Camp Cook

At the last minute, and I mean the VERY last minute, our stake (made up of 8 different congregations) had to pull out of the venue they'd reserved for girl's camp this year. ALL plans had to change—can you even imagine? 

This change put us in charge of all the meals for 150+ girls and leaders. I was asked by my friend Nick (AKA "chef") to be a part of a VERY small kitchen staff in a VERY small kitchen, room enough for 4, maybe 5 if the fifth stayed at the sink and washed dishes (Ahem, Adam.)

Serving in any capacity at girl's camp is crazy busy and HARD. But the best place to work 18 hours a day until complete exhaustion and slap-happiness (I kid you not) is in the camp kitchen with this crew. Sandra, Rebecca, Nick, and I got along REALLY WELL...and Adam too.  I can't imagine how awful it would have been if our personalities clashed. (I had just met Rebecca...she's super cool. Nick invited me to work in the kitchen because he figured we'd like each other. Good call Chef.)

Those girls ate well. Nick and Rebecca had planned an easy, yet delicious menu for them. NO chicken nuggets this year! Bleck.
Smoked pulled pork? Yes.
Soft tacos? Yes.
Waffles with strawberries? Yes.
Salad bar every day? Yes.
Separate meals for those with allergies? Yes.
Etc.

The plus side is that we had our own hidden stash of treats in the kitchen. Ice cream? Yes. Popsicles? Yes. Dr. Pepper? Yes. Sometimes we'd find a half-an-hour free, so we'd pull out our camp chairs and sit right in the middle of the kitchen, eat an ice cream and talk. I loved that.

We all hesitate to say we'd do it again. Especially Chef Nick. He did all the prep work ahead of time. It was TOO much. But then we also agreed we MIGHT do it again if two things were to change (and if we could be together again and Nick not do the prep.)

1. We need our own sleeping arrangements.
We ladies were put on the other side of a pocket door from some of the girls. When you have to get up at 4:30am to start prepping breakfast at 5:00, giggly girls arguing in the next room over who's going to have the most babies with "him" until 1:00 am in the morning isn't ideal.

2. The campers take care of their own desserts.
It was TORTURE to clean up after dinner,  AND THEN have to wait around to handle dessert. We couldn't leave the kitchen until around 10:30. Next time they can do their own s'mores.

I am grateful for caffeine. I am grateful for painkillers. My knees ACHED the first night and I hardly slept. On the day we left, the nerves in my neck/shoulders were totally pinched and both my thumbs kept going numb. It took 4 days to physically recover from camp.
Good times. Glad it's over. But I miss the comradery of a kitchen family.

4th July Pinewood Derby

Our ward decided to combine a 4th of July breakfast with a no-rules pinewood derby this year.

Can you guess what we decided to make?

A Money Wagon! This time instead of hiding the weight inside the car, I thought it would be fun to make it an obvious part of the design. I think it's funny. It raced well too.
During one heat, a "dad" held our car back while letting the other two cars go. Then he released ours and guess who won? Boom baby! It's all about the money honey.
Below: A few of the other cars: Green Slime, Cheese, and Black Night. I thought the flag was a nice touch for the holiday.

We always have fun racing at the no-rules derby. I like to see how people cheat on the build of their car. And you know what else? There's NEVER any crying. We randomly race (drawing names out of a bowl—we do about three rounds) and then open it up to challenges. When you can pick who you race...you can win EVERY time. The kids have THAT one figured out.

(For some reason, people have had a hard time wrapping their head around the no-rule, just for fun, concept. Some STILL don't attend because they don't like "competition" and all the bad feelings that ensue but we've had none of that the past three years.)

Below: Adam is MC again. Told you he's good at it.

This year some of the adults have FINALLY got the "no rules" part figured out and started putting weight on their cars. So, I think we came in at a solid third. Might have to work on aerodynamics next time. We've ignored that part thus far. Or we could figure out how to power it. Hmmm.

Later that night we went out for our usual Thursday night wings at Wingstop and then to a friend's house for swimming in the dark with glow sticks. Happy Independence Day America.

Friends with Boats

Last week Lee took us out on his newly acquired boat! I have to say, it hasn't felt a lot like summer to me, but a ride around the lake, fishing, and some float time with these dudes finally brought on the sunny time feels.

Found some lyrics by Keith Walker that put it right, "Crankin' up the good times, Soakin' up the sunshine...Life is good 'cuz we got friends with [a boat!]"

We're excited for these besties of ours! Good times ahead for them!

Now we're wondering what WE can bring to the friendship table....well, gas money for sure. LOL.

But you know what I mean. :)

Family Reunion

 We attended our first family reunion on Adam's side at a venue here.

 It was a good location for everyone...right in the middle between Dallas and Kansas. (Rather expensive though.)

The photographs of the property show about 5 cabins. So Adam and I were SURE, ABSOLUTELY SURE we were going to end up on a pull out couch somewhere.

But to our absolute SHOCK we all pretty much had our OWN spaces. The cabin above where we slept, was split into three living spaces.

 We had our own living room, kitchenette, bedroom, and bathroom. We couldn't have been happier.

Until I did this:

I broke my phone case too. Now I am opposed to concrete floors. 

Consequently, I was timid about using my camera all week. Ugh. So some of these photographs were taken by my sister-in-law, Shayla.

Below is the main cabin. It had a big kitchen with industrial appliances, a "ballroom" with tons of space. 

Outside was a fire pit...

...seating and tables for dining...

...and it all overlooked the creek.
The fireflies at night were a wonder to look at too. They were flying to the very tops of the trees and all around.

The owners had a friendly dog who made himself at home with us and liked to take naps on top of the tables outside. Photo by Shayla

On a couple of days, Adam woke up early to go fishing with his brother.

It was a bad time of year for fishing. But he STILL caught something.

We found an awesome "water feature" coming down the hill and hiked up it. I'm not going to post pictures but the rock formations that the water ran through was pretty cool. On another day I would have liked to go up with my bathing suit on and cool off there.

The family drove about an hour to visit a stroller friendly cavern.

Below and above: the cavern entrance.

A river runs through the cavern...I thought that was unique. They don't know from where the river originates. The ceilings are just tall enough to walk under.

I liked it, but also it's probably the least impressive cavern/tour I've been to. I'm not sure I would recommend it. We hear there are normally bats in the cave too, but again, we came at the wrong time.

Back at the cabins, everybody enjoyed spending time down near the water. Photo by Shayla

Photo by Shayla

Photo by Shayla

We were assigned with Larissa and Dayne's family to do activities, lunch, dinner, and evening activities one Wednesday. We chose water activities. Photo by Shayla

Water balloon volleyball of course. And holding babies—plenty to choose from. Photo by Shayla

Pass a sponge of water backwards and fill up a bucket. (Looking at everyone's different expression in this photo cracks me up. Even Adam.) Photo by Shayla

Who can use up their soap the fastest? (Then we poured ice into the pool along with marbles and asked teams to pick up the marbles with their toes. Photo by Shayla

Adam was a great MC as per usual. My SIL kept commenting on how funny he is. Yep. That's Adam. Photo by Shayla

Spray off shaving cream with water guns. Photo by Shayla

You know...fun stuff like that. We also played QUEST after dinner which was hilarious. It's a game show we played on a cruise ship and it can only be played with a large group of people so it was perfect. If you want more details contact me. It's super easy.
And then Dayne had a collection of fireworks which we set off later that night along with sparklers.

There were other activities, of course, throughout the week. We had a good time.

Photo by Shayla