Three Days without Sleep (a.k.a Girl's Camp)

Last week I went to our church youth camp with the girls ages 12-18 for three days. I don't think I've been so sleep deprived since the twins were newborns! It was strange to experience first hand the power that sisterhood has over a bunch of females. We laughed, sang and chatted non-stop (including into the wee hours of the morning!) I felt so young and happy and alive being with these girls -- even when I was chasing a few around at 2:00 a.m. after a round of T.P. and shaving cream assaults! Girls just need to be girls sometimes...even when I was dead tired I would fall back onto my air mattress (bouncing my tent-mate Stephanie into the air, sorry Stephanie!) and then instead of falling asleep we just had to talk some more.


I felt so lucky to be up there with Hannah and to see firsthand her cute personality associating with the others. She never complained, she never rebelled, she was always ready to help or go to her class or whatever (as were MANY of the girls there -- what a great group!) I love that Hannah still likes me and wants to be with me, as I do her. We missed our boys, but were happy to get away from the heat and the chaos of homelife for a few days.

Before camp, Hannah and our neighbor Taylor were painting the camp flag when they asked me if they could have an old pair of jeans. I thought Hannah just didn't want to get her clothes dirty, but it turns out the girls wanted to paint the pants! They turned out so cute, I declared them to be the beginning of the "Sisterhood of the traveling painted camp pants" and that each of us would wear them one day of camp. Here's me on the first day, stylishly modeling the pants (which, unlike the book where the pants miraculously fit all the girls and make them look amazing, these did not fit very well and made us all look campy!)

The camp was up in some mountains (I DON'T know my geography here in this foreign place very well) and there was a nice stream/river running through it. We were able to hike to an area with natural water slides and pools and big rocks to jump off of. The girls had so much fun jumping and swimming, even though it was freezing! (refreshing!) I decided to spend my time taking pictures of the girls rather than jumping myself, but when they were done I was a little sad that I didn't take the plunge too.

Here's Hannah coming down one of the rock slides.


Hannah's on the left jumping off the rocks.


Those rocks were HOT on my buns, but I got some fun pictures.


The camp's theme was shining through the decades and each group was assigned a decade to be. We were the 80's! Talk about a trip down memory lane...I even found a pile of 45's (you know, the small record singles we used to play) and brought them up to decorate our camp. We each did a skit based on our decade, so we all got to wear side ponytails and learn the Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance for the skit. Our set fell down and we had a few girls fall off the stage, but other than that, it was um...hilarious!

Our skit was a spoof of "Star Search" and Hannah was Edith McWoman (the female counterpart of Ed McMahon). Doesn't she look cute with a side pony?


Packing up was exhausting (at least these girls would like you to believe it was!)


And I got the privilege of riding home on a school bus with the girls, 3 hours with no air conditioning! When we got home, we stripped and jumped in the pool (after putting on our swimming suits, I'm not that crazy!) Ren and the boys had taken great pains to clean the house (Ren even mopped!) so we'd be happy to be home. I should have taken a picture because the house hasn't looked so good since then. Oh well, we'll just pretend we're camping!