Girls Camp!!!

As the ward camp specialist, I got to go to girls camp last week with our Young Women. We only had 6 girls attend out of 11 or 12 of our active/semi-active girls. The first day, we took the traditional camp pictures in our ward camp shirts (one of our girls didn't get to camp until the second night):Here's what was on the back of our t-shirts:

Our group on the hike (the girl on the far right isn't one of "my girls"); one of the girls didn't have to go on this hike because she went on the overnight hike the night before most of us went to camp:

OUR SKIT!
We did a cute little skit about being virtuous, with all of us as bugs. Our characters were (left to right) Caterpillar, Lady bug, Spider, Grasshopper:
Worm, Ant:
And me as the Bee (you can't see the big stinger on my butt, which was pretty funny):

We haven't had much rain down here lately so the river was too low to go canoeing. Everyone was super bummed about it. Instead, we brought the girls to the water park. We didn't stay long, as it got pretty crowded with little kids and the girls got bored after only 10 or 15 minutes.

My SIL, Becky, was our camp nurse. It was so fun to have her there. We hung out a lot and even stayed in the same cabin.

Other things we did:

• Attended a lot of classes (first aid, fires, survival, sanitation, etc.)
• Family home evening lesson and game
• Went to our stake president's house for water balloon volleyball, water relay games and pool games (only the girls participated but it was fun to watch)
• Craft time (made cute little holders for pass-along cards)
• First Aid Olympics
• Used buddy burners to cook bacon and eggs (ours worked really well this year!)
• Sang "Get Your Elbows off the Table" a LOT, as well as "Here we sit like birds in the wilderness waiting to be fed" for our cooks!!! I got caught with my elbows on the table twice and had to stand up and run around the table. When I was a YW, we'd have to stand and sing a song in front of everyone.

It was an awesome camp--I just wish it could have been up in the mountains, without the heat and humidity. :)

Valentine's Day, etc.

Since I've only posted a couple of random things the past couple of weeks, I thought I'd come and post what we've been up to. Here are just a few of the things (besides our normal goings-on):

Tues., 2/10--the young women and leaders met at our house and we went and "heart attacked" an older lady in our ward. Heart attacking is when you go and cover someone's house or yard with hearts and love notes. We hung out with the sister a while and I think she really enjoyed it.

Sat., 2/14--Jared and I went out to eat for lunch at Sizzlin' Wings (I was craving wings and cheeseburger), then we went to the Denham Springs Mardi Gras parade. It was Jared's first MG parade. It is a very small parade and, as you'll see in the pics, the floats are nowhere near as big and grand as they are down in Metairie and New Orleans but it was still pretty fun. And we saw a couple of our youth in one of the marching bands. We caught a lot of necklaces but gave a lot of them to the kids around us. We went to Wal-mart after the parade ended and got a few things really quick then headed to the church for a youth activity and dance. The youth participated in speed dating, then we all had fun dancing. There was lots of great treats and food at the dance. There was even a photographer there who took pics of anyone who wanted them--she had a cute background set up and even had all the pics printed out for people to take before the dance was over. The photographer is in my parents' ward and even printed a copy and gave one to my mom at church the next day. Sweet, huh? I had a great time dancing with my girls and especially with Jared. We were pooped by the time we got home late that night, though! Here are pics from the day:Sun., 2/15--Of course, we were at church for over four hours (Jared was there from 7am to 1pm!) but we went back a few hours later and went with the youth to see the Reflections of Christ exhibit. If you have never heard about it or seen it, you must go to the website Reflections of Christ. It was so cool! We went back to our church bldg. and had a testimony meeting with the youth. It really touched a lot of them and was a very spiritual experience.

Mon., 2/16--I worked in Jared's office, taught piano lessons, and went to CVS. :)

Tues., 2/17--I had another epidural steroid shot in my neck and had to stay in bed all day long. I was so bored, and sad because I had to miss the youth activity that night. Jared went and took pics and video for me, though, so I could see what they did. They had a caveman dinner--they had spaghetti and meat sauce and had to eat it on all kind of weird "plates" (Jared's was a tiny little tea cup saucer) with all kind of different utensils (everything from tongs to potato mashers to whisks). It looked pretty funny.

Wed. 2/18--I went and did a session at the temple, then I went to Reflections of Christ again with some of the sisters in my ward then we went out for lunch. My neck was really bothering me the whole day and the entire next day so I rested quite a bit.

Fri. 2/20--I went to lunch with a bunch of the ladies I used to play volleyball with every Friday before the wreck, then I went shopping. I started feeling a little ill while out and about and by that night I was full-blown sick--sore throat, coughing, runny nose, ear aches plus back and neck pain.

Sat. 2/21--I slept in then made myself get up, take some cold meds and go to Jared's company party; if he weren't a supervisor, I would have totally skipped it. I felt so crummy the entire time and couldn't wait to get home. The food was pretty good but I didn't even feel good enough to really enjoy and didn't eat much of it. We were supposed to go to our ward Spring Fling (chili cook-off/dance) that night but I just felt worse and worse hour by hour. Add stomach cramps to all the symptoms I had Friday and to say I was miserable is a gross understatement. I was in bed all that night and all the next day, missing church and choir practice (after already preparing my Young Women lesson early in the week--go figure, ha ha).

I finally felt much better today (Monday) but I'm still coughing just a little bit. If I feel even better in the morning, I'll go to Mardi Gras with my family. Too bad Jared has to work. :( I hope to get some cute pics of Belle and Brenna tomorrow, though! :) HAPPY MARDI GRAS, Y'ALL!

Latest Happening

I went to the temple with the youth last Wed. night; Jared wasn't able to get off of work in time to go with us. We ate at McDonald's afterwards. Here are the girls that went and one of the other leaders:
A friend of mine that I met my senior year of high school asked me to play at Drummers for Jesus at a Baptist Church this past Saturday. I talked about and played both the piano and the marimba. I played two songs on the marimba--one with two mallets and one with four:
The Young Womens' New Beginnings is tonight. A few of the girls came over to my house last night to make the castle cake for it. The theme for our New Beginnings is "Be the Girl of your Dreams". Here are some pics from last night, including the cake:



I think they did a great job! Tonight should be fun.

So that's about it for the last week, besides normal goings on. Oh, I got a webcam over the weekend and video chatted with Kiki and her kids on Sunday. It was so fun! Carma LOVED it; she was laughing and goofing off the whole time and making faces right into the camera. Judson didn't say much and Wyatt just sat there in Juddy's lap. :) I loved seeing them, though! We plan on chatting at least every Sunday. I've also v-chated with my friend Shelly a couple of times. It's a blast. Why didn't I do this sooner? We're hoping we can get all of our family that is far away to start video chatting.