"Gee Mom I wanna go to Girls Camp Mom!"

"Gee Mom I wanna go!"

-Where do you wanna go?

"Gee Mom I wanna go to Girls' Camp Mom!" 

Did anyone else sing that song? "The bathrooms up at girls camp they say are mighty fine..." 

On to the point, I got to go to Girls Camp today! Sure it was only for 3 hours, but I'll take what I can get! It was lovely. 

About a month ago I was asked to come up to camp and give a 30 minute presentation on my mission/what it's like to serve a mission/how to prepare to serve a mission (I gave the presentation 5 times as the groups rotated through). Their theme for camp was "Bloom Where You're Planted" so I chose to title my talk, "Plant a Seed of F.A.I.T.H". I made this to go along with my title:

F. Was about my decision to serve a mission and how Heavenly Father calmed my fears about going and to make a decision to go based on FAITH not on FEAR.

A. Is the importance of having a happy, positive, grateful ATTITUDE in all of life's adversity and challenges. 

I. Focused on Jesus's grace and that we can't succeed on a mission or in life without the help and strength He offers us. I referenced Alma 26:12 and also Elder Bednar's thoughts on the subject. 

T. Discusses what they can do to prepare for a mission, or just to become a better person if they don't want to go, and that is GAIN A TESTIMONY. And once they've received a witness of the truth that isn't the end.  You can keep asking for a witness again and again and receive the Spirit's confirmation that the Gospel has been Restored, Jesus is your Savior, and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I think this is an important principle that we sometimes forget. We need to regularly put "Moroni's Promise" to the test, even if we already know it's true. It's not just for investigators!

H. Ether 12:27 was the inspiration for this one. As we come closer to Christ, for me it was as I served a mission, it feels like all our shortcomings are thrown in our face. It hurts, but it HUMBLES. As a mission continues, you gain good HABITS, and over time Christ changes you into someone more HOLY than you were before. He can make more out of our lives than we can. 

The whole experience was so wonderful for me. I loved preparing to give the presentation and thinking about the young women and the trials and decisions they might be facing in their lives right now. I loved reliving happy and sad mission memories: thinking about my wonderful companions and other amazing missionaries I served with, investigators who I loved so much, some who fell away, others who stayed strong. It felt so good to study, pray, ponder, and receive guidance about what to teach. I loved driving up to camp early this morning and getting to know one of the young women in my ward who had been sick the first few days so she rode up with me. We even drove over mountains hills changes in elevation to get there. Sadly, it's been awhile since I've seen an elevation change. :) I loved giving the presentation and feeling the purity of those young women. It was a lovely, LOVELY day. 

Friends

Over the last few months Emery has taken an interest in playing with other kids. It's a fun stage to see develop. She's starting to understand sharing but she hates to do it and still throws a fit most of the time. But she is learning and that is very rewarding to watch. Because of Emery's new found ability to play WITH children instead of just BY them, she and Bella have become good little friends. They are really 

cute and get along well...usually.  :)

Bella barely fits on this trike by herself but she and Emery love to ride around on it together. It's so funny! Sometimes Bella even lets Emery "drive"!

Galveston Sandcastle Tournament

On Saturday we took a little day trip to Galveston for the annual Sandcastle Competition, one of the world's largest sandcastle competitions according to their website. Now before you start thinking of some wimpy plastic bucket and pail castle, let me assure you these people were PROFESSIONALS. It was really fun to watch them carve out the sand and see words, faces, ships, castles, and for some reason quite a few toilets appear. I tried to snap some pictures but because we couldn't stay until they were finished there are always people walking in front of the sandcastles. You can still get an idea of how elaborate they were.

It's just sand and water. They do use wood frames to build up all the sand and then tamp it down, but the finished project is a true sandcastle. I didn't get a picture of my favorite one...I thought I did but apparently I didn't, but it was this awesome fairy tale castle with a big dragon off to the side. It was amazing. And I didn't even see it finished.

I love Galveston. It's not to far away but it's very different from where we live so it feels like we're really "getting away". We had so much fun swimming in the waves and playing in the sand. Emery was quite tuckered out by the time we were done.

80's Skate Party

A new friend of mine recently had an 80's themed birthday party at the skating rink. When I read the invitation to Gavin he was very relieved to discover it was a girls only deal. I had so much fun. I was born in the 80's...but I definitely don't remember them and I may or may not have had to ask a few times if the songs they were playing were from the 80's (shameful, I know). Here's some picture-evidence of the night:

Check out that skate train! Seriously, we look amazing. It was a good thing my Grandma had taken some grandkids and great-grandkids skating this past Christmas so my body could remember how to balance on skates. Otherwise I would have been a stumbling mess on the skate rink.

Little dresser all dressed up

I recently found a little dresser for Emery at a garage sale for $8. There were no scratches, the drawers worked well, and it looked barely used. All it needed was a little sprucing up. I snapped a before-ish picture as an afterthought but you get the idea of what it looked like.

Before:

A few coats of paint later and ta-da! Here's the after:

The knobs still need some work. I went to Home Depot last night to buy new ones but the bottom two knobs are more narrow than any of the options at HD. I didn't feel like filling the old holes, re-touching the paint, then drilling new ones, so I just spray painted them black until I find other options I like better.

I love seeing furniture re-dos. Betterafter.net is a blog I follow that posts people's before and afters and it is really fun to see the transformations. Plus I think the blogger is funny. I was excited to try one of my own and this was a nice, easy first time project.

My next project is a tall, narrow cabinet that's been sitting in my garage for months that I don't know what to do with. I keep waiting for inspiration to hit but it hasn't. Maybe that means I should just get rid of it? Or I just need to stop fretting about it, slap some paint on it and bring it in my house so it can start being useful instead of just collecting dust.

Family blue bonnet pics

I can't decide which of these first two is my favorite. Emery was being very wiggly so it was a miracle we got her sitting still at all.

These next two didn't turn out quite as well as I hoped they would (because Emery was not having ANY of the squished face), but they're still cute enough to share.

 Emery ran away from us to frolic in the wildflowers and Gavin took this when I went to get her back. Can you believe how many flowers there are? This field was FULL of them, and full of people taking pictures in them. It was beautiful.

Poor Emery, we went out to take these on a Sunday afternoon and she is just so worn out on Sundays. Here she is having a meltdown, but maybe if you didn't know better she looks all sweet and cuddly.

Emery in the bluebonnets

Gavin doesn't have much time to edit pictures so I just decided to post these. Some day he'll edit out the people and cars in the background, but until then Emery still looks adorable so take a look! The last one is my absolute FAVORITE!