Girls Camp

I was scheduled to go to girls camp the last week in July. It was a little hard to think about leaving for another week when I would only have one week at home after being gone for three weeks on my last trip to Utah. My nice friends in Young Womens told me I could just come for Thursday and Friday. I decided to go up on Wednesday night and leave Friday morning and go up to Utah again. My dad had six seizures in seven days and it is very hard to stay away when things are so hard for my parents.

A lady from another ward, Tammy Wood, asked if she could ride with me to camp. We had visited a few times on the phone before and she knew I would be leaving Friday to go visit my dad who was sick. It turned out to be such a blessing to have her come with me. She was an RN and her specialty was helping with breathing and airway. I was able to talk to her about my dads condition and about the seizures and how he feels he can't breathe while the seizures are going on. She showed me a simple thing that we could do by moving his jaw in order to help him get more air. She also brought me a book called "Final Gifts" a book written by hospice nurses to help those who are losing a loved one to death understand the dying process better. I felt very grateful for the hours we spent talking on the ride to camp.

Camp was a lot of fun this year. It was great to be with Megan a few days, I hadn't seen her much this summer. I brought my air mattress and we slept in the back of the van together. It was beautiful up in Kolob. Our stake camp was about an hour and a half drive past Hurricane, Utah. It is a beautiful camp and was even more beautiful than the last time I was there. It had a few new features, flush toilets and showers. I hate camping when I can't shower or use a real toilet.

The skit night was one of the best I had ever been to. We laughed so hard. I enjoyed being with the girls and the other leaders. One of the highlights of camp was that our ward camp leader brought a cardboard cut out of our bishop (also my boss) to camp at the beginning of the week. Bishop didn't arrive to camp until Friday, but all week he attended all the events in his cardboard cutout form. Each day the girls dressed him up in different accessories. Which included "Clark Kent" glasses, headbands, super hero chest emblems and capes. They held his hands and walked him to roll call and flag ceremony every morning. They even sat over in the priesthood session with him so he could be with the "brethren" it was one of the funniest things I have seen. They gave him naps on their cots in the afternoon when he needed a rest. They took good care of "Bish" as they called him. By the time our bishop arrived in person, he was a celebrity with the stake.

I was going to leave early Friday morning to head up to Bountiful. I said goodbye to everyone the night before so I wouldn't wake anyone in camp. At 5:15 a.m my alarm went off, I could hear a hissing sound in the van and realized that when I sat up, my air mattress dispensed a whole can of mousse. It was a huge mess, all over the floor, the air mattress, my bag of clothes. I opened the van door to put the bag outside and forgot the alarm was set. So yes, I set off my car alarm as I was quietly trying to get ready and sneak out of camp. I felt horrible. It only managed to sound off 2 or 3 very long, very loud horn honks before I found the keys and shut it off. Megan was a little put out about the whole incident. I said goodbye to her and headed out. It took me another 5 hours to get to Bountiful so I wasn't as close as I thought I was. I didn't tell anyone I was coming and so they were surprised. It was a very short visit but always good to be with my family.