Camping... Again! (Southwick Family Trip)

Well here we go!  Another camping trip post!!  This was our summer trip with the Southwick's and we had such a great time even though Deja has never been dirtier in her entire life ;)  We went up to camp Timpooneke up by Mt. Timpanogos and camped out in tents.  After setting up camp we played some games in Grandpa's trailer and I also worked on learning how to french braid! Yup, I don't know how, so I was grateful for willing victims, aka nieces, to let me practice on!

We played a lot of Liar's Dice, Settlers, and Ticket to Ride.  We do love our games ;) 

Every night we had yummy treats like s'mores, cookies, popcorn, and donuts! 

On day two we hiked up to Timpanogos cave to do the tour.  I haven't been through the cave since I was 14, so it was fun to do it again now that I was able to appreciate it more.  Since Deja was under 2 she was free, so we decided why not take her along!  I think she liked the actual hike more than the spelunking, but it all worked out :)

Cute Cousins

On day 3 we went to Cascade Springs.  It's basically a natural spring that turns into a river with little waterfalls, complete with fish and other fun sights.  I had never been there or heard about it, so it was fun to do something new in Utah.  The trails were really nice and went along both sides of the water.

Deja was a dirty, dirty little girl the entire trip.  I washed her face at least 3 times every day and as soon as she was cleaned up, she was dirty again.  Her clothes were just a mess, but I guess that's how you can tell how much fun she had!  

Grandpa whittling to his hearts content

Learning to walk!

Family pic minus the youngest 3 siblings

Pretty sure I had given up by this point

I almost forgot!  John was pretty adamant that we couldn't just sleep on the ground, so he wanted to take Aunt C's Futon.  I wasn't worried about sleeping without it, but told him if he could make it fit, and still fit everything else in the car we could take it, and HE DID!!  Funny, funny guy.  It helps that our trunk is huge ;)

I also forgot to take a picture of the breakfast we were in charge of!  I made about 5 dozen crepe's before going on the trip so we wouldn't have to do it up at camp, and it actually turned out really well!  Thanks to my sister Meri for the idea and recipe! For toppings we brought Nutella, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, syrup, powdered sugar, whip cream and jam.  We also brought granola and yogurt for people to have parfaits as well.  It was great!  

Thanks to the Southwick's for our last sumer hoorah!  It was a great one.

Girls Camp!

I have the BEST calling!  I'm in the Young Women's Presidency which means I got to go to girls camp this year.  I'm not going to into too much detail, but wanted to document that I went and had a blast ;)  Here are some of the highlights! It was just ward camp, which I like because I feel like the girls get to know each other better and are more unified afterwards.  We went to MIA Shalom up by Fairview and it was a little "rougher" than the girls preferred, which was basically no hot water, but we did have flushing toilets!! We stayed in A-frame cabins and the nights were COLD, sleeping was a challenge!  Our theme was "O ye that embark in the service of God" so we were on a cruise ship and every day we were in a different destination.  (Left from America, Mexico, Italy, Hawaii, and back to America).  The camp director was awesome and her and the assitants coordinated all the menu items to our daily locations so that was a lot of fun.  We had SO MUCH FOOD, but I would definitely rather have too much than not enough, like the famous famine of '99 in the Canyon Rim ward ;)  Not that I was there, but it was always talked about after it happened haha.

Hiking!  We played a song game the whole way up and back and the 5th years only lead us astray a couple times ;)

The closest thing to a group picture we got!

I taught the older girls a couple hand rhythm games that they loved!  7's, Give it to me, and boom-snap-clap.
The younger girls didn't have the patience for them haha.

These were the girls favorite parts, loom hats, and a foot scrub when we got back from the hike.

And my favorite part.... The Skits!!  I got to put together the prop bags, so it was even funnier to me to see how they used everything!  On the last night the first years put on a skit where they all acted like the older girls with a little direction from me, it was hilarious.

Even if the older girls didn't think so.... 

 

Other crafts we did included wind chimes, dream catchers, decorating boxes and journals.

 I know I'm leaving out so many fun things, but the girls all seemed to have a great time.  The spirit was felt all throughout the week, which was great because some of the girls don't have parents who are active/interested in the church whatsoever.  We did snipe hunting, secret sisters, smurfing, confidence courses, canoeing at the lake, lots of singing, and even had a stuffed animal fish we took turns hiding around the camp.  I had a fun time being Trapezoid again and getting to know the girls and teasing them on a whole new level ;)  The weirdest part was only having to worry about myself for a week!  Not seeing these two everyday was super weird!!  I was so excited to come home to their smiling faces and a plateful of cookies.....not that we didn't have plenty of sweets at camp ;)