Happy Mother's Day to me in May! I was absolutely swamped with things to do for Girls' Camp, but Brandon helped me to put myself first for a day and I celebrated my annual "day off" on the Saturday before Mother's Day. It is literally one of my favorite days of the year and the best gift for me. All I want is a break and one entire day off - from morning until night. I ran errands, did some fun things on the computer, painted my nails, watched some shows, etc. The kids don't like that they have to leave me alone all day, but Brandon is a good sport and makes it a fun day for them too. The kids told me, "Please don't ever take a day off again!"
Girls' Camp finally came the first week of June. Nancy graciously came to watch the kids while I finished up some things and headed out Wednesday - Saturday, so that Brandon didn't have to take off any work days. It is incredible to see the amount of work that so many busy, talented women put into girls' camp. I was on the Stake level (Hermosa Vista Stake) and over the day-time activities and classes. I worked closely with the Stake Camp Specialist and Stake YW President, and I called a committee to help me - Judy Bittner, Annie Wilkins & Danette Skouson. Some of my responsibilities included teaching a craft to the 200+ girls and doing a culminating adventure activity. Our theme was "Look Up" and we pulled inspiration from the movie, "Up". We prepared chalkboards for the girls and I taught a class on chalkboarding with tips and tricks to make it fun and easy. I learned a lot! For our big activity, we made them think that they were going to "Paradise Falls" and made them maps to follow and grape soda pins from the movie. They went to nine different stations as wards and completed various team building activities to earn their YW Explorer badges. While they were gone, we transformed the lodge to make it look like the temple grounds. We have an incredible artist on our staff who donated her time to paint a mural of the Gilbert temple. I also babysat her 5 of 7 kids for 13 hours the week before camp, so that she could get it all done! The whole thing turned out beautifully, we surprised the girls and helped them feel the spirit and the Stake Presidency was waiting for them and shared a beautiful message about their own personal journey to the temple. We even witnessed a tender mercy when the rain let up for just a few hours for our outdoor adventure activity. My committee also became balloon experts and we filled over 500 balloons with helium during the week!! I had a blast with my committee and everything turned out so good!
We celebrated Ellie's birthday as a family on May 16th (she would have turned 2). Rachel & Scott's family spent the weekend in Utah and they all ran in a race at Thanksgiving Point on her birthday called "Running with Angels". We all had matching "Bubbles for Ellie" shirts and even though we were down in Arizona, we were included in the fun! We had our own race around the neighborhood and shared Ellie's story with friends and neighbors. Ellie's influence on our family has been incredible and it has taught my children more about the plan of salvation than I ever could have on my own.
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| Mother's Day 2015 |
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| Girls Camp 2015 - Hermosa Vista Stake - "Look Up" |
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| Chalkboard craft made out of cookie sheets & pizza pans |
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| Annie, me, Danette & Judy - my camp committee |
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| Culminating adventure activity to "Paradise Falls" |
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| Happy birthday, Ellie! |
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