Be a Soul Survivor: Girls camp 2014

I was assistant girls camp director again this year.  This is my 5th year in a row going to camp.  It was a ward camp so we got to pick our place and our theme.  We decided the beach again and to have a Survivor themed camp.  Cynjyn is a second year and we were excited to go together again.  Each year had a flag and name.  The second and third year's were combined since Emma Jex is the only 3rd year in our ward.  They were the Ratata Dragons.

The 4th years were the Tiger lily's.

The YCL's chose Haola Hotties (White Girl)

Us leaders were the Wnnahacaloogie's

The first years were the Tiki girls.

The priesthood was the hunks of burnin love.  Each tribe had to decorate a totem can where they received tree mail every morning with their spiritual challenge and good night treats every night. 

The spiritual challenges were rolled up as scrolls.

They had a rhyme with the challenge for the day on it.  We had a tribal challenge the last day at camp with certification skills.  Jen and I had come up with the challenges.  Sadly, I was running them and didn't get any pictures, but here is what the girls had to do.  We divided them into new teams with at least one of each year and a YCL on a team.  Cynjyn was with Quinny Reid, McKenna Borla, Skyla, and Kaitlyn Zelzuka.  They ended up winning the whole thing.  These were the challenges.  We had giant cubes with six different cloud formations on them.  We read a definition and they had to show the correct formation the quickest.  They had to use a compass and find 4 buried  bags, dig them up and return to their spot and put a puzzle together with the pieces in each of the bags. They had to do a relay with knots where they ran down and looked at a tied knot, then ran back to their base and tied it.  If they couldn't tie it, they had to tag the next person on their team and they tried.  They had to run as a team to 4 different stations and each one said the name of a different fire, they had to get wood and run back and build that fire.  We had a giant concentration matching game with animals, plants, trees, stars etc. on it.   The teams got a point if they matched and a bonus point if they could identify the match. They had to do a charade game of first aid.  They had to act out the injury and then the team had to give the solution or how to treat it. We had beach type things for each team to win, like water bottles, water squirters, fun noodles and beach balls.  The first place team got first pick, second second and so on.  I think the girls really enjoyed it.

We had a group campsite at Carlsbad South beach.  We had the ocean on one side of us (we were on a hill and it was right below us) and a major road thru town on the other side of us.  It was kind of weird, but we made the most of it.  There were no trees to speak of at our camp, so we had 5 EZ up shades set up in the main area for shade.  Here is Emma, Cynjyn and Tommie hanging out at the table.

Sister Oh is the YW president and Cynjyn's dance teacher.  They happened to bring their matching sweatshirts they wore for one of their dances, so we had to get a picture of that.

The leaders that were there was: me, Linda Borla, Debbie Witt, Jana Oyler, and Jen Hill.  Megan stayed at a hotel with her family across the street.  So we had a tent together and one night Debbie challenged Linda to a leg wrestle.  It was pretty funny as Debbie immediatly flipped her over and won!

Cynjyn's tribe had to be the cooks one day!

Jenn and I made our second annual treat lunch with leftover french toast, peanut butter, raspberry jam, chocolate chips and marshmallows and put that in foil and melted it all together.  It is super yummy.

We had the YCL's certify the girls at camp. Each took a year and had a couple of sessions to work with them.

There was time to visit and eat.

We had one camp craft.  The girls could make a magnet board to hold some beach pictures.  They mod podged beachy type paper on a metal burner cover from the dollar store and then made some seashell magnets.

We had campfire every night and each tribe voted a girl in their tribe as the most helpful or went the extra step that day to help in some way.  The winners of each tribe got to wear a special tribal crown for that night.  Cynjyn won it one night.  We had yummy desserts each night too.  This night was the candy filled sugar cones.

For some unexplained reason, Jen and I both woke up with a fat bottom lip the last morning there.  We don't know how we got it and it was weird that it was both of us.  We figure it could have been a sunburn even though we didn't get got burned the day before?!

We had a day where we went on an outing.  We went to the San Diego temple and the temple president and his wife talked to us and we got to look around.

Then we went into Old Town and walked around.  We had to stay with the group in our car.  Jana and I were with Emma, Cynjyn and Tommie.  They had fun looking around in the shops and such. 

We went into a cool oriental shop where they had these tibetan healing bowls.  The man played them for us and it was pretty cool!

The square had some old replica buildings of back in the day and Cynjyn and I found the Wells Fargo building. 

We had to get some pictures of that for Talon.

They liked the old store and hotel that had a piano that was over 100 years old.  They let Cynjyn play it.  She loved it.

We then met our ward at the Mormon Battalion museum after a couple of hours of touring on our own. 

We went as two different groups. 

In our group, Cynjyn and Emma were chosen to come up and be dressed as authentic men and women of the battalion.  Cynjyn got to be the man and the rifle he handed her was super heavy, like 10 pounds!

They were so cute when finally dressed as pioneers.

After the tour they got to pan for gold.

We also had plenty of time for the beach.  We did a four mile hike as a group to these cool rocks overlooking the beach. 

Cynjyn found this kelp pod thing and was fascinated by it.

Lots of playing in the beach where two of our girls (Alexis Hill and Heather Sawyer) were stung by sting rays within minutes of each other.  And Cynjyn and Lauren made new clothing accessories with the kelp stuff.

We did a group photo shoot.  Here are our YCL's: Taylor Miller, Alexis Hill, Shae Haycock, Quinny Reid, McKenna Borla, Rachel Jenkins and Aubry Wilson

Our first years:  Olivia Davis, Heather Sawyer, Kaitlin Zelzuka, and Kimber Tanner

Third year:  Emma Jex Second years:  Tommie Chapter, Kainera Fruen, and Cynjyn

Priesthood:  Brent Davis, Bishop Tanner, Don Sawyer, and Dave Hill (photo bomb:  Debbie Witt)

And our fourth years:  Lauren Fitsemanu, Savannah Robinson, Danielle's cousin Ashley, Skyla (don't know her last name she had just moved into our ward the week before camp), Danielle Tanner and Ezree Tauuanu.

And the leaders: top row:  Jana Oyler, Linda Borla, Jen Hill, me.  Bottom:  Debbie Witt, Megan Oh

It was a great camp, one of my most fun ones so far.  But I didn't look so good when we got home.  This is me with my hair after having been braided all week and my fat bottom lip. 

I am glad I got to experience it with Cynjyn though!  Fun memories were made.