fires

Utah is literally on fire this week.  There's been new fires every day.  One day was 16 new fires.  So far 3 firefighter deaths, and thousands of acres of damage.  Fireworks have been banned for the holidays. There was ash falling from the sky, so we went down to help clean debris off of Grandma and Grandpa's roof to keep it safer from possible fires.  

Syl defending her piece of cardboard.

The girls got off to YW's camp.  This is Ada's last year.  She's a YCL this year and did a great job with her lesson and her group. I'm grateful for our wonderful YW's leaders and my spectacular girls.

Seth got his bottom braces on today and will be getting his top ones on next time.  He was having a hard time with them but now that they're on, he's not noticing.

Grandma invited us to watch the new Persephone movie with everyone last night.  It was cute and well done.  The teenage girls (Maisy, Evelyn and Millie were all giggling in the corner and Sam, Cy, Jer and Seth kept laughing any time that they got really excited about a kissing scene.)

 

Young Women's camp

Ada and Evelyn's camp this year was different.  Evelyn was in the last week of mandatory practices for her ballet and Ada had the ACT on Saturday.  They had a Ward camp planned for St George.  I got permission for Evelyn to miss one of her mandatory practices and Jer drove down to pick her up early.  (They left Tuesday and he brought her home Thursday morning for her rehearsal Thursday afternoon.) Then we got Ada a ticket on the express, kind of like a mini bus, to drive home Friday night and take her test on Saturday morning.  I'm glad both were able to go even for a little while.  Ada was a YCL and did spectacularly.  She gave a devotional and led scriptures study for her "family" all week. They did baptisms in the Red Rocks and St George temples.  Hikes, movies, swimming, etc... Thanks Young Women's leaders and youth leaders!  

(Ada didn't know she was supposed to take a calculator with her to the ACT.  I had a prompting the night before to remind her and told myself that I'd do it in a minute.  I didn't do it. But despite all that, we see that mercy and preparation prevail.  She got a 26.  Not bad without a calculator!)

Sorry some pictures got left out of my other post.  Here are my cute Bear Lakers.

 

yep

Look at these cute YW doing baptisms... I love them.

Our watercolor teacher posted this picture... I thought I'd share.

Sam didn't have a music stand for pep band in the commons the other day.  Ada took a picture of him and said that it sounded like she was walking into a movie as she walked down the hall.  Sam pointed out his music on his lap later.  I love it all.

 

yw's camp

This was my 15th YW's camp.... I'm so grateful to have been able to share 5 of them with Ada and Evelyn's first one with her.  I was just released from YW's so I won't be going next year.  I have mixed feelings about it.  I like being with my girls.  I like baring my testimony to the youth. I've also been in there for the last 6 years and it might be nice for a change.  They've called me as the Primary singing leader.  

Camp this year was crazy. We were supposed to go to Camp Mia Shalom again with our stake.  Because of how much snow we had this winter, some of the pavilions and cabins had collapsed and they canceled our stay.  The we found a place down south near Lake Yuba and that ended up not being viable.... so we were scheduled to go to Camp Williams... the military base.  The problem was that we'd have to bring in our own water.  Then 10 days before camp, a family in our ward volunteered their extended family cabin.  It was fun and fit us a little tightly.  It was Evelyn's first time and she did well.  She has a tendency to hang back from the other girls, but I think she learned that she can have fun with them too. Most of the older girls are choosing to not come to camp, so out of the 15 girls Ada's age (ish) there were only about 5 of them there.  I think she still had a good time and the week was relatively drama free. Sierra Quibell was our young woman camp director.  She did spectacularly. Our theme was Courage/Faith

 

2 days

Because of a family reunion, Ada and I only could go to the first two days of a 5 day YW's Camp.  This is my 4th girls camp with Ada.  I love being able to share in these things with her.  This is her first time seeing Camp Mia Shalom. I love seeing the connections she's making and the spiritual steps she takes.  She wasn't happy about leaving her friends just when she was getting into the swing of things, but I'll try to help her love our reunion too.  This year, our Stake camp director was Jenny Yancey (who was our YW's President for years).  She hid a goat named Kenna around the camp for the girls to find, a barbie head and random boxes.... all of them came with different prizes.  At 30 girls attending, we were one of the two biggest wards there.  We had 4 cabins.  One of them was made into the food storage cabin.  That's where I slept with Sister Quibell.  Ada slept in cabin 3 with 11 other girls and a leader.  The first day was hot.  The second day was very wet.  Yet both days were great.

Alexx, Hannah and Ada

Paint by numbers