We had youth camps in June. Alex, Weston's youth leader, Weston and Owen did a 10-mile prep hike for their backpacking trip at the beginning of camp. They saw a snake along the trail.
The third week of June was young women and young men camps. Alex went with the boys to their camp to Santa Cruz Island, and I spent 4 days with the young women at a camp near Sacramento. The boys did an extra day backpacking to their camp, hiking 13 miles from Prisoners Harbor to Scorpion Harbor. They did more hiking during camp, about 26 more miles, along with swimming and kayaking. They had foxes running around their camp.
The young women camp started at the Sacramento Temple, followed by pizza and some opening games at the local chapel. Our camp, Rock-n-water Christian camp, was about 30-45 minutes from the temple. The camp staff gave us a tour of the camp that first evening. The camp staff had very high energy - lots of cheering and jumping up and down. We shared the camp with a couple of other groups, so our mealtimes were mixed with them. We didn't have to prepare any of the food, but we did have to do some tasks or cheering to get first in line at the meals.
We had activities during the day and devotionals at night. Our main activities were whitewater rafting and canyoneering. I had been rafting before but had not done canyoneering. I probably won't choose to do canyoneering again, at least not in the same conditions. We were walking in waist deep freezing water, with some slippery footing. We also had to scramble up some boulders, and I don't think I'm cut out for climbing like that anymore. I did do the mini waterfall slide, but the water was so cold! The rafting was a lot of fun. I jumped off a cliff at one of the stops. We had 2 girls fall out of the raft on the last rapid, but they were okay.
We did a few other activities, like rock painting, some games, and an un-talent show. Another leader and I had to do a little sock puppet show (pretended like we were rafting). I liked the testimony meeting on the last night. I felt inspired to share a short testimony about choosing to do hard things. We had a superhero theme for the camp, and our tent's superhero was Black Widow. So we had some decorations on our tent and a cheer associated with that superhero. I made some little photos with phrases of encouragement on them.
I didn't sleep much the last night. We packed the tents up earlier in the day so we wouldn't have to pack in the morning, so we were just sleeping on a tarp. I could hear a lot of snoring, and at about 3:30am one of the girl's twinkle lights turned on in strobe light mode. I had to get up and turn it off, and then I had to go to the bathroom. Tried to go back to sleep, but the birds started chirping at 4:45am and the sun was about to pop up. So I got up at 5:15am and took a shower, which was hard to get during the day since we shared only 3 showers with 2 other groups. Left camp early and had a long drive back home on only a few hours sleep.
Savannah stayed with our friends all week. They had to get her to dance on Wednesday and a dress rehearsal for her dance performance, which included putting on the fake eyelashes. Other than that, it sounds like they had fun.
We forgot about arrangements for Kai until the last minute, so we had to use a random person on Rover.com. We didn't have time to do a meet and greet to see about compatibility, and unfortunately they had 3 other big dogs there that kept surrounding Kai and trying to sniff her bum. We could tell she didn't like it, but the lady said she'd mostly keep Kai inside. I didn't have a great feeling about it, but we didn't have any other option for her. The next day, I listened to a voice message from the lady saying that Kai had escaped and ran off, but they found her at the animal shelter. They needed our permission to allow release to the lady who wasn't the owner. Kai is microchipped but doesn't have a tag on her collar. By the time I called, the lady said it was taken care of (they showed the Rover agreement) and Kai was back at her house. She said that Kai must have gotten out of the screen door in the kitchen. Anyway, about a week or so later, I saw what looked like a stray dog wandering around our neighborhood. I happened to look on our local Facebook page for lost pets, scrolling to see if anyone had lost the dog. I didn't find that dog, but came across a post about Kai, which detailed a little more about how she was found. Apparently she almost got hit by a car a couple times, until someone stopped and tried to see if anyone was with her. Eventually, the lady let Kai get in her car and she took her to the animal shelter. Kai had her own adventures that week!
