~Living Happily Ever After~: August 2009

Girls Camp 2009

This was my 3rd year at girls camp, as a leader. It was hard going with morning sickness but I am so glad I went. I had a lot of fun, some great spiritual experiences, and grew some friendships. I had way too many goofy pictures to post on here but I did my best without putting too much up.

I did just get released from being YW President last week. It was a bitter-sweet moment. I have been doing it for 3 years and have enjoyed it, but will be grateful for the break! I love those YW!

The wonderful Young Women Leaders and Camp Leaders

The Gang and our banner

Our ward theme was Esther and Courageously Righteous (as Esther was)

Jeannine Skousen on LSD..just kiddn but she ws enthralled by the glow sticks

The older girls playing an innocent prank on the 1st years

Chubby bunny!

Our camp winner vs. another ward...their girl rocked us!

Team building challenge. The girls had to get therough the ropes without touching them. Paige got to dive into the girls arms.

More team building challenges

Dance Lessons

"My mom gave me a quarter" song done chin style

Broom ball with kiddie pool bases

Mattea, our shoeless wonder

GIrls trying to get their hands going opposite directions...trickier than it looks

More concentration

Archery!

Our sweet Becca in hot mamma heals!

Our skit on the story of Esther

The star of the skit

Ghettysburg

This could have been the highlight of our trip to D.C. My mom, Jeff, and I drove a few hours to Pennsylvania to see Ghettysburg. We got there at 7pm, when the shop and exhibits were shutting down, but we did get to walk around and see the sites still. There was way too many monuments to remember which one was which. It was a very beautiful place to visit. We could have taken days to see the whole thing. We also got to see the house that Abraham Linclon finished the Ghettysburg Address in.

Pennsylvania Monument

I had some relative that faught from Pennsylvania. We tried looking for his name but there were thousands to go through. It was the biggest and coolest monument we saw. There were stairs inside it to go up and look out from ontop it.

Lincoln on the Pennsylvania Monument

View from ontop the Pennsylvania Monument...very pretty scenery

I believe this was the New York Monument

Monument about the Ghettysburg Address

Suspected place of the Ghettysburg Address

Mason's Monument

Memorial for Abraham Lincoln

Scenery picture...wish we had time to look for lead balls/bullets

Washington D.C. Temple

Its no San Diego Temple but its pretty darn snazzy. Jeff went around the grounds and took some nice pictures while I sat down with my mom becuse I felt sick :). It would have been nice to have made time to go in but it was a great opportunity to just see it too.

Washington D.C. Smithsonian Museums

Jeff and I went to almost all the Smithsonian Museums while we were visiting D.C. Some were well worth it and some were nice to say we went anyways. We went to the National Archives (Declaration, Bill of Rights...), Natural History Museum, Air and Space Museum, The Holocaust Museum, and The National Art Museum.

Declaration of Independence

This was so not worth it...as much of a history fan that I am. We waited about 2 hours in the blazing hot sun to get into a building where it was a maze to get to the exhibit, then we waited some more behind velvet ropes while another group was looking at the exhibits. When we finally got in, it was super dark to preserve the papers. We couldn't' use flash photography so our pictures all turned out bad, except the one above, and the papers were very faded. I was pretty bummed.

Romulus and Remus

Famous statue...I think it it called The Dancer...

I'm thinking...a model of The Thinker

Van Gough's self portrait

Jeff knows way more about the Air and Space Museum than I could imagine. He took tons of pictures but I don't know anything about the planes so I only posted a few. I believe this one is the awesome plane that Hitler built that if he built more could have won the war....interesting fact, according to Jeff.