Monday, June 25, 2012

Parker's One Year Pictures















While Parker and I were in Arkansas a few weeks ago, Marji took some pictures of Parker.  They turned out so dang cute and I had the hardest time picking my favorite, obviously.  She is a great photographer and I am so glad to have these pictures of Parker.  Thanks again Marji!:)  And thank goodness she suggested the balloons, they made Parker smile for all these.  So fun!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Girl's Camp 2012



All of us working hard on putting our tents and shade together…The girls were amazing and did all their tents on their own!



This was our camp flag. We were Camp Abish. Her story is found in Alma chapter 17. Our flag was definitely the best flag of all. One of our young women did this. She is an amazing artist! The next picture is the zip line. It was ton of fun and I am waiting to get some pictures of me doing it from the other leaders. Fun times!



This is our girls waiting patiently for the zip line. The next one is our dish washing line. The girl’s were great about helping out!

 
These are some of our girls! Aren’t they cute?!

 
Do you see that big pole in the distance on that mountain? That is where the second year girls took their 5 mile hike. It was a steep hike and very draining, but it was so pretty at the top. The hardest part was when we got up to this flat part after climbing a mountain that was basically us climbing straight up and I thought we made it all the way until they said we still had to go up a little ways more, which was another 5 minutes. It was a great adventure, but I definitely liked the walk down more than the walk up.

 
These are the “obstacles” that we had to do. They were team building things and the girls did great with them!:)

 
One of our girls Mary hurt her ankle after our obstacle challenge. The other girls were so cute and helpful and carried her back to our tent. The other picture is our girls when they were in charge of flag ceremony on night.

 
Bishop Gerber was an amazing fire builder…and loved to make them as big as possible!:) It kept us very warm.


 
Enjoying some yummy food!:)

 
More eating and cleaning

 


Kate, Idamae, Deserae, Jen, Alice-Anne
 
Us leaders did a great performance of “Popcorn Popping” Deserae, Alice-Anne and I were the singers and Kate, Idamae, and Brother Corrigan were the back up dancers. It was fun for us…I don’t know if anyone else enjoyed it. This other picture is a picture of the camp grounds. The building is the bathrooms and down that big hill is where our camps were.

We had Girl’s Camp this year and it was awesome!:) We had a ton of fun. After months and months of planning and preparing, we made it and could do no more to prepare. None of us leaders had ever been to this camp before…and most of us had never been to Girl’s Camp as a leader. We were walking into this blind. Another hard thing about this camp was that we did not have an official camp director. We had submitted multiple names, but none of them ever worked out. So we as a presidency just decided to take it all and divide it up between us. It was such a fun camp. We grew so much closer to the girls and got to know them in a different way. We had a ton of laughs and very little drama. In total the whole week we had 5 leaders coming and going and 2 priesthood holders, Brother Corrigan and Bishop Gerber. They were great and without them I don’t think we would have had fire, at least not nearly as big of fire. We had some great experiences. The 5 mile hike with the second year girls was hard, but amazing at the same time. When we got to the top and had lunch and looked at the amazing view it was great! We also did what was called the Iron Rod. The camp had tied a rope around trees and we were all blind folded and led by someone else that would tell us where to go and whether there was anything ahead of us to watch out for. I was one of the first ones to finish and was able to watch the other girls try to make it and hold tight to the rod. It was an amazing experience and such great symbolism of this life we are living. Our testimony meeting was also amazing and you could definitely feel the spirit so strong. Our girls have such strong testimonies of the gospel. We had so many good experiences. I am so grateful to have gone. Most nights the girls had to tell us leaders to be quiet and go to bed. We just all have such a good time together and laughed until we cried a lot. We learned a lot about each other, like those who like to talk in their sleep worrying about the trailer, or those who wanted to snuggle in their sleep thinking they were with their husbands….and then those who deflated my air mattress “on accident.” There were also the “Friends” quotes and the number “Seven” from “Little Rascals.” And so many sleep deprived things that we would say and not know how that came out of our mouths. We had tons of yummy food an luckily enough water for everyone (the camp had informed us 3 days before camp that we would need to bring all of our own water, because the water supply was not working and even if it did work it would be limited supply.) So we packed a ton of water and then some. On the first day driving up the huge mountain to get to the camp we had some car troubles. The truck that was bringing the trailer with all the food lost a transmission fluid and had quite the time getting up on it’s own. So we had to have someone else bring the trailer up for us. It was something!:) But we all made it somehow. I know that I am forgetting so much, which is why I am so glad that Alice-Anne blogs too, so that between the 2 of us we should be able to get it all…this has taken me about 3 days to get this post done. Our ward also has a reputation for being the first one to leave camp and we were sure to keep that one in tact. We packed as much as we could on Friday night and then we were up by 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning to get everything packed up and cleaned up before breakfast. Did I mention that there was absolutely no electricity out there and each ward was responsible for their own food too. This was foreign to me. I was used to having a cafeteria and having cabins with air conditioning in Arkansas, so this was really roughing it for me. It turns out I really do like camping, it’s just to bad David absolutely hates it. I loved being away from the world. We did have one place you could make calls from, it was called Cell Phone hill…I only made it up there once. It was quite the hike to get there. Such a great time and yet so glad we have a full year until the next one. We should be a lot more prepared and know a little more than we did this year. Let’s hope at least!:)

Monday, June 11, 2012

Maggie's Dance Recital

Maggie is 3rd from the left

Katie the Kangaroo costume






Maggie had her dance recital on Saturday and she did GREAT!!!  It was so dang cute! I have videos, but they won't download to the blog.:( Sad...but the pictures are pretty cute! She did a tap dance to "The Good Ship Lollipop" and a ballet to "Katie the Kangaroo." She sang her heart out and remembered most of the dance too.  We had some good smiles and laughs watching all those cute little girls showing us their moves.  I absolutely love KC Dance Studio, where she does dance.  They do their practices in the basement out of one of their homes and it is about a half a mile from our home, which is awesome!! The cost cannot be beat and after doing a little math in our head we figured they do not make much from this and obviously do it because they love dance and teaching.  They are amazing.  They are very easy going too about things and don't have a set outfit that they have to wear for their practices, which is nice.  I am so excited to get her in again next year! Anyways we were so grateful to have such a big audience for Maggie this year. We had Trish and Gabby, Meme, Great Grandma Turnbull, Kevin, Giselle and of course our little family! Maggie even got a trophy at the end and couldn't be happier about it.  Daddy went and got her some flowers that she could plant, because he knows she has been wanting to plant some in our front yard.  Too cute! The recital started a little later than they had said, apparently there was another show before ours, so we got a late start, but it only went until a little after 9:00, which isn't bad.  They know that people are ready to get out of there quick.  I will keep trying to get those videos on, but for now these pictures should be good!:)

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Arkansas Part 2

Bubbles at Deedah's of course!

Parker and Uncle Gabe

Parker really couldn't choose who he wanted more

Block building

Parker going after Ellie


Parker at the pool...he loved it and had no fear

He was confused by Gabe without his shirt on it was pretty funny

Averi thought it would be funny to pour water on Gabe.

Parker and Ellie

Parker, Ellie, Maddy, and Livy

Me and Ellie

Parker and Pam

Parke and Gabe