june

This has been a great summer. A little too busy for my general liking, but busy with stuff I will never complain about. So the next few posts will be titled like an essay from 4th grade: "My Summer Vacation". I actually need to post some pictures for my own record, so don't feel obligated to sit and watch the whole summer vacation slide show. With June came girl's camp. I was asked to go to camp and head up sports and hiking. I readily agreed, but honestly . . . I have never done archery. Really - never. I never played team sports as a youth. And I have never hiked any of the trail at camp LoMia. So what was I thinking? I was thinking I like to go to girl's camp. I actually have a free week to go to camp. And I can figure out anything I need to know before I get there. (I had a brother-in-law, Kevin, that took a job one time that he admitted was a little beyond his training and ability. His answer was that he would just study one chapter ahead of whatever he was asked to do. It seemed to be good advice to get through most assignments in life.)

I knew the older girls are supposed to teach the younger girls archery and so I did a quick on-line study of archery safety and technique and had a couple girls teach me the day before classes began. Then mostly, I just had to overlook safety and help the girls with grip and posture etc. The older girls really did know what they were doing (luckily).

As far as the hiking went, I studied all the hiking trails on paper, found girls and adults that had hiked each of the trails and were familiar with each of the routes, took every one's advice, planned hikes for each of the girl's levels and certification requirements, went to the pre-hike day in the spring, and had a marvelous time going on one of the hikes with a group of 7th and 8th grade girls. Our bishop came up to camp and went hiking with the girls on hike day. He is a super-duper athlete and I think it made him a little bit crazy to hike at (comparatively) a snail's pace to what he is used to. But he was a real trooper to stay at the back of our little wagon train of city girls hiking a 7 mile loop up into the hills. The girls were exhausted from their strenuous mountain-top hike, the bishop was just getting warmed up from his stroll through the woods.
Besides the hikes and archery, there was a couple of other games and activities to do - a water game that ended up with just plain bucket-dumping. But it was so pleasant for the girls to get wet and cooled off.
It really was a fun week up at camp. Suzanne was the camp nurse. The girls kept her busy from the crack of dawn until late at night. She hardly had a minute to herself. But it was fun to hang out at camp with her. And how often do friends get to share a bunk bed??
Melanie was off on her 4th year high adventure trip most of the week. When she got back, I told her I had missed her and asked her if she would go hike with me the next day early before flag and breakfast. I didn't think she would - she was exhausted! But she readily agreed. I got her up at 5:30, and she and I went hiking for an hour and caught up on all of her adventures and stories. She is always full of fun stories.I'm not sure what this pose was, but it was an interesting tree - worthy of an interesting pose.

There were a lot of other adult leaders I didn't know well before we went and I can say I enjoyed and appreciated each and every one of them. It's weird to move into a cabin with a bunch of people you hardly know and by the end of the week we were all best of friends. Overall, a great week.