Girl's Camp

I absolutely LOVE Girl's Camp! I remember going to camp Shalom for the first time when I was 12 years old. After getting over the fact that girls camp was not going to be like the camp on Disney's Parent Trap, I learned to love camp. It wasn't hard. It is so beautiful up there. Even though it is not full-fledged camping it is still so much fun to be out in the mountains enjoying the beautiful creations and just being filled with the spirit. I went to camp 9 years with the Lakeridge Stake and I have told myself I would never pass up the chance to go when I could.
This year that chance came again. I was asked to help out with Girl's Camp. Unfortunately I had a slight problem that I never had before, I'm pregnant. This means that I can't go and STAY up at camp, but I could go for the day. It was so much fun helping get things ready for camp. Then Tuesday morning they all left and I spent the rest of the week praying like crazy that everything would turn out ok.

Friday afternoon Devin and I went up. We got there just in time to hear President Hatfield give his closing talk to the girls. I remember how much I loved all of President Johnson's talks. Girl's Camp is such a great chance for the girls to get to know the Stake President better.

We then helped Bishopric fix pizza for the girls for dinner. After dinner the girls broke open the pinata that they had received from another ward. They had so much fun. I love seeing the Young Women happy and smiling and laughing. You can't help but feel good when you are around them. They even gave me a fun camp award. I got the "Anxiously Expected" award for two reasons. (Yes, I am pushing my stomach out in the picture, my belly isn't THAT big!)After all that we went up to Beaver Dam. The girls did their skit for us. This was great! It reminded me of all the fun skits that I did at girls camp. Only at girls camp would you have the time of your life doing a skit about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles having a conversation with Moroni and then because of his inspiring words you then are able to defeat the evil Shredder and his band of ninjas. What girl would pass up a chance to act all goofy and be part of something like that?
Then Bishop gave a great devotional on faith, hope, and charity. It was a great evening. My favorite part of the night was when we got back to camp and the girls shared their feelings about Christ. They have such amazing testimonies. I was so impressed at how they would take a simple scripture and then share what it meant to them and why. It was amazing!
I am so grateful that even though I didn't get to go to all of camp, that I still got to go up and be part of a little of it. Isn't it amazing that even though by the end of the week the girls are tired and dirty...they still shine!

Good But Not "Gooshy"

Summertime is a great time to read books. Why is that? Why are there "Summer" reading programs and yet there are no "Winter" reading programs? Anyway... I just finished reading my last book in order to get my free T-shirt from the Provo library. I finally read The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. It was a good book. I was hooked from the very beginning. I liked it a lot. There wasn't too much "goosh," meaning too many over the top romantic "gooshy" parts. There was one part that I felt was COMPLETELY inappropriate and I felt like writing Mrs. Hale a nasty letter asking her to explain why she needed to put THAT into her book. Anyway, overall I liked the book a lot. But now what do I read??????? I have a stack of books in my room and for some reason none of them are catching my attention. So any suggestions??? I am looking for books that meet the following requirements:

1. Not too "gooshy." I don't know why I am not in the mood for any romancy fluffy books, but I'm not.

2. Clean. Stuff I would be ok having my mom read if you know what I mean.

3. Action. It has to have some good action in the book to keep my attention.

That's it. I'm not too picky. Any suggestions?

Welcome Hyrum!

My sister had a baby on Monday. Welcome Hyrum Benjamin Arnold! He was 9lbs 6oz and 20 inches long. He is really cute and really big. I wonder how big my baby is going to be????? I spent quite a bit of Wednesday at the hospital with my sister. It was a great time to ask all sorts of questions about the hospital and having babies. The more I find out about having a baby and kids, the more I realize I don't know. It is a good thing there are lots of helpful people out there. The best part was having a chance to hold my cute little nephew. He is so sweet. I can't wait until I have my own little baby to hold and rock to sleep. Only three months to go! I've included the following picture for everyone who keeps asking to see how "big" I am getting. It isn't the best picture of us, but it does show that I am definitely pregnant.

And Here We Have Idaho

This week we spent a lot of time doing. . . .

this.

Did I mention that we spent time doing . . .this.

And more of . . .

this.

And a bit of . . .

this.

Yet more of . . .

this.

All because of . . .

this.

Devin's little sister, only sister, got married on Friday. We are so happy for her!!!! We went up to Idaho Falls on Tuesday afternoon to go to the temple with her for the first time. We drove back down that night and stayed with my brother in Logan. Then we drove the rest of the way back home so Devin could go to work on Wednesday. On Thursday night we drove up to Logan after work, stayed the night again, and then drove the rest of the way Friday morning to be at the temple for the wedding. The wedding was great, the whole day was great! The drive home was a bit longer because we drove out to Tooele to drop Devin's niece Sydney off. Our record so far for longest trip is 5 hours and 30 minutes. The record for shortest trip is 3 hours and 30 minutes. The exciting thing is that Devin has two brothers that are getting married, one in August and one in September. We'll see if we can beat the record. For now which couple do you think looks the happiest??????

The best part of the trip is always the moment when we cross the border into Idaho. Devin feels he needs to sing the Idaho State song each time to show is patriotism to his home state. You think with all of our trips to Idaho he'd know all the words by now. Maybe he'll get it down by the time Chris gets married in September. :)

Can You See Me Smiling?

I had a friend ask me about our wedding video and Missy is getting married this week. So I kind of have wedding on my mind. In the process of finding out info on wedding videos for a friend, I found that OUR wedding video is actually on line. If you want to see it you can watch it. It makes me smile every time I watch it. Spencer Hale did such an amazing job!!! You only get to see the temple part, we like the growing up pictures and reception part just as much. We'd be more than happy to show you the whole thing if you'd like. I guess you could say this is my Happy 18 Month Anniversary present to Devin. I love him tons!!!! It was well worth waiting around for Prince Charming to show up. http://www.giantbrothers.com/blog/?cat=14

4th of July Fun

We had a great 4th of July! We were happy that our family waited until we were done working at the temple Thursday night before they started all of the fun festivities. Driveway of Fire was fantastic as usual. The boys are getting more use to the fireworks and even lit a few themselves.

We all camped in my mom's back yard. (Being pregnant it was so nice being able to just go inside for my middle of the night bathroom run.)

On the 4th we went up to Jim and Wendy's house for the Henderson family BBQ. We swam and ate great food (Emily's bon-bons being the hit of the night---we'd like to think that without our help the bon-bons would never had happened. We did go to the store and buy the ingredients for her.)

We then went and watched fireworks at some country club in Salt Lake. This is one of my favorite traditions. We park in the neighborhood above the country club, cut through some nice family's yard, and sit out on the golf course and watch a really good firework show for free. Given Hannah Montana wasn't there like the Stadium of Fire, but I feel my nephews did a pretty good job supplying us all with plenty of entertainment.

New 4th of July Tradition

It is always fun to find a new family tradition to make the holidays special. This year we started a new tradition. We shall call it "chucking swamp coolers off the roof." My mom's swamp coolers are 20+ years old and were in desperate need of being replaced. Peter and Devin were kind enough to spend the 4th and 5th of July installing new ones. Half the fun of putting in something new is figuring out what to do with the old thing. Peter and Devin decided that chucking the swamp cooler off the roof would be the safest and fastest way to get the cooler down. We were not able to witness the first cooler going off the roof. We were inside working on a food assignment for a family BBQ when we heard a very loud crash. We wondered if they were ok and decided that since the crash was not accompanied by any screams or long AHHHHHHHs that they were probably both fine. (You can't help but worry when your husband is up on the roof working.) We found out later that the crash was the first cooler chucking. The next day we told them we all wanted to see the second cooler go off the roof. It was pretty neat. I bet no one else did anyting like that for the 4th of July. As fun as this new "chucking a swamp cooler off the roof" tradition was, I'm sure my mom hopes that we will not do it again....at least for another 20 years. Enjoy the videos!