Benny's 3rd Bday

 Benson had an awesome Dino birthday! We rented a Dino water blowup for him and his sisters to play on all during the day. It ended up being WAY heavier and harder to do than I thought. I had Reese and Nora helping me but it took a while to even get it up and running. But after all the hard work he and his sisters had a blast for hours. 

In the evening we had both sets of Grandparents over for dinner and dessert. Benson opened up a race car set and he played with it for hours and days until we put it away for a bit. It was a great gift! 

Things about Benson:

-He loves to wrestle and especially wrestle, Bear, who hates it :)

-Benson still is obsessed with fruit, yogurt, chicken nuggets and popsicles and ice cream

-He is still an absolute sweetheart and give the BEST snuggles. I try to take advantage of the snuggles but he is getting heavy to hold for long. 

-Benson goes to nursery or the gym day care like a champ now. It used to be rough but he's getting used to leaning me for a bit and being okay with that. 

-He still leads with his head and get bumps and scrapes and bruises almost every day on his head. Poor guy. 

-He is my little buddy and I SO want him to stop growing. I love him. Our family loves him. He is a completely amazing little guy and we are so blessed to have him. 

This first pic is just a little throw-back :)...

Emma's First Time at FSY

 Emma was brave and went to FSY by herself with a bunch of random youth from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She went to BYU. When we dropped her stuff off at her dorm the first person we met in her group was also named Emma :). She said there were not really any cute boys but the girls were awesome and became friends so fast. Emma loved her leader, Josie. She also loved going to Grace Freeman's classes and went about 5 times to just her class. It was a great week and I am so glad she had an awesome first time there!

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!