July Jumble

July 6: Swimming at a friends pool after swim lessons – the kids really did have a great time even if they don’t look too thrilled.

July 6-7:  Abigail called me when I was hanging out at a friends pool and told me that some friends had an extra ticket to the Shawn Mendes concert in Portland that night and asked if she could go.  Two of the girls had just graduated from high school and the third was one of the graduates younger sisters and Abigail’s close friend.  They were leaving in 30 minutes.  I had no time to think about it, but fully trusted the girls and gave her the green light.  Shocking, right?  Had this been planned in advance I wouldn’t have considering sending my 15 year old in a car with three teenage girls to another state, to attend a music concert, sleep in a hotel overnight, and then drive home the next day.  Perhaps it was our love of getting a good deal that I really couldn’t pass up a free trip.  Who knows?  She went.  She loved it.  And she returned safe and happy the next day.

July 7:  Jason attended a birthday party at a local pottery store.  Each of the boys got to pick out something to paint that was under $25 {gulp}.  Jason picked out a basketball piggybank.  Apparently, Jason took it slow cause we had to go back a few days later for him to finish it before they put it in the kiln. 

July 9:  Family Selfie

July 10: Abigail also chose Cheesecake Factory for her lunch date.  We were also able to squeeze in a little shopping where we found matching hats on clearance.  On the way home we stopped by Cold Stone to redeem my bogo birthday coupon – added bonus was the birthday gift card a friend sent me.  We had such a fun afternoon together!

July 11:  There was LOTS of reading going on this summer.  We seemed to visit the library more than once a week to exchange books.  The kids flew through the summer reading program within the first couple weeks of summer.  I sure love this scene.

Cow Appreciation Day fell on the same day as 7/11 (Free Slurpee Day) = FREE dinner!

July 12:  I remember taking this picture of Carly and feeling so, so grateful for her.  Our summer was busy and I often relied on her to help with the kids.  She’s going to be an awesome mom someday!

July 13:  The kids were just a tad bit excited for our first outdoor movie night of the season.

They even spotted one of the Finding Dory movie characters before the show.

July 15:  Our summer was pretty packed so we had to change things up a bit this year and have the Fletcher Family Pool Party during early afternoon instead of an evening like years past.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a date that we could get our whole family there so we were missing Abigail as she was still on trek.  Hallie was able to pick up a lifeguarding shift while we were there.  We didn’t make her save any lives or anything.

July 17-20:  The girls participated in the Gold Medal Squared Volleyball Camp hosted by our local high school this week.  The camp was held from 8am-5:30pm – an exhausting week packed full of polishing up their skills for the upcoming season.

July 20:  I’ve been making healthy smoothies for over 5 years (minus when I was pregnant with Drew and couldn’t stomach them).  The kids like them ok – Drew thinks they are yummy and drinks one nearly every day.  Considering he can be somewhat picky about dinnertime I know with his smoothie intake the kid gets plenty of healthy vitamins.

July 22:  GNO (Girls Night Out) gone outdoors.  My first time hiking up Poo Poo Point (yes, that’s it real name).  It was the perfect hike to give us a good workout but still be able to carry on a conversation. 

We stayed at the top for a while and watched people take off paragliding.  It was a busy day in the skies!

We refueled at Café Rio afterwards.

July 24 - 28: Justin couldn’t take any days off work while I was at young women’s camp with the girls so Jason, Katie and Drew went to Steve & Kate’s Day Camp in Bellevue.  Five days, 10 hours each day.  Thankfully there were lots of activities for the kids to enjoy – Jason sewed himself a pillow one day and Katie’s favorite thing she did at camp was coding and they both loved the mashed potatoes offered with lunch each day.

July 26: While the girls and I were at camp, my friend Susanne had a few of the Dad’s (and all their kiddos) over one night for dinner.  I don’t think Justin had to prepare the kids a single meal all week while I was gone.

July 28:  Dinner (or perhaps just ice-cream?) with Dad at Dick’s

July 29:  As I mentioned my friend Laura brings her daughter back to WA from TX each summer to attend camp.  While Emilee is at camp, Laura gets to play all week.  Since both Sommer and I were at camp our only chance to catch-up with Laura was the day we got home.  We took our girls with us to dinner at Café Rio.  When we got back to Sommer’s we got out of the car to take a couple farewell pictures.

Benjamin was outside cleaning up the yard and pulled out a blowtorch to burn some weeds.  Sommer advised him against it.   Within moments he’d caught a tree on fire between their house and the neighbors and boy did that tree burn fast.  Laura immediately called the fire department, Benjamin and Sommer scrambled to get the water hose turned on as high as possible, neighbors poured out of their homes grabbing buckets and hoses, smoke was billowing down the street.  It was chaos.  By the time the fire truck arrived they’d gotten the fire under control, but it was seriously close to their homes and could have gotten out of control very quickly.  Of course Laura documented it.  Too bad we didn’t get video of the fire, cause now that a few months have passed we can joke about the situation and the video would be pretty entertaining.  It even made the newspaper.

Young Women’s Camp {July 24-29}

With two girls attending camp I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d be asked to serve at camp as some sort of adult leader.  I didn’t have the best experiences at camp as a teenager so it wasn’t something I was necessarily excited to experience.  Apparently my feelings aren’t shared by most women in our stake because the women line up to go up to camp for the week and are heartbroken when they aren’t asked to go up for the third-fourth-fifth time in a row.  I was totally fine sitting back and letting them have all the “fun”.  I’ve been involved in camp the last few years from behind the scenes – which is totally my mo-jo.  This would be my third year serving as the stake camp finance specialist.  Basically I invoice the ten wards in our stake, pestering them if necessary to transfer funds to the stake in a timely manner and then compile all the reimbursement requests and all other camp related expenses into QuickBooks and provide reports to the stake leaders.  It’s as close to my dream calling of finance clerk that I’ll get :)  Anyhow, so the finance part has been my contribution – and it is quite a time commitment.  But apparently that wasn’t enough because I was asked to go up to camp as a Unit Counselor this year.  Unit Counselor would be the last position at camp I would choose because you are responsible for making sure your group of 10-12 girls is having an amazing life-changing experience at camp.  Dealing with other people’s kids and teenage girl drama and emotions are not within my skill set so I wasn’t quite sure how it would all go down.

The buildup to camp alone is quite stressful.  Each of the 12 units picks a theme within the overall camp theme for the year “Joy in the Journey.”  My unit – consisting of myself, my adult partner and three YCL’s (5th year girls who help lead the units) – chose “Jungle Safari” as our unit theme.  So over the course of the summer we have to work together (teenage girls with big ideas and not the best follow-through) to plan how to transform our campground into a Jungle within our allotted budget.  Which apparently NOBODY stays within budget because souping up your unit is a HUGE part of the excitement of camp.  Crazy? Yes.  But I’ve driven girls up to the first day of camp the last few years and it really does add to the excitement and fun of the entire week.  So justified or not it is what it is and the girls (and women) LOVE it.  Anyhow, let’s just say I had my family cutting jungle leaves out of butcher paper for hours as we prepared for camp and Carly was a huge help twisting “vines.”

So our stake mixes up all ten wards, which I love.  It gives the girls a great opportunity to branch out and meet new people.  They always get at least one requested friend in their unit.  The twelve units consist of approx ten 1st, 2nd, and 3rd campers.  I also like the idea of having first years with some of the other girls – the dynamic is fun and the older girls tend to be looked up to.  All the 4th year campers participate in a two day hike at the beginning of the week and then get to camp all together when they arrive at the main camp on Wednesday.  The 5th years are the YCL’s that help lead each unit and the 6th and 7th years run everything else.  It’s a pretty incredible system and extremely well organized.  The young women LOVE camp.  So many girls bring friends with them and there are so many that continue coming up until they max out all seven years.  (I only made it to year four and then was OUT).

Anyhow, so all the adult leaders and YCL’s head up to camp on Monday and get everything set up for the campers to arrive on Tuesday morning.

I dropped Abigail off at the church to head off on her 2 night backpacking trip.  All smiles!

Here are a few pictures of Abigail’s adventures with the all the 4th years. 

   

We were ready back at camp to meet the 10 girls assigned to our unit for the week.

We even played a little Guns N’ Roses “Welcome to the Jungle” tunes as the campers arrived.

We had some time to get to know the girls.  We had a couple challenging girls – one who introduced herself as “boy crazy” and spent the first couple days disappearing to find fun.  Another that refused to participate in pretty much anything and spent the nights with her mom.  Oh, the fun of teenage drama.  Overall though it was a fun group.  The girls meshed really well together and it was neat to get to know them.

My friend Laura, who brings her daughter up from Texas just for our camp, hand delivered some goodies for me as she dropped off campers.  So sweet!

Carly’s unit ended up being right next to mine.  She wasn’t necessarily thrilled with the unit theme (Star Wars – just like last year) or her YCL’s – really odd girls, but she had two close friends with her and they made the best of it.

Abigail marched into camp on Wednesday afternoon chanting, “We are the fourth years the mighty, mighty fourth years. Everywhere we go, people wanna know, who we are, so we tell them we are the fourth years the mighty, mighty fourth years…” – the tradition is to welcome the them to camp by squirting them with water.  My unit was ready.

Abigail’s in the second row back with the yellow bandana.

They continue marching through camp and down into the river.  Once out of the freezing river Abigail was happy to give a big ole wet, cold hug to her little sister.  So fun to see everyone so excited and happy.

One of evenings the stake hosted a big dance out in a big, secluded field.  They gave out glow sticks, had a yummy pudding bar and everyone had a great time.

The only picture I got with my girls all week 

   

There are so many activities throughout the week – crafts, rock climbing, archery, rifles, service, dancing, spiritual workshops, giant slip-n-slide, chants, skits, etc...

Ropes course was a fun albeit challenging activity for my unit.  We had to get everyone (including myself) over this log.

My favorite part of each day was free time because I had two hours to do whatever I wanted.  Most days that meant chilling at the river with friends who were also at camp for the week.  I floated down the river on one of the first days with Carly.  It was so, so cold.  I don’t think I let go of Carly’s arm the entire way down.  That was the first and last time I submerged myself in the river.  Carly was one of the few campers to do the polar dip early every morning – crazy girl! 

My favorite dance performed during the week was the fourth years.  The energy these girls brought to the stage was overwhelming.  The happiness and confidence that they showed was emotional for me especially knowing some of these girls personally and the challenges they face.  I gotta share.

I can watch this over and over – love it so much!

Abigail got the sheet music for this song after we got home and it’s a tune you’ll often hear Drew singing along to.

Camp really was a lot of fun and I loved being a part of the experience.  It’s fun to know now first hand what everyone is talking about and I really can see why so many women want to be there.  It is a special, spiritual place.

It takes a lot of amazing women (and men) to make camp one of the best weeks of year for the 200+ girls that attend.

Who knows maybe I’ll be back at it again next year?