Girl's Camp 2009 - Lake Wellington

This is the 2nd year that I have been camp director for the Plum Creek Ward of our church. It is one of the funnest things I have ever done ... lots of work, but lots of fun too! We are so spoiled to have such a great group of Adult leaders and 16 to 18 year-old Youth leaders that help to plan and prepare the camp for all the girls in our area! We even have a team of cooks that come up so we don't have to do that! This year there are 23 girls in our individual camp with lots more from around Southern Denver. The girls have so much fun and we do too!

This year's theme is: "Daughter of a King -- Be Loyal to the Royal Within"

Each "ward" or congregation was assigned a Princess! Beats the heck out of last year's theme which was Super Heroes. We were "The Flash" -- it ended up being alright ... we worked with it, but NOTHING COMPARES TO PRINCESSES!!

Our Princess is Giselle from the movie "Enchanted"! We ran with the Puffy Sleeve idea and thanks to my step-mom, Susan Burke, each of us has a set of puffy sleeves to wear with our tee-shirts (and crowns with yarn hair) up at camp, so we can be princesses at all times!!! The just have elastic and can slip on with any tee-shirt. The girls loved the idea! I'm posting this blog mainly so that Susan and Grandma Karmen Naylor can see our final creations. Karmen helped glue on all the jewels and helped with the flag, while I was up there a couple of weeks ago! See, camp can even be a "family" project :)

We glued jewels on our tee-shirts, ironed-on our Princess Names, attached red yarn hair to our crowns and there you have the "Puffy-Sleeve" ensemble!

All packed up and ready to go!

Some other fun stuff!

1. Our Mascot -- "Pip's" Girlfriend -- Pippy

(no boys allowed at camp.)

2. Little tattoo "mail" for their mail boxes

3. Sucker treat for one day.

And of course, our camp flag (complete with puffy sleeves) and signed by all the girls. There is a ring of flag poles made of PVC pipe in the middle of camp that the flags fly from.

They are all a standard size but I bet they have never seen one like this one!!!

The trailer is loaded and in the morning we load the back of the truck with all the girls stuff!

I'll post more pictures after camp!!!

Just pray that it doesn't rain!!!

Happy Father's Day

I'm so thankful for all the good Fathers in my life!

Have a great day!!!

Memory Lane at Safeway!

Look what I found at the store tonight ... 2 for $1.00

I loved these as a kid!!

Even Safeway is trying to make me feel FIFTY!!!

My Hobby

When I have any spare time, I love to go out and putter in my garden. I am still amazed how all my flowers look dead in the winter, all covered with "feet" of snow and then they all come back to life again in the spring. A little sun and water and it's instant life around here! My sanctuary!

These are pictures of my Peonies that I took for my Mom.

Wish I could post the wonderful smell right along with them!

My Blogger Friends in China

I read a recent post from my friend, Suzanne Calton, who moved from Castle Rock to China a couple of years ago, and it amazed me that a country could have such control over the personal lives of its people.

Something so trivial and fun as a "blog" can be censored and blocked in China. That is so crazy to me. We take so much for granted here in the United States -- such as the freedom to say and write whatever we want. (By the way, don't know what this Chinese banner says on the left -- just thought it looked cool -- hope it's nothing inappropriate!)

Below is a post from Suzanne's blog and then one from another friend of hers who lives in China, as well.

I'm grateful to live in a country where I am so blessed with the freedoms we take for granted!

(Excerpt from Suzanne's Blog)

I'VE HAD IT!!!

Argh!! China has had blogger blocked for about a month now. After weeks of waiting (y'all know this happened around the time of the Olympics too), Tim finally got a VPN to let us get around it. The day he got it, I feverishly posted 4 of my ... hmmm, let's say 45 posts in the "waiting" phase. Delighted, everything uploaded just fine. Then, on Sunday, Monday, and today, I try to upload pictures --- and I CAN'T UPLOAD!!! Sooo stinkin' frustrated right now. I can write, but no pictures!!

What do I do? .......

(And from her friend's blog)

CHINA'S CRACKDOWN ON THE INTERNET
As we have reported, China has blocked and continues to block websites that are objectionable or inflammatory in a political nature. They have also recently blocked and continue to block websites with a large amount of user-generated content such as blogs, youtube, twitter, and even hotmail and MSN messenger.

The Wall Stree Journal has now just reported that China wants to take its stranglehold of the internet to the next level, by requiring PC manufacturers to preload web-filtering software on their PCs effective July 1st ... this new policy was only announced May 19th.

Looks like the kinder, gentler China from the Olympics is unfortunately becoming a distant memory. Here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal, dated June 8th, 2009:

"China plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain web sites, a move that could give government censors unprecedented control over how Chinese uses access the internet."

Looks like the Chinese will just have to come up with new ways around the government's information controls ... and they will.

Pretty incredible stuff, huh? I know there is a lot of stuff that I would like NOT to see on the Internet ... but I want the choice to decide what that is. Good luck to you, Suzanne and friends!

She's Legal ... Watch Out on the Roads!!!

Well ... my 16 year old baby girl got her license today! She's so excited to finally hit the street solo -- but not so excited to be driving the little Green Ford Pickup! She still needs some more lessons on driving a stick before she's turned totally loose. Congrats to Kelsey on this major milestone ... I'm excited for her but it just makes me feel even older!!

Exercise Anyone???

Looked out my upstairs window as I was coming out of my room and saw this old exercise bike perfectly upright and centered in the road! What the heck??? Looked around to see if it was some kind of prank but didn't see anyone. If it had fallen out of someone's truck would it have landed this perfect? The whole thing cracked me up! How bizarre -- I went out and moved it to the side of the road. Who knows!

A Trip with More Teens -- AHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I guess the idea is to keep them so busy that they don't have time to get into any trouble!! Sunday morning after Youth Conference we headed out to Utah with 6 teens, myself, and a whole lot of dufflebags and stuff we had to cram into the car! The past couple of summers I have taken Kelsey and other kids up to "Especially for Youth" on the Campus of BYU in Provo. They spend 5 days in the dorms and have all sorts of fun! They absolutely love it and hate to come home. This is Jacob's first year and we flew him up because there wasn't any more room in the car and because he didn't get on the same session as the other kids. He actually stayed up there and is at EFY this week with his friend.

Jacob and I stayed at my in-laws house and visited with them and Jessica and Nate. (Kraig is in New Zealand, AGAIN). Jessica took the day off and we took Grandma and Grandpa up to Smith and Moorehouse Campground for a picnic where we went camping years ago when Jacob was just a baby.

We actually found the exact campground where we stayed!

Jessica pretended she was "the big honkin' moose" that we saw in that very field on that trip long ago -- Kelsey was about 3 and that is what she called the moose.



Didn't see any real moose ... but did see this beautiful bird that almost seemed out of place!

IT

WAS

A

FUN

DAY!



Jacob and I helped Grandma one day (VERY LONG DAY) rake up all the branches and then burned them in a massive bonfire. We had that fire going for about 7 hours as we trimmed trees (with the help from Uncle Kim). It was every 14-year old boy's dream -- keeping a fire going for 7 hours!!!




GRANDPA AT THE DIALYSIS CENTER

He didn't have to go for dialysis that day but just had to have things checked out. The ladies are so nice there ... they even gave his life story a write-up in their newsletter -- front page!!

Church Youth Conference May 28-30

As the leader over the 16-17 year old girls at our church, I was asked to be a chaperon for our Youth Conference this year. The conference involved youth from our entire Castle Rock Stake which included about 200 kids, 14-17 years old and adult leaders. Talk about lots of energy and fun! We have such a wonderful group of kids!

The conference was all day from 8:00am to 11:30pm on Thursday, Friday and 1/2 day Saturday. On Thursday we rented out the Douglas County Fairgrounds and had fun classes, team building experiences, games, lunch, dinner and a huge LOUD dance with a DJ. It was a crazy day but lots of fun.

That night, after the dance, 6 girls from my group, came and spent the night at my house and in the morning, I provided breakfast and took them back to the next day's activity. All 200 kids were divided that way and numerous host families provided a place for them to spend the 2 nights, breakfast and transportation back to that day's activities. It was such an organized effort to keep all the kids and their stuff straight and busy for those 3 days.

Here's a picture of the girl's I had at my house (one girl spent that night at her own home) and then some pictures of the group we were in charge of during all the activities.

We had 10 young women and 9 young men in our group. David Harp was my co-partner and watched over the boys in our group. We had a GREAT group!!! In keeping with our theme -- Being a Light and an Example -- our group were the Green Super Novas -- there were Sunbeams, Moonbeams, Light Savers, StarLight, Glow Worms, etc. Every group was assigned a "Light" name and a color. Kelsey was in my group but Jacob, being younger, was in another group and I didn't really see much of him until Friday when we did the service project.

A great crazy partner to help keep the kids focused. His wife was also a leader.

Some pictures around the Fair Grounds on Thursday.

A cool "Velcro" suit and wall! You suit up, run and jump high and stick to the Velcro wall. Christine was an expert at the backward flip and stick!

Kelsey on the slide race and at tug-o-war!

The high-light of the conference (in my opinion) was our Friday Service Project. Here are the Super Novas and part of another group ready to build fences! Miles and miles of them -- all with post holes dug 2 feet deep -- 16 feet apart -- and with thee strands of wire connecting them. I told my girls that when their dates asks them what they did this summer they can say they worked on a horse ranch putting up fences -- IMPRESSIVE!

We drove the kids out to the Coyote Canyon Ranch which is just about a half hour from the fairgrounds and spent 7 hours building fences and corrals on 107 acres of their beautiful property.

A group called "Horse Power" helps to run the Coyote Canyon Ranch and provides therapeutic horse-back riding to handicapped children. It was a fantastic project for a group our size and one that touched every one's hearts deeply, that day. I don't think many of those kids or leaders have ever worked so hard!

I spoke to one of the owners to thank him for letting us come and serve him and his organization and this big old cowboy was totally choked up and speechless. We did more work before noon that they had anticipated us doing the whole day. He said that we had NO IDEA of the impact our service provided his organization. What we did that day, they would not have been able to accomplish for another 10 years. Multiply 200+ people times $15.00 or more per hour times 7 hours and you have a LOT of free labor!

They were so grateful and it was so worthwhile to work hard and see miles and miles of fences as your reward! It was such an unbelievable experience!

Here is the cute cowboy who runs Horse Power with his wife. I told him I was so happy that he wasn't running around the ranch in an "I Love Newport Beach" tee-shirt and flip-flops. He was a real, humble, sweetheart of a cowboy!

Our kids hard at work!

Lunchtime was a big hit!

A day not soon to be forgotten!

After the service project, we went back to the Fair Grounds for dinner and then to the Castle Rock Rec Center for swimming, games, Karaoke, sundaes, etc. How they had the energy, I have no idea. Its cute to see the "farmer tans" in this picture. Kelsey is in the front -- pointing at me.

We were all up and out of the house at 8:00am dressed in "Sunday" clothes for a powerful testimony meeting where the kids told of the experiences they had and how it touched their hearts. Such a wonderful 3 days with some wonderful, hopeful, energetic youth! I'm so grateful to have shared the experience with them.