SEEKING TREASURES OF WORTH

GIRLS CAMP 2011

So for some reason, I can't delete this huge gap in my post before the picture below. I have tried to many times and it's just not working. So sorry that there is this huge gap before you get to the post below. It is WAY annoying!

So, it's about time I get to blogging. There's been a lot that's happened in the past couple of months, but maybe I'll get to blogging about that one day. For now, I'm going to blog about Girls Camp. We went June 6th-9th. And let me tell you, we had a blast. I'm still the 1st co. in Primary, but they also called me to be an assistant camp leader...finally! I love girls camp and have always wanted to be a leader. This wasn't a regular girls camp that I was used to. Growing up, we always had Stake Camp at Mia Shalom every year, but in the stake that I'm in now, we switch off every other year between stake and ward. Well, it was just our ward this year and we had it at the camp director's family cabin at Scofield. This was a WAY nice cabin, with 3 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms, a huge loft, and a huge basement with lots and lots of room. I really didn't feel like we were camping all that much. We had such a blast! We had 24 girls in all that stayed the whole week, and 2 other leaders and I were there the whole time too. Here's a little bit of what we did throughout the week. Our theme was "Seeking Treasures of Worth" so we had a pirate theme to go a long with it. We had a pirate pinata that ended up getting bashed to pieces.

We had our 5 mile hike, that was much more like a 5 mile stroll down to the lake and back. Of course, the girls complained, and I don't know why. They kept saying it was so hard. How could it be hard when we're on a flat even trail for 4.9 miles of it? There was only one little part where we had to get off the trail and just cut our own way up part of the mountain, but still, it was pretty easy. Teenagers will always complain.

And of course, you can't do camp without doing skits. We did those on the last night before testimony meeting. They were a riot! I helped this group get theirs ready. The pirate was Tom Cruise looking for the gospel because he realized that Scientology wasn't a real religion afterall. They acted out parts of movies and made up a bunch of popular song parodies. But, I do understand that it is one of those things that you had to be there to think it was funny.

For some reason, I was put in charge of all the crafts that the girls would be doing. I don't know why, I'm not very creative at all. Yes, I can be crafty, in a devlish and mischievous way, but not when it comes to thinking of things to make...for girls camp. But, I must say, I'm quite proud of myself because I came up with some GREAT ideas, and all on my own. They all turned out so well. The girls LOVED them and couldn't get enough. When I was thinking of what to do, I thought, "What's something that I would want? Duh, jewelry." But, I wanted to make some jewelry that I would actually wear outside of camp. So here's what I came up with...

We made button bracelets. I bought almost 2000 different buttons from Robert's Craft. Luckily, they were having a fantastic sale so it wasn't expensive at all. Here's a picture of my bracelets.

And fabric button rings. Everything was made from scratch. They had to choose the matieral they wanted and put the button together and glue it to the ring and everything. Here's a picture of my rings.

Everyone did such a good job on everything! It was fun to see all the different kinds of fabrics that each girl liked and what it looked like as a ring when they were done with it. The girls just couldn't stop talking about how much they loved all this stuff. I was glad that they were really excited about it. And yes, I have worn the bracelets and rings quite a bit since camp (I've even had compliments and was asked where I got them by some strangers when I was out and about around town).

Just like a bunch of girls, they started screaming, jumping up and down, and going crazy when I brought the stuff out to show them what we'd be doing each day.

Each day, one of the leaders would be in charge of a treasure that we thought was worth seeking. Mine was on testimonies. I gave a lesson on testimonies, what each one should consist of, how to gain one and keep it, and talked about having the light of Christ, and about the Ten Virgins and being prepared for when the Savior comes. To go along with my lesson, we did a craft where we made our own lanters. They were so cute! Here's a picture of my lantern.

All of my crafts, I made beforehand, so that I would have an example to show the girls. My lantern was just polka dots. They look awesome when it's dark and they're lit up. We had battery operated tealights in them that flickered. I let the girls choose from flowers, dragonflies, stars, and other cutouts to decorate it however they wanted. I'm glad that this is cute enough to decorate with when I got home. I'm glad that I was able to go to camp. I loved every minute of it, even though I didn't sleep at all. I stayed up playing games every night and we never went to bed until around 2am each morning, and then I was always up by 6:30. According to them, we were fun leaders since we didn't make them go to bed at a decent time. Hopefully, they'll ask me back for next year!

INTRODUCING ELPHIE

This is the newest member of our family. We got Elphie 3 weeks ago and she is now 9 weeks old. She is so tiny, and we love having her. I've never had a dog before, so this is a new experience for me, but we are having fun. She is such a good dog and so smart. It's hard getting a good picture of her because she doesn't want to sit still long enough for us to snap a good picture. One of her favorite places to be is snuggled up with Manny. As long as she has fleece wrapped around her, she is good to snuggle and sleep.

CAPITOL REEF, HENRY MOUNTAINS

(picture of the Capitol Reef)

Over the weekend, Manny and I went to the Henry Mountains so that Manny could look for some sheds (deer and elk antlers). Unfortunately, Manny didn't have any luck in finding them, but we did have a fun and VERY muddy time 4-wheeling, hiking, and enjoying the views. We drove through Capitol Reef and stopped to look at the petroglyphs that the Freemont Indians drew a very, very, very long time ago.

Can you spot the drawings? It actually took me a few minutes to find them.

We had a fun time. It was a great, but much too short getaway.

ICE, ICE, BABY

So the ice fishing season has begun.

It started at the beginning of January with an ice fishing tournament at Scofield Res. We went with Manny's friends Coby and Kris. It was the coldest I have ever been ice fishing. I had to keep going back to the truck because I just couldn't stay warm. Manny's eyelashes were frosted up and had an icicles hanging from them at one point. We eneded up not catching anything at all. I should rephrase that, I didn't catch anything, Manny caught a few fish, and his friends caught a lot more than we did.

The past 2 weeks we've gone to Strawberry to fish. Again, the fishing has not been good at all, only 3 fish total in those 2 trips combined, but at least the weather was lots better!

Here's a 19 1/2" fish I caught. We were doing an ice fishing tournament this day at Strawberry too, but I had to throw the fish back because we had to obey the slot limit laws. Turned out, if I had just lied and kept the fish and said I had caught it somewhere else, then we would have won the tournament. Oh, well.

Here's an 18" fish Manny caught at Strawberry. Can you tell how happy he is to finally catch a fish?

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT...NO, WAIT...PLEASE STOP!

It's been snowing nonstop since Sunday. I'm glad we're going to have a white Christmas and I love looking at the snow, but when I opened my door up this morning, I thought, "Ok, that's plenty. It can stop now." There was so much snow that it was higher than my car. Good thing school was cancelled today, because there was no way I would have been able to get there. I'm literally snowed in. Plus the power was out, and I didn't want to go anywhere with wet hair.

I think the snow is about 3 feet here at our house. Or at least it's getting close to it. It was past my knees.

On Saturday, we went to Temple Square with my younger sister, Michaela, to look at the lights.

They were so beautiful.

There were tons of people everywhere. We chose the wrong weekend to go. The choir was putting on a Christmas concert with David Archuletta, so it was packed and no parking for blocks. That's ok, we had a nice, extra long walk to get to the temple.

It was super cold, but we were wearing a lot of layers and bundled up nicely. There were beautiful nativity scenes up from all over the world. They also had really pretty luminaries lining all the walkways.

If you get a chance to go see the lights, then do. Temple Square is a beautiful reminder of what Christmas is really about.

HAVE YOU BEEN WONDERING...

What we've been up to the past month and a half? I figured the answer was probably a "no," but I'll tell you anyway.

Back in the beginning of October, we hiked to the Grotto up Payson Canyon. It was so beautiful! It actually wasn't really a hike, it was more like a 10-15 minute stroll.

Then later in the month, we met up Provo Canyon with a bunch of our friends from our old ward in Orem, and got together to have a BBQ. We had a blast!

It was so nice to see everyone.

We went to the Red Barn in Santaquin to go for a hay ride to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins with my family. We went to the Red Barn to get some of their famous apple cider donuts, and other good treats. All of my nieces and nephews loved it.

Manny and I happen to have a few days off work during one weekend in October, so we went fishing...a lot! Below is a video of Manny catching a fish at Strawberry...and then it got away. I think that it was probably the biggest of the day, but we'll never know. So sad for Manny.

We also saw the salmon spawning while we were at Strawberry. It was kind of weird to watch. There were hundreds of them all up and down the river.

During this weekend, I finally caught my 100th fish, and even surpassed it by 6. That was my goal for the year, and I got it. Manny just about doubled what I had though. Here he is holding one of my big fish at Strawberry, 20 3/4".

October has one of my favorite holidays; HALLOWEEN. I love Halloween, I love dressing up, and I love carving pumpkins. We found some HUGE pumpkins to carve. They were so big that we could hear all the kids comment on how big they were as they were at our doorstep. They were big enough, that I couldn't even pick them up and carry them (these are not pumpkins that I'm holding in the picture above). Manny's pumpkins is on the left, and mine is on the right.

Since Thanksgiving is coming up in just a few days, hopefully I'll get around to posting it before November is over.

PINETOP, AZ

Last week we went to Pinetop, AZ. I hung out with my cousin Gina at her parents' cabin for the week, and Manny went hunting with her husband, Kameron. They were so excited hunt! One of the nights, we orderes some pizza's and went to where they were camping to hang out for a while. It was nice to see Manny for a little while on "our vacation."
They were hunting in Alpine, which is an hour away. It's such a beautiful place.

During the week, Gina and I did a lot of being lazy, shopping, watching movies and shows, and eating out at a yummy Mexican restaurant.

I happen to capture the perfect picture of Anastyn (Gina's daughter) right after she bit into a lemon.

Here we are enjoying our food with her son, Porter.

Meanwhile, Manny, Kameron, and my Uncle Freddy were busy getting dirty, stinky, and shooting an elk. This hunts was for Kameron's tag. Everyone was so excited that he shot it Saturday morning, because that was the day that Manny and my Uncle Fred were going to come back to the cabin. I really wanted Manny to be there when he shot it since we drove such a long way (through UT, CO, NM, and AZ).

Uncle Fred and Manny.

I hear the elk was one MAJOR stinky, rancid beast.

Manny, Uncle Fred, Kameron, and Kevin (Kameron's dad).

Once Manny got to the cabin, I didn't let him get close to me until he took a shower. It had been about 4 days since he showered.

I didn't sleep a wink the whole trip. I looked pretty hammered by the end of the trip, as you can see below.

We took a different route on our way home and went past the Grand Canyon. It's so beautiful this time of year.

We had such a great time. Thank you so much, Gina and Kameron, for inviting us! This will be one of those memories that we will never forget!