Girl's Camp at Lava Hot Springs

 

 

Girls Camp was awesome this year! I got called to be the camp director and kind of head it up. But this ward in incredible and I could delegate so many things where I was just overseeing all the awesomeness going on. We had about 40 of the 50 young women come and we just had an absolute BLAST!

We gathered together the Monday morning and drove to our hike. I thought it worked out great to go when everyone would have had the most energy during the week. The hike ended up being longer and harder than we had anticipated but the waterfall was WAY more amazing than we had anticipated too. It was huge. There were some girls that were not happy with me on the way up but by the end they all said they actually liked it. I think it's so important for us to see the accomplishments after doing hard things. It feels so good. 

We had a little picnic at the temple and got kicked out 😬😳. So we didn't end up finishing it. 

All the set up and equipment unloading. Emma and Reese stayed out in tents with their age group and I was inside on a bed. I thought I was living it up pretty good until at night time I realized I was underneath the kitchen and all the happenings as well as the bathroom. So I think I may have got better sleep outside in a tent after all :) 

Making group flags...

We went to the hot springs and then the Olympic pool. The hot springs were way too hot for a warm summer day. But we were glad it was warm because it made the olympic pool tons of fun!

Doing some first aid rotations...

Just some random tortilla slapping going on. I wasn't there but watched the vidoes taken and it was hilarious. The previous bishop against the current bishop in this picture. 

Instead of a skit we decided to do lip syncs instead and it was so much fun! Even those who were SO not excited about doing it got into it. We had a blast watching each other. Emma's group did "Mother Knows Best" from Rapunzel and Reese's group did "All the Single Ladies" Chimpunk version. The leaders did a random song called "Cause You Love Your Mom". 

We went to some pioneers homes to help do some service there. Unfortunately I got peed on by a bat and was pretty sure I was going to get a disease from it. It landed on my cheek--WAY too close to my mouth. I used hand sanitizer on my cheek and tried gargling with salt water as soon as I got back to the cabin.

One of our favorite things we did was float the Portneuf River. It was super short, like a 7 minute ride with how fast it was but we did it 5 times. Super, super fun. 

Of course we did lots of singing time, and amazing devotionals and musical numbers (Reese sang with her guitar one night). 

What an amazing time we had! There was no girl drama, no one got sick or even homesick and everything went as smoothly as it could have. It was so much fun!!! I am so glad I got called to head up camp. As soon as I got back I got put into Reese's age group of Young Women as one of their leaders. I love the young women. They are amazing. And now I get to spend some time with my girls more!

Durango, CO & Mesa Verde

When Cade said he wanted to do a bike race/ride again I said "Okay! Let's make it a family trip then!" It ended up being super fun. Even though when we first arrived at our Airbnb, it smelled very strongly of sewer. At least the kiddos had a pool with a fun slide to entertain themselves. It was very beautiful. I"m not a huge fan of swimming so I mostly just watched and sat in the hot tub some. 

The next morning after a night of horrible sleep (Benson was sick and screamed all night long- at least Cade was two rooms away and I could allow him to get some sleep for his race), we took Cade to the start of the ride in Durango and then had to head up to Silverton before they closed the road for the rest of the day. We had ordered breakfast to go at the one breakfast place in all of Silverton. We ate sticky frech toast in our van...not an ideal picnic but it worked out. 

Then we drove to Ouray while Cade was working hard on his bike. The race was called the Iron Horse Classic (the Iron horse referring to the train that is famous for traveling from Durango to Silverton and back). We drove to a pretty waterfall and hiked around some but it was a 45-50 min drive back to Silverton so we didn't know when Cade would be back. 

 We got back around 11:00 and parked and went towards the finish line area to cheer him on. We cheered on many many strangers while standing in a freezing cold blizzard that came out of nowhere. We had brought jackets but apparently were rookies because everyone around us had coats, scarfs, hats and gloves. We didn't get the memo. We had two blankets in the van that we wrapper around us. But still, our hands were frozen and Jane and Benson were crying. I took them back to the van and by that time some people had cleared out. I pulled the van closer to the finish line and kept them in the van with a little show while I went back to cheer him on. He came and when the older girls saw him they screamed as loud as they could and started running along side him. It was pretty cute!

We are pretty proud of how hard he worked to do it. He trained for months in his parents basement (until end of April) and then outside the rest of the time. Way to go Dad!!

We went back to the Airbnb for more swimming and hot tubbing then in the evening we went to a cute restaurant where we could pet baby goats and enjoy a pretty view. We met up with an old high school buddy of Cade's, Jo Precup who lives there in Durango. 

Sunday we took it easy with church in town and then getting lunch and going to play at a park. Then we did more relaxing and swimming back at the place. 

On Monday we headed out of the Airbnb earlier so we could make it to Mesa Verde for some tours around the cliff dwellings. It was SO neat. I could only get 3 tickets to see the Balcony House so I took Reese and Nora with me. Then Cliff Palace I was able to get us all in. It was really crazy to think those people lived on cliffs and amongst rocks their whole lives. It seems to be purely survival and it was neat to learn about their history a little. 

I LOVE going to National Parks with my family and I love adventuring with them. And we got to learn some history too. What a cool trip.