Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"Do we have to kill our own food?!"

My girls are so good at celebrating Wolf Shirt Wednesday. So many of them pulled wolf shirts out of their suitcases this morning for our own theme day.


At Fall Weekend up at Timber Wolf Lake last year we were so excited to find actual wolf shirts in their store.



I love getting to overlap with Ella and Nina here. They both couldn't be CILTs this summer with their friends but I'm so glad that I'm getting the opportunity to be with them here. I love this pair and think it's so cool to see them in this environment.


Because it's the middle of our time at Sharp Top we had to do a Cabin Clean Up and got to exchange our towels for clean dry ones. Our cabin was transformed as everything got put away, beds were made, trash was thrown away and Payton expertly swept up. We left poems, notes and candy for the tewashies that would be judging our cabin.


The Wolf Pack headed back outside to meet the rest of camp for a morning Club.




We really love Crows in HSE... I don't know if we're really ahead of or behind the trend but the girls love it.


Club is the best. I always look forward to this part of the day and know the kids have such a blast and take away so much from the Club talk.


We sang one of my favorite songs, "One Thing Remains," and a new one that we really liked.


This afternoon we had lots of free time and our kids spread out all over camp.


I started one on ones with some of my girls. YL camps do a great job of prioritizing the relationship between a leader and their kid by having us do one on ones. Basically we just get to hang out on the porch or walking around camp or sitting by the lake and talk with just the two of us about life and faith and questions and family and friends and anything else on our girl's heart. Today I got to talk with Haleigh and then Hannah, two girls that mean the world to me.


We had about 45 minutes till our leader meeting and Hannah, Butler, Haleigh and I didn't know what to do. We were all feeling tired and like we'd rather not do anything when I stepped in and decided we needed to have an adventure. I remembered passing a big "Sharp Top Cove" sign when we came into camp and I wanted us to walk down to it. We weren't sure how far it would be but I convinced the girls to go. We ended up having fun and taking pictures the whole way.




It really didn't take long at all for us to make it down to the sign. Totally worth the hike.





We were just starting our leader meeting when out of the closet came the Chik-fil-a cow and a team of people carrying trays of chicken sandwiches for us. It was awesome and totally the kind of surprise we get to pull on the kids all the time except this was for us.


Late in the afternoon all of camp headed down to the Lake front where we walked into this frozen Old West scene. A gun shot fired and they sprang to life. Our characters from camp came out and told us that tonight we all need to get dressed up so we could blend in to the Old West town for the hoe down.


We pulled out our flannels, bandannas, overalls and drew freckles on our cheeks. I took a zillion pictures of the girls and promised I'd put them all up...
















Dinner was a feast of all things country- pulled BBQ pork, corn on the cob, biscuits, baked beans and slaw.





We chowed down on dirt pudding with worms for dessert and finished out with an old fashioned sing along.


Then all of camp walked together down the gym where a giant carnival was waiting for us.



The room was transformed and it looked SO cool. Carnival games were set up for kids to win tokens that they could then redeem to soak or pie their leader.


It was a messy night for us.



Everyone headed back to the Club Room for the Opera, one of my favorite events at YL Camp. This is the climax of the drama involving all the different characters and when we get to see all of their stories come together. The best part is that they all randomly break out in song every few minutes with current songs that fit the dialogue.



The very last scene involved a flash mob with all the leaders breaking out into a dance we'd been practicing all week long.


This was truly the night that never ended. We all went to the dining hall for a giant square dance and then a dance through the decades. The kids LOVED it. When we got back to the cabin they were all sweaty and couldn't get over the fact that they had so much fun.