YW GIRLS CAMP

We had our second meeting for the leaders for Stake girls camp this week.  (so different from last year when I just showed up on Monday morning with no agenda, schedule, or map and had to put the peddle to metal to keep up with the ward camp leader who was the only one who knew what was happening or where we were heading...I'll leave the rest of that story for another day...)

Anyway, at our meeting I found out that I am a level leader for the Beehives.  there are 50 of them and I am in charge of crafts.  4 of them.  Budget $3.75 per girl and we narrowed down what the leaders want to do for the crafts:  prayer rocks, friendship bracelets, a poem and craft stick frame, and a scrapbook style book for using as a journal/record/autograph book for the week.  The other leader from our ward who is in with the Level 1 girls has access to unlimited amounts of free 12x12 scrapbook paper, so that should be good.  Another lady's husband works for a office supply co and will be providing cute pens for our autograph books.  That should help the budget as well.

Our camp will be at Heber Valley which apparently is nothing like Shalom.   The ladies in charge asked me to round up as many glue guns as I could find and I said, "they require power, will we have access to power?"  and everyone laughed at me.  Oh well.  Good news for me.

Which reminds me of HOW much fun I had at camp when I was young.  Brother and Sister Crapo were in charge every year I went and talk about magnifying their calling.  They were awesome. 

Anyways, I am so excited (times 10) for camp and because they are letting Summer go to camp this year since her birthday is 6 weeks after camp but before school starts.  She is the very last one of about 15 girls that age to turn 12.  She has been feeling very left out lately since all of her friends have been going to our awesomely awesome Beehive activities and she's not old enough.  But, camp will be fun for her.

Another thing... I just found out a few weeks ago that the Beehives are invited to Youth Conference which will be the week after girls camp.  Is that weird?  I have never heard of the 12-13 year olds going to Youth Conference.  But then again, I'm new to YW's.  And that reminds me, we are having a big meeting (aka PPI) on sunday and I think I'm going to be fired. 

Another good book...

I just finished reading this book, too.  At first I didn't think I would like it, but I stuck with it and it was fun, quick, and easy.  I like to read books like this so I can have some books to recommend to my kids.  Summer finished the book she was reading yesterday, so she started this one last night.  

This book is by Shannon Hale (Goose Girl fame).  I had a friend when I lived in Michigan named Katie.  Katie's sister is Shannon.  Katie had a copy of Goose Girl, Chapter 1 printed from her computer when I was at her house one day.  So, I read it.  At the time Shannon was a poor struggling writer trying to get her book published.  It was a few years later when she finally got it published and I got to read the rest of the book.  I have read some of her other books as well:

Enna Burning

Princess Academy

River Secrets

Austenland

So, I recommend any of these books.  They are pretty easy reading, fairy tale type stories.

rated G.

good book

This is the book that I am reading right now.  I am on about chapter 7, but I only read just a few pages each day because it is so jam packed full of good stuff.  It's typical Sheri Dew, she doesn't sugar coat anything, she just tells it like it is and tells you to get busy and get to work because you are blessed and lucky and God expects a lot of each of us.  I think when I'm done reading this I will go back and read it again and mark some of my favorite parts.  

race for the cure

there were about 18,000 people at the Gateway Saturday morning for the race.  The pink balloon arch was the starting point.  I think we walked for about 10 minutes before we went under the arch and officially started the race.  Running pretty much wasn't an option.  It was clearly a walking event.  After the first mile, it was at a slight incline and all you could see up the street was pink and white and then when we turned around behind us all we could see was pink and white. It was fun.  I guess.  The end was the best.  The route was lined with volunteers handing out bananas, oranges, water bottles, and Great Harvest Bread!  I never did see the timer at the finish line so I don't know what our time was, but I guess that it was about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Awesome.

Happy Mother's Day

this is what happens when you magnify your calling...

our lesson today was about covenants, specifically the temple.  So, I went and got some of those long pretzel sticks and dipped them in chocolate.  The way I was going to tie it into the lesson is that life is like the pretzel.  You don't want the little ones that are tied in "knots" you want the long and straight ones--like staying on the straight and narrow path--it's sweeter that way.  OK.  Whatever, I figured the girls would like them even if it was a little corny.  Too bad the dog ate all of the chocolate dipped pretzels during the night.   

YW activity Update

Thanks for the ideas everyone.  I appreciate it.  

3 girls from our class were on the committee to plan out the details of this activity.  The girls had a daddy-daughter activity in Feb. that the miamaids were in charge of (I didn't attend because of my foot) so they didn't want to go that route again.  Also, in March, right before conference we had a "Preparing for conference" activity where we played a matching game with pictures and clues about each of the First Presidency and the 12 apostles.  It turned out perfect because we had 16 girls at that activity and there were 15 profiles that we matched up with pictures.  

so, I helped the girls look on Sugardoodle (there is a link on my sidebar) for ideas for a Priesthood Activity.  The girls said,  (moan, grown, eye roll) "We're tired of learning about the Priesthood".  So, they came up with this idea:

We kind of  tricked the class and made them think we were having ANOTHER serious discussion about the priesthood.  We started with one of the girls listing off a bunch of facts about the Aaronic Priesthood.  The beehives really weren't too thrilled, so after a few minutes of listing facts on the board,  one of the girls held up a sign that said, Celebration.  And explained that the only way they could think of too incorporate priesthood and party was to celebrate the Restoration of the Priesthood by having a cake decoration challenge.  We divided into 2 groups.  I had made cakes and frosting all day.  I had all sorts of candy and foods that they used to decorate their cakes.  The girls wanted it to be like a food network cake challenge show that I was unfamiliar with, so the committee just took over and made sure it all worked and flowed.  They did a great job.  They only had 20 minutes to decorate their cakes from start to finish.  Then the deacons came into judge the cakes and help eat.  The girls had a blast.  Their cakes had to fit the theme of the Restoration of the Priesthood.  They did a really good job of interpreting the theme with their cakes.  I forgot my camera (darn).

to learn more, look  here 

ps, I think I am going to be fired, oops, I mean released soon.  We'll see what happens...

lettuce wraps, Part II

recipe...

PF Chang lettuce wrap recipe

or this one from Cheesecake factory that Amara recommended.  well, she recommended the restaurant not the recipe.  I haven't tried the recipe or the restaurant.  but I will hopefully try both soon!!

Whenever we want to make lettuce wraps we usually just google "lettuce wraps recipe"  and tons of recipes come up.  you can add other words like spicy, thai, asian, or the name of a restaurant chain.  Some websites are more reliable for good recipes, I usually just pick a recipe for which I have all of the ingredients!!