Girls' Camp Week

Tuesday morning we woke up and discovered that it was 70 degrees outside and it stayed that cool til about 1! Even at 3:30 it was only in the 80s and very tolerable to be outside. We got soooooooooo much yard work done! There was a huge tree limb with all sorts of twigs and branches that was left in the yard from the previous owners. Shad broke that down into transportable bits, as well as took care of the weed pile that was growing in about a 10x15 patch of dirt in our yard (possibly a former garden area?). He also trimmed low hanging branches off the elm tree in the back, and the black walnut tree in the front. I worked on finishing my rose bush removal project and trimmed the other bush by the porch that took a beating in a thunderstorm a few weeks ago. I picked walnuts off of all the branches that Shad cut off the tree and we have a nice basketful drying out on our porch.

We borrowed a truck from folks in our ward and filled the bed beyond capacity with all our yard waste. It's free to dump it at the dump. It was nice to borrow the truck then and be able to use it for a trip to the dump because I needed practice driving it before the 3 hour road trip I would be taking Wednesday morning up to Girls' Camp.

We left at 8:40 Wednesday morning, which was only 10 minutes behind schedule. I was pretty satisfied with that. I drove 3 girls in the borrowed truck and another leader took 3 girls in her car. We picked up a girl from another branch half an hour into our drive. She is one of 4 young women in her branch. One is too old for camp and two are gone for the summer, so she was the only one that went. I don't think they even sent any leaders. It didn't really matter because the girls were split up into years the whole time and camp was run by the youth camp leaders, so the adult leaders didn't really have anything to do. I felt mostly useless, but helped where ever I could with the food preparations.

Camp was mostly uneventful on my end of things. I didn't do a whole lot of stuff with the girls...I dunno, maybe it was because I'm 5 months pregnant. I went with the 3rd years on their "hike." It was MAYBE a half mile walk to the greenhouses for a tour of the area to learn what the park rangers do to protect and preserve the environment. And even with that for a hike, you would not believe some of the complainers. Goodness sakes! The girls also had canoeing, tubing and river activities that I didn't participate in.

I'd say that the most eventful thing for me was Wednesday at 5 am when some of the girls were OBNOXIOUSLY loud and woke me up. I yelled at them when I realized that it was not waking hours yet. Thursday before bed I thoroughly threatened the girls that I better not be woken up again unless they wanna see The Hulk 5 months pregnant storming out of her tent. I had a blissful, solid night sleep. The girls were all tired and squinty eyed the next morning, though, and complaining that a tent of leaders kept them up all night. It was a bit amusing to me, but I told the girls that they did a great job for me and if they did it again I would bring them cookies to stake conference. They followed through for me and I will be bringing cookies.

Today while Shad was gone to a stake priesthood meeting in Kearney, Tommy and I hung out in the basement. I got caught up and distracted in a chat on facebook with a friend of mine in England. While I was distracted, Tommy managed to pull my tupperware dish of cucumber slices off the coffee table, along with the little bowl of ranch dressing without me noticing. I didn't notice until his little hand reached up to the couch next to me and left whiteness on the cushion. I looked down and saw the little guy sitting on the floor BY MY FEET dipping his hand in and out of the ranch and into his mouth. He was ssoooooooooooo happy with himself! Yum!


I didn't notice the cucumbers missing until he came back to me a little while later with cucumber seeds and bits on his hand, arm, leg, and naked little chest and belly. I cleaned him up and then located the cucumbers...on the floor...centers eaten out.


I laughed so hard at him. I love my little boy and the joy and entertainment he provides for me. We took an evening walk at 8 to Nana's house. It was 95 degrees and boy, did it feel NICE! Guess that's what happens when that's a cooler temperature than earlier in the day.

I brought chocolate chip cookies to church today for a belated Father's Day appreciation. Our ward didn't do anything for Father's Day but briefly mention it in the announcements in sacrament meeting. DRIVES ME NUTS how holidays are completely overlooked in this ward! There were no Easter talks and only one hymn. No special talks for Mother's Day and the YOUNG WOMEN handed out little rocks for necklaces after sacrament. So when there was absolutely nothing for Father's Day, I had to do something. Took me a month to finally get it done, but I was glad to have done something and the men were happy to be appreciated. Given that Christmas is actually ON Sunday this year, I'm very tempted to just not go if it's going to be ignored like these past 3 holidays.

Oh, and we are 5 months pregnant today!