june 2016

Sometime in May we had found a caterpillar, and kept him in a jar with some sticks and leaves. We found the tree that he had come from, and made sure to get leaves of that variety for him. Every day we checked on the little caterpillar waited for the change to chrysalis and then moth. Eventually he had made the final transformation, so we let him out:

The raspberry crop was apparently great this year, so good that the organic stores were selling little packages for .99! I bought several, ate some right away, gave some away, and froze the rest to use for smoothies in the coming months. Yum!

My dad was hosting a huge equestrian event on his farm in Raphine over the summer, so Jed and I went down for a few days to help him get ready - and to hang out. Jed was terrified of the horses at first, but I helped him get comfortable enough to watch from a distance. We are still figuring out when Jed needs to ease into situations (pretty much always, but sometimes he needs more "easing" than at other times). Jed loves being on the farm, helping Grandpa Hat. We cleaned out the horse trailer, swept the barn, cleaned the stalls, painted fence rails, read books, hunted for dinosaur eggs, and ate ice cream.

We also spent time clearing trees, and Jed especially loved that. He felt so strong and helpful, cutting branches and piling them into the tractor's bucket. Riding on the tractor was pretty exciting too!

My dad is building onto his farmhouse, with plans to move into it at the end of the year. While we were there the builders were there working, and Jed slowly became friends with their dog, a very sweet animal  who didn't seem to mind the attention.

In the middle of June we went down to the St. Clairs' to drive with them out to the Calvert Marine Museum. It is a cute little place and the kids all enjoyed it. Inside is a place for them to do imaginary play, displays, and tanks with a variety of aquatic life. Outside is the lighthouse and more animal exhibits, and a tent with picnic tables where we enjoyed our lunch.

At the end of the summer, our stake planned on doing Pioneer Trek. Brother Kemper and I went to scout out the trail, and spent an entire Saturday hiking it. We got lost a couple of times and rather than walking 10 miles, went about 16.5. A tiring day for sure but very helpful in learning the trail! In the end we canceled Trek this year because of the heat - the group that went out a few weeks before we were scheduled to go had to leave the first day they went out after calling 911 more than once. We had no desire to have the same experience, and decided it was irresponsible to continue forward with the plan. It was a really tough decision but felt it was best.

My friend Stephanie is starting a business, so she needed some time without her kids to do paperwork. Jed and I happily obliged, taking her twin girls every afternoon for a week while she worked. The kids all had a blast together, and though on Friday all 3 kids were SO tired they completely melted down at every tiny thing, all the good memories they made were worth it.

Every year I go to Girls' Camp, taking 20 adults and 50-60 teenage girls out to the woods to camp for 6 days. It is a really intense but overall amazing experience. This year was my 10th year in a row, and I was in charge of the food again (I have been about half the times I've gone). We bought the food and stored it at the stake center, in a couple of trips. In between 2 of the trips, there was some confusion with a sign saying "free" in the kitchen for a couple of items on the counter, and the missionaries who were all there for a district meeting thought the food was up for grabs. We realized that random bits of it was gone, and momentarily panicked! We did figure out the problem though and the food was returned. After that we put many very clear signs on our food. :)

The first part of camp was marked by massive downpours. We had gotten the tents the YCLs and leaders were sleeping in up, but always leave the rest of the tents down so the girls who arrive the next day can set up their own. Overnight the first night, it started to rain. POUR. And it didn't stop for hours. The entire campsite was at least a couple inches of standing water, some places deeper. There was not a single place to set up a new tent that wasn't in the middle of a lake.

We addressed the first problem, which is that we couldn't cook breakfast in the kitchen area the way that it was - created by a couple of canopies over the tables with unavoidable spaces where the canopies met - so we tied a giant tarp over the whole setup and tried to rig it such that the water would run off the edge, away from the kitchen. The water had a tendency to pool right in the middle of course, so I solved this by lashing a dutch oven lid lifter to one of the canopy poles to hold the center of the tarp up. It still required some TLC in emptying the tarp of water in certain places where it wanted to pool, but we made it work.

Our big concern after breakfast was that it continued to rain, and we had a bus full of girls on its way - with no dry place to put any of the girls' things when they arrived and no way to set up tents for them to sleep that night. The situation was dire enough that we considered calling it a lost year and all going home. Crystal Willis (camp director) and I talked over the options, prayed, and decided to call the park rangers to ask about renting the covered pavilion for the night so the girls could sleep somewhere dry. The woman who answered the phone said that the pavilion was only available to rent for the day, not for overnight. I started begging, throwing out words like "massive flooding" and "dire situation" and telling her that I honestly had no idea what else to do. She said she would call the ranger on duty and talk it over with them. When she called me back, she told us that not only would they allow us to use the pavilion, but they wouldn't even charge us for it! We were amazed and so grateful. The bus arrived a short while later and we were able to get the girls with all their stuff into the pavilion so they wouldn't be soaked immediately. The girls weren't particularly happy about it, and there were certainly complaints, but the situation prompted many of them to pray. Sometime in the afternoon, the rain stopped! Even better, the ground dried up miraculously quickly and they were able to set up their tents by bedtime. Instead of having them cook in their years, I changed it to stake and I cooked while they set up their tents. We were grateful not only for the change in weather, but for the permission we had been given to use the pavilion - which gave us the strength we needed to keep going in the meantime, even though we didn't know when the rain would stop.

I'm always pretty proud of my food organization!

A little wildlife

 I felt inspired to set up a place where the girls could write down tender mercies, small miracles they saw during the week that let them know Heavenly Father is watching out for them. It was really neat to see the cards get added throughout the week and know the girls were seeing and recognizing these little miracles in their life. I plan on doing it again next year!