Because I'm currently serving in the Young Women's organization at Church, I got to go to Girls' Camp for the first time since I was 17!!! It was very exciting. The pandemic has made it really hard to get to know people in our local congregation (which we call a ward), and this was an excellent opportunity to get to know more people, especially the girls that I serve. Girls Camp was held down in Southern Utah in Duck Village, near Brian Head National Park. I drove a van full of fairly quiet girls on the way down. We stopped at this overlook on the way, and I made the girls pose for a picture. The view was spectacular!
We arrived in Duck Village, located the lodge we'd be staying at (after getting a little lost--it didn't look like the pictures online from the front), dropped our stuff off, and headed to go horseback riding. It was the first time I'd been on a horse since high school.
Fun fact: when I was in third grade, I got trampled by my aunt's half-broken horse when the horse got spooked while I was petting her. I'm not sure how it happened, but I had a hoof mark on my ear. The horse broke my arm, but amazingly nothing else. I've been quite terrified of horses since that time. When I worked at the Dinner Theater in high school and college, sometimes, I'd need to hold the reins of those big draft horses, and it was hard hiding my fear and smiling at the guests.
Between this fear and my hip, I felt quite a bit of hesitation at the idea of riding these horses, but I was determined to not have one more thing that I could no longer do because of my hip replacement. I tucked my fears in deep, put on a smile, and rode with the girls, after using the riding block to awkwardly get on the horse.
After riding the horses, we went to explore lava tubes that were nearby. Gabe let me borrow his headlamp so I could go. Thanks Gabe!
There were tiny bats up on the ceiling of this lava tube. We made sure not to touch them, but it was amazing how tiny these bats are.
Meanwhile, back at home, Brian kept the house running and the kids fed without me. Naturally, this included a trip to Costa Vida.
We played lots of games, did each other's hair over and over again, and went on a hike or two. This is me with my neighbor Carrie on an impromptu hike we went on one night. Carrie and I got to be roommates for this trip, which was the best because she is hilarious.
We went to see this trickle of a waterfall, which was incredibly underwhelming.
One night, we did face masks.
And we were all spoiled to be in a lodge with showers, electricity, and a camp cook, even if the bathrooms were incredibly tiny.
The girls set up lots of hammocks...all on top of each other.
We had a much longer hike one of the days. I ended up missing a good portion of this hike staying back with one of my girls who was having a difficult time. I was a little disappointed not to see whatever was waiting for us on the trail, but I was there for my girls, and one of them needed me. It did make me want to bring my kids down to explore Southern Utah more.
On our last night there, we had camp awards. The Youth Camp Leaders made awards for everyone, including me. I got the award for Best Bubble Braider (which was funny to me because they taught me how to do it while I was there. I'm just a fast learner, I guess.)
We had testimony meeting with them around a camp fire, which was a blessing since there was a fire nearby and they had originally told us that we couldn't have one. A lot of the girls were wondering who I was and whose mom I was. All of the other leaders had daughters up camp except for me and the Young Women's President. I just told them that they were my girls.
Brian and the kids were pretty excited to have me back, and I was excited to have a shower and not head out into the dirt and grime of our glorified camp.
It was so fun getting to know the other leaders and put faces and names together with the girls. It was different being at Girls' Camp as an adult, but it was a blast and I'm looking forward to next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment