girls' camp

We survived girls' camp. What a great time all the girls had. They have amazing leaders that work together so well and "attitude reflects leadership" (what movie is that from?) in such a great way that the girls were friendly, caring, helpful, and had a lot of fun together. I enjoyed my kids too. As we pulled off the highway towards the campground Sac said, "Dirt, trees, this is going to be great." It was great. They kicked up the dirt, lay in the dirt, drove their trucks in the dirt and were very happy.

It was a stake camp and each ward had a value and a country for their theme. Our country was Holland. They really went all out.

They had Linda as the camp cook and she out did herself. Lots of great dutch oven cooking and beautiful food. I think this was the first camp fruit fall. It was beautiful. I had planned food for my family but the ward food was always plentiful and more tempting so we mostly ate with them.

We enjoyed a family hike. Sac always finds me flowers. It is tradition. He picked a whole bouquet and we cut the top off a water bottle for a vase.

The girls from each ward performed a dance the last night. Once again I was amazed at the quality from each ward. Here is our Dutch dance. I wish I had pictures of the night before. Each ward designed a dress out of plastic and they had a Miss Value pageant. They were creative and actually quite pretty. Doodle was hoping there would be more princess dresses the next day but they didn't last.

Mr. O knew how to impress his family by assisting mother nature in taking down some trees.

It was breathtaking and beautiful. The weather was great.

The challenge I had at camp was trying to keep my kids from eating junk all day. They had candy sitting out at camp. They wanted to share treats. They were being nice and feeding kids the way we have been marketed to. They had water bottles but also little Crystal Light packages to flavor the clean water. Personally I was thrilled that so much of the junk just didn't tempt me like it use to. Even the white french toast, the imitation syrup, the white rolls, the cobbler. I did try the cobbler but yuck it tasted like preservatives. It tasted fake. Unfortunately my family has not been avoiding the junk as much and they ate it readily despite my wishes. I did put my foot down on the Crystal light. I have never felt good about artificial sweeteners and I just couldn't bare to see them drinking bright read yuck.

I am actually sorry to see the culture of food in our country and in our church. So much of it is not real food and it is marketed to our youth. I know you have been hearing about obesity in the news lately. I found this clip rather interesting and frustrating. We have to make better choices for our children. It's too bad that so much of our socializing includes consuming garbage.

The more I learn, the more I want to make better choices and teach my children to make better choices including giving them the knowledge so they can feel good and be healthy.

For those of you wondering, I was able to eat my whole grain sour dough muffins for breakfast. It really seemed to help my day to at least get a good breakfast. We also had our own fresh fruit. I brought my own bread that we used for sandwiches and we did get lots of great fresh air. I love the mountains.

I am grateful for a good experience and good people. There was great effort put in to strengthening testimonies and desire to live the gospel daily, especially implementing the new YW value of virtue. I feel a need to do and be better.