from Girl's Camp. One woman described it like this:

It's like giving birth. It's painful, but wonderful - and by the time the next year comes around, you've forgotten the pain enough to be willing to do it again.

TRUTH!
It was SO awesome! SO much work, so little sleep, so uncomfortable, SO spiritual, so FUN, so silly, so liberating, so exhausting!!!!
I really want to record the details while it's still fresh in my memory, so please forgive the lengthiness and skip around as you will....

First let me just say how grateful I am to my husband who photographed this wonderful experience with such thought and insight and talent so we can keep the memories fresh! But most especially for putting in his 100% labor and love. He never complained, he entertained the girls and really enjoyed himself, he led the other men into work that needed to get done. What an example he is to me! I was afraid I wouldn't be able to let loose and be 100% silly, I hate to feel stupid in front of him! He never once made me feel self-conscious for being the idiot that I was, (which is a vital thing at Girl's Camp in order for them to let loose, be silly and to have fun)!He was PERFECT for the job and he supported me like no one else could have! I am SO glad he was there - it wouldn't have been the success it was without him. It is times like these that illustrate why I'm absolutely in love with him!

DAY 1:
We'd already packed the sleeping bags and totes, so we just met together at my house. We started off reading our Scriptures, saying a prayer, and handing out Travel snacks. We loaded up and went on our way. We had no trouble finding the place, and we even got there at our scheduled time. We survived the confusion in getting the tents set up, and helped the poor Beehives get set up after we got ours up and they were still struggling. We had sandwiches for lunch and then we went and had our Roll Call with the Stake. We'd line up and hike to the Ampitheatre chanting our Ward Cheer as we went. We were never late to any of our Stake Gatherings!!! What a feat!!! We even got there early enough to sing the Camp Songs! When we got back to camp we were too tired to hike so we just chilled out playing some games. We had a gift wrapped a million times that had a Heart Tag in between each layer - and they had to follow the instructions on each tag that they unwrapped. It was things like: Hug someone you don't know very well, Say everyone's name in the circle, Tell us your first memory, Give all the leader's High-5's, Pat everyone on the head wearing a pony-tail, Tell us of your favorite camping trip, etc. After that we played another circle game: When the game timer went off you got to run to the center, dress up in crazy clothes (a hat, an apron, an oven mitt) and eat goodies out of a bowl with a spoon held in the hand with the mitt on. It was silly, if a little boring. So then we got to play potato baseball. It was a riot hitting the potatoes with a bat and shattering them to pieces! Got a few good photos of that one. We then got dinner going (Dutch oven BBQ Chicken and Cheesy Potatoes) and cleaned up after. We again went to the Ampitheatre (after coloring blue candles on our faces and putting blue on our lips - our ward was assigned to be the Candles, and our color was blue: the Camp Theme was "Light the Torch Within" so all the wards were different sources of light), for Stake Family Home Evening. Had a really neat talk about how lightening struck a man and his boys while camping and all survived except for the dog. While the man was fighting not to die, he was told by the Holy Ghost that because he'd served a mission he was worthy to ask in confidence for his life. He was able to recover and hike out with the kids that evening. For the activity we had Ward Relays: squeezing a cup of orange juice from fresh oranges with their mouths, stringing Fruit Loops onto a string and then tying them on their own neck and then eating it all, chewing a piece of Bubble Gum and blowing it big enough to touch their nose, a treasure hunt (gathering camp items from the audience), 10 boy-style push-ups having to touch your nose into a plate of whip cream, and then 10 girls had to send a string tied to a spoon down their shirts and pants and on to the next girl. It was crazy! When we got back to camp the men had the campfire going (yea!), so we played some more.... The men took the Girls on a Snipe Hunt which they ALL thoroughly enjoyed. Shauna, one of our leaders, dressed up in a crazy 70's polyester dress just to be silly. And then I taught them how to play "This is a Solemn and Serious Occasion". One person says this calling another person by name. That person has to respond, "Yes, I know". And then the whole circle bows with hands held in prayer position saying, "Ho Ho Ho". All the while, no smiling is allowed - if you do, you're out. It was hilarious to see who cracked up and who could keep a straight face. That was a favorite among the girls. We also learned a new "Karate game": one person would send a "karate chop" with a crazy noise to another person and that person could choose to "accept" the invitation by drawing their hands into themselves with a reciprocating noise, or reject it by crossing their arms in front of their chest with a decisive "NO!" The Giver would then have to try again with someone else until it was accepted. Some rather creative languages were expressed! We also made banana boats. It surprised the girls how good a cooked banana can taste with melted choc chips and marshmallows. We got tuckered out and had night-nights and hot chocolate and most of us fell asleep fairly quickly. We had handwarmers to snuggle in with, which really helped. It did rain during the night, but woke up dry for...
DAY 2
Woke up on time, got the girls up without too much hassle - we did have to pull sleeping bags off a few and do back scratches. We had prayers, scriptures, and cereal bars and heading out to the Stake good morning - taking our rain suits with us because of the black, ominous-looking clouds. We then got set up to do our Camp Certification Games. Our ward was in charge of the Fire Cert. We struggled a bit trying to come up with a "game" with lighting fires. They'd split the girls into random groupings, rather than doing it as a ward. And since our Cert was rather short I made them all learn each other's names - it was a last minute thing which got better and better as it went along. It ended with one person saying her name, then all the rest would have to shout it out, my own name included. And then I immediately made them shout, "I love Sister West!!!" while I made some crazy pose for them. Then I'd quiz them on what would catch on fire (like wax really does!) and how to put out a grease fire, etc. I then proceeded to show them how to make "Fire in a Can" with the roll of TP squished into a pint-sized paint can and pouring Rubbing Alcohol into it. It was quite windy so usually it only stayed lit long enough for the 15 minute period, if that. And that also allowed some cool tricks showing that even though maybe it was difficult to see the flame, it would still light another match if it was held up over the can. And then the funnest part. I showed them how to ignite steel wool using 2 D sized batteries held "butt-to-head" in their hand. They were all amazed and thrilled that it didn't hurt, they could do it safely, and it was so easy! It was actually one of the favorite certifications - all of the leaders from the other wards even came by to see what was going on. Part of the fun was the I was so silly and obnoxious with them. Being my Father's Daughter really is beneficial at these times. At one point we did get a short spurt of hail which did hurt if you got smacked in the face with a chunk, but it cleared up quickly. That was another fun thing about the batteries - the rain didn't affect lighting that kind of sparking! After all was done I got nervous that I would have to pack all the stuff back to camp by myself, but all the girls left with me were very willing to help pack it back. Then I thought of fixing lunch and began to stress that I didn't remember to get the fire going for our tin foil lunches - but the other leaders had already thought of it and had it going for us when we got back! The bishop's wife took pity on my tired body and put my lunch together for me and for some other tired bodies. While the cooking was going on we pulled out Mad Gab and starting the silly blabbering - and then the Storm HIT! We had enough time to grab our rain suits out of the tents and put them on, and then it really dumped. Some of the girls came out of their tents hollering that their tents were leaking! AAAA!!! So we jumped to it and starting brushing the slush (it was a mix of rain and hail, but not really snow) off of the tents and we pulled out one huge tarp to cover one of the tents that seemed to be getting it the worst. We had some trenches dug out fairly quickly and we waited it out. Joy (our YW Pres) was a GREAT help during this time - she totally busted her tail-end making sure pegs were staked well and all the tents weren't leaking, etc. She was a life-saver as I kind of floundered wondering "What do we do?" She just did it. We were scheduled to do stake skits and the girls really had to convinced that they still needed to go despite the weather. By the time we got the last girls herded out, the weather had cleared up. The skits were funny because the girls all had to use the same props and had to all put the same random words into their "production". I was glad I didn't have to do that one! We all headed back to camp - and I don't remember what we did while were waiting for the Stake to come and have us make our bracelets. I think we just recouped from the storm and relaxed a little in our own ways just enjoying each other's company. After we made our bracelets, the leaders conspired together and put on some Silly Skits for the Girlst. We had one where we had 2 "midgets" and one with the extra flexible legs. These were where you had one person behind the other, being the arms of the midgets and the legs of the "flexible" person. The girls were rolling with laughter at the lipstick going all over Midget Gaylene's face (thanks to Shauna), Lesa's legs wouldn't stay down (thanks to Joy), and Shellie's magical arms helped my midget brush my teeth (and chin and eyeball)! Next we did the chin faces doing a lip-sync. We'd painted eyeballs and noses upside down on our chins, then covered our faced from the nose up with handkerchiefs. Laying our heads over the edge of the table we turned the music on to perform. They thought we were done after that, but then we threw one more at them right before dinner prayer - we had to do our Gopher Girl song with the Terrible Teeth. ("We are the gopher girls, We alway gopher guys. They never gopher us - We always wonder why?") We didn't laugh as hard this year as we did last year. But still - it was worth the silliness of it all. We then had taco salad (a day early because we'd forgotten the Spaghetti Sauce for the Spaghetti) and ran out of meat before all of the other ward members that were still coming (that were working on the Stake Level) arrived. So creative minds somehow managed to scrounge up some more meat and stretched it further using some left-over potatoes. I tasted it and couldn't tell at all! I was quite impressed with the leader's ingenuity! Aah! I remember one of the pre-dinner activities! We had to find sticks that we could use for our Camp Eclairs we were going to have. That's why Joy and I missed out on the meat! But we were able to scrounge the left-overs from of the girls whose eyes were bigger than their tummies. (You do some things camping that you would never do otherwise - like eating leftovers from a non-relative because you're starving from working your tail off!) It really turned out well. After dinner was cleaned up, we had to prank a few of the other Wards. Shauna (our craziest leader), had a "farting song" (excuse the crude word, please!) on a CD - so we snuck the boom box over behind one of the other camper's tent and turned it on while the rest of came around complaining about their smell! It worked as planned. >;-) We got spotted by our next victims, so we just told them we had a special dance for them. So we posed, turned the "music" on, and went at it - hamming it up all the way! It was quite a scene! Then on our way back, another ward was coming toward us and we realized we'd meet each other at the latrines. So Shauna had to step into one and turn on the Tune while we hollered at the door asking if she was okay. We just got some weird looks as they passed by...no one stopped. Wonder why? We got back and made our eclairs and the girls asked if we could have this for a Camp Tradition - a little messy, but well enjoyed! I enjoyed squirting some leftover pudding into some open "beaks", and one girl made mine for me while I handled the squirting, (I didn't want to clean up any more mess than I had to, so I took control of that potential). After the fun we rounded up and headed out for the Special Fireside that was prepared for us. It was a spectacular production using our theme song, "Child of Light" and helped the girls realize that their testimonies and turning to Heavenly Father will help them withstand peer pressure - and also sharing their testimonies will strengthen others around them. We proceeded back to our own campfire to have our own testimony meeting. We pulled out blue candles with blue plates to catch the drippings As each person would stand to bear their testimony, they lit their candle off of the last person that shared theirs. It was freezing cold, and took over 2 hours - but it was well worth it! There was a very sweet Spirit there and it was almost a sad thing to bring to a close (it would've been harder had it not been so COLD!!!). Shellie (my assistant Camp Director) helped us end our meeting by having us all link arms together and singing "We can be together forever someday" like you do in Michael McLain's production of "The Forgotten Carols". We all hit the sack and there was only a little bit of giggling going on. Shauna had to go back and Shellie went with her since she was trying to fight off an ear infection that almost stopped her from going to camp at all. Some of us had a very difficult time sleeping that night due to the coldness, but it was a beautiful sunny morning on
DAY 3!
Some of the girls really struggled to wake up! Back scratches didn't work as well, so they got serenaded with a wake-up song and some even got the special Sister West Steamroller! We got some groans, but no real complaints. How can you when everyone is smiling and your waker-upper has such a great smile on her face?!!! Our cooking girls scraggled out and made us wonderful pancakes, eggs, and bacon (and had our scriptures and prayer) - and we rushed out for our last Stake Roll Call. We were the 2nd troop there! Had more songs and a short farewell, then headed back to pack. We took a break to grab a few snacks and get the girls out for their "Solo Time". They got a packet with Spiritual Stories, individualized letters, and paper & envelope to write themselves a letter about their testimonies and about their camp experiences. They had to turn their envelopes over to me after so that we can mail them back to the girls next year. We then had sandwiches for lunch and gave out the infamous Camp Awards. (This is what the leaders did during Solo time - the men got to have some quiet time too. Quite nice!) We had lots of laughs and enjoyed our final activity. We then finished packing while Disney Tunes rang from the Boom Box (and I didn't tell them to turn it off) - and cleaned up the site before our final photo shots. Our ward was the last to leave, but we were very close to schedule (only 15 minutes late). We had a wonderful time. Back at home, the skies were grey with smoke from all of the wildfires close by and it was quite hot compared to the mountains! We got the trailers unpacked and then we all headed home.
What a glorious experience to take a shower in running hot water and to rest our tired bodies on nice beds with air conditioning!!!! I only wish I could've had one more day off work to finish recouperating - but I am not complaining!
It was worth it! And I am SO glad that I can turn the job over to someone else now! I was surprised at how many people thought we were so organized! It was all just a matter of being aware of what the schedule was, what was needed to accomplish that, and then delegating it all. You plan for the worst, hope for the best, and then go to it! I realized that being a leader in the Church is different than being a leader in the World. It's not "Lonely at the Top", because being a leader in the church is not being at the "Top". You have much support. You don't have to "fire" anyone, you get to just love them. If they don't do what you want, you can just be frustrated and hopefully work it out - and you don't have to carry it any further than that. God can take care of that part for us. I truly was never on my own, left to try to figure it all out by myself. When I was at a loss, another person stepped up to the plate and took care of the problem. It helped me realize how much I love the Gospel Structure, the Spirit God has given us to lead and direct us so we can attend to others' needs, and how wonderful it is to serve and be served. Heavenly Father really has it "Together", he truly is the Master Planner, Doer, and Lover of all of us.
What an intense AWE-inspiring experience being Camp Director has been!
And I'm alive and in one piece after it all!
I sigh a happy sigh!