Girls' Camp Day 3: 6-27

We woke up and finished packing. There was one optional activity we could do before we left: 200 FOOT RAPELL!! OF COURSE I did it! It was a long hike up and a long wait while some girls from other wards went. One girl's rope got stuck and it took like 15 minutes to get it unstuck. One little Beehive got to the edge and lost her nerve, she started crying. It was so sad!

It was FINALLY my turn! I was the last youth to go (some leaders were doing it too)

It got all set up and stood on the edge, my tennis-shoed toes clinging to the rock. I firmly grabbed the ropes with both hands, leaned back, and looked straight down. I smiled and said, "That's not too bad!" I walked down about 15 feet, then it was a sheer drop. I almost inverted, stopped myself from doing that, then lowered myself down, feet dangling. I gently pushed off the wall, and started spinning. Yeah, I was dangling 175 feet in the air and I was spinning out of control. I stopped my spin, started laughing, and let the rope slipe through my holey-groved hands until I got to the botton. My knees buckled a little, and I started laughing as I looked up my 200 foot journey. Matthew, Kaylee, and Brooke were waiting near the bottom.

I asked them how long I'd taken: 2-3 minutes. Matthew barely had time to get the camera out and take a very fuzzy picture of me.

I walked up the mountain for the last time to give my gear back. I went to the bathroom, came out, and found myself alone. Brooke, Kaylee, and Matthew had said they would wait...but alas, I walked down the mountainous trail to the parking lot, and found them among the other girls and leaders, lounging in camp chairs. I wasn't exactly... happy.

I got so carsick on the way home. We stopped at Subway for food. I felt like I was going to throw up, but my belly was empty. I downed an entire footlong in about 5 minutes, finishing before Matthew, Kaylee, Brooke, or Megan had finished their 6 inch sandwiches. SORRY! Adrenaline rushes make me hungry!

We hit the road again, and I had to tell myself not to throw up. We got to Bountiful and everybody got out to unload and go home. I couldn't stand up I felt so sick. I crawled out of the Expidition and took huge lungfuls of fresh oxygen. My mom was already there, putting my stuff in our car. I was dizzy and couldn't think, so I muttered a "thank you" to my leaders and sat in my car, still fighting to keep it down.

My mom took me home, and I got out, walked over to my dad, hugged him, and told him he had the most HARD-CORE daughter EVER!!

THAT WAS MY AWESOME

GIRLS' CAMP '09!

Girls' Camp Day 2: 6-26

We woke to the sound of an airhorn. 5 girls in our tent, including me, were about ready to murder Megan. The night before, she had given one of our leaders an airhorn as her Secret Sister gift. By the way, we are VERY mean in the morning.

We had breakfast, then chose our first activity for the second day of girls' camp. We wanted to go rock climbing before it got too hot, but another ward got to it first. We picked the next best thing: C.O.P.E. I don't remember what it stood for, but the E was Experience, I think.

The first part of C.O.P.E. was team building stuff. The funnest, scariest, and for me, most painful part was the trust fall one. You climbed onto this platform thing while everyone else stood shoulder to shoulder with there arms at 90 degree angles. You had to be stiff as a board as you fell. It was fun. Megan went up and as she fell back, she kinda flailed her arm, which smacked me in the nose and mouth as she fell. We set her down and of course I started crying. I'm so glad Matthew was there. He ran over and put his arms around me. I started hyperventilating really badly. I scared everybody, including myself, but I couldn't stop. Poor Megan felt terrible, but I could only cry and gasp for air every time she apologized. I finally got myself under control, had some water, told Meg it was fine, then got right back in to the activity. C.O.P.E. was a lot of fun, but it's really hard to explain..so...

We had lunch and our two hour break, then we went rock climbing. 5 people got to go rapelling, but I was too slow to be one of the 5, so I went rock climbing first. I only got halfway up when i couldn't find any hand holds, so I came down. I walked, or crawled, back up the mountain, walked through the C.O.P.E. course up to where the rapelling was. Kaylee and Brooke were already up there, so I sat down next to them. I spotted an inch worm on a rock, which kept us fascinated for a while, and we made up a new dance move! :)

Brooke, then Kaylee went down. I asked the guy in charge how high it was. He said 60 feet. Though some other people said 100. I think it was 60 though. I almost inverted (go upside down), but I didn't. My dad is a certified First Responder, so i have rapeller's blood in my veins. It was so much fun!!

The Bishop and his wife showed up. The Bishop climbed all the way up...in mawkasins! Wendy, his wife, kept both feet firmly planted on the ground.

It was dinner time. We went back to camp to get ready for testimony meeting. Bishop Pitt and Wendy always bring us Nelson's frozen custard when they come up to Camp. We'd just got a roaring fire going when it started pouring and thundering and lightening. I was fine, but everybody else sissied out and made us go find shelter. We had testimony meeting without a fire, it was weird. I kinda started crying during Matthew's. I could barely talk during mine because I got all emotional when I started talking about Matthew.

It was still raining a little when we finished up, so everybody sprinted back to our tents. We were leaving the next morning so we packed what we could see in the dark and went to bed.

Girls' Camp Day 1: 6/25

Everybody had to meet in the church parking lot at 5:55 AM! We loaded our stuff, had a morning devotional, then piled into cars and departed for Camp Browning in Ogden Canyon. My car "got lost" on 5th South, and "found" a nifty little bagel shop, when suddenly, we were hungry! :)

Upon arrival at girls camp, everybody needeed to pee. We were all waiting outside the bathrooms when we heard a shrill scream, "THERE'S A BAT IN THE TOILET!" Apparently, (we'll call her J) J had peed on the bat and it started hissing at her. She couldn't get her pants up or the door open. She finally got out of the stall and the guy who was in charge of our ward went into the bathroom armed with a stick and a rock. The bat lost. What a crappy way to die! You're minding your own business, taking a nap, when you get peed on, everybody starts screaming, then you get hit with a stick and smashed by a rock! Ouch!

We unloaded the cars and picked out tents. The tents weren't exactly spacious, but we managed to fit 6 foam pads, 6 sleeping bags, 6 girls, and 7 pillows. It was cozy.

The lady, who was also in charge of us, told us that we shouldn't have any food in our tents or bags because the wildlife had super sharp teeth and went crazy at the smell of food, or lipgloss, chapstick, perfume, you name it. One year, a girl had left a single Skittle in her scripture bag, which ended up in tatters because of the squirrels and chipmunks. "Rabid" I often called them.

The camp, Camp Browning, is a Boy Scout camp, which was very...intense. Very different from girls camps.

The first activity that my ward picked was the Geocache. (a 6 mile hike). We passed a recently dead dear. It was AWFUL! It smelled so bad and was covered in flies. Yuck. We walked through rivers and stuff and my shoes got SO wet! One girl in my ward was in the very front and we heard her scream "RATTLE SNAKE!" Sure enough, right next to the trail, there was a rattler, it was pretty pissed off. No one got bitten, though.

We went back and had lunch. After lunch we had a two hour break until our next activity: Aquatics. I jumped into my swimming suit and walked down the massive, painfully steep mountian down to the dock where the canoes waited. Megan, Jenny (YW president) and I got into one canoe and tried to get across the lake. By tried, I mean, the uneven distrabution of paddling power made it extremely difficult gooing straight. "Drunk canoeing" you could call it. I was in the middle, and everytime I paddled we went way of course. We were the last boat to get to our next aquatic destination of the other side of the lake: Cliff Diving.

Well, not exactly diving. It's basically impossible to dive with a life jacket on. So we could call it Cliff Jumping. Anyway, I got out of the boat and my feet touched the water and I screamed. It was FREEZING! I started up the slippery, muddy, rocky, steep path up to the jumping part. One girl from my ward was standing on the ledge, saying that she was terrified of heights. She got away from the ledge and I said I'd love to go! I stood there for a second, looking down. I asked the Aquatics dude how hight this was. About 27ish feet. I looked down again, smiled, asked for a countdown, and jumped, screaming all the way down. SPLASH! It was so cold! I came back up. Someone still on the cliff asked how it was, and I could only gasp and scream. I swam over and went up again. I jumped again, then got back in the canoe. I sat in the back this time, Jenny in the middle, and Megan in the front again. The Aquatics guy and his boat were near us. My arms got really tired, so he taught us how to switch places without capsizing the canoe. Oh, it was classic!

We got back and Megan and I started up the massive hill. The wind started blowing, it was cold. I kind of had a temper tantrum and started hitting tree branches with my paddle. "I HATE NATURE!!" I would scream.

We had diner, then planned out a skit for the 3 ward devotional thing we had to go to. The skit involved several people, a wad of gum, and the words "Sharing. A message from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints." I volunteered to be the last person to get the gum. The gum was dropped in the dirt, had wood chips picked out of it, played with and pulled apart, and combined with another girl's piece of gum before it got to me. I popped it in my mouth, chewed, and blew a bubble and said, "Sharing. A message from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints." Yes, it was grand. :)

We went back to our camp and roasted marshmellows. Some tried to roast jolly ranchers. It failed-they kept melting and falling into the fire. We started telling stories: scary stories, embarrassing stories. I told my story about the First Hug, with the slipping on the ice and stuff. The scary stories were so bad! And the ones Jenny told gave us all nightmares. She attracted freaky people in her life!

Everybody drifted to their tents. My tent of 6 girls stayed up talking for a while. Then we slept.

And that was DAY 1 of Girls' Camp!!