YW Camp 2008- Part 1

Here is our ward. The theme was "Within the Shady Woodland". Each ward was a tree. We were the Redwoods. We got nice brown hoodie sweatshirts (in the pic below there are two girls wearing them.) I don't know why I wasn't looking at the camera in the pic above. We had atleast 20 cameras and of course when it was my camera I wasn't smiling, oh well. This was my first full week back at camp since 2001 when I was a leader in Provo. I LOVE camp and my spirit was quite at home here. We were at Mutual Dell up American Fork canyon from Monday to Friday. I did miss Mike and the kids, especially at night when I said my prayers. I also thought a lot about how Maddie would be here in two years. Thanks Judy for helping Mike with the children back home. Mike, thanks for letting me go. I couldn't have done it without your support.

On Tuesday we hiked. I went with the second years. This was my second time hiking up to Upper Silver Lake (I went last year with all the Beehives when I came up for a day at Beehive camp. It was Trek for the rest of us the following week last year.) It is a long hike, but well worth it at the top. This lake is completely hidden from the trail below. It is a beautiful place. Here are the girls eating lunch.

This is a picture I took on the trail down from the lake. As you can see there is no sign of civilization. It is wonderful to escape from the city sometimes and view the beauties of nature. It did me good.

Here we are at Tibble Fork reservoir for canoeing. (I'm on your right in gray.) I loved waterfront at Camp Shalom growing up, but I don't remember ever falling in. Well, not so this time. During our lakeweed fight I made the mistake of thinking we were in more shallow water and I jumped out to get one of the girls. OOOPS, it wasn't so shallow right there. In fact I couldn't touch bottom. I was "saved" by hanging on to two canoes and having them paddle toward the shoreline until I could touch and get back into the canoe. During this camp we also held a family home evening, had a huge mud fight, performed in Book of Mormon re-enactments (which were incredible), participated in a humanitarian project in which we stitched baby blankets and made hair clips, covered paperback Book of Mormons with cute paper and ribbon as a craft, listened to Jill Stevens (former Miss Utah) and Sam Payne (folk recording artist), watched our Stake President do "mind-tripping" magic rope tricks and give an awesome talk, perform silly skits together and snipe hunt, of course. It was a good mix of fun and the Spirit.