I'm writing a day late this week because I was at Girls Camp most of the week and yesterday I had a lot of catching up to do. After I wrote last Friday, I made a batch of cookies (for dinner the next day) and I took Seth out driving for a while and he drove on the freeway for the first time. I've been trying to give him a chance to drive for at least 30 minutes every day so that he stays in practice and gets more experience. It seems to have helped and he is getting a little more confident and seems more willing to try new things. On our Friday drive, we saw a pretty rainbow.
(I took the photo when we pulled over for Seth to adjust his seat. Unfortunately, there were power lines in the way. When we got out into the country it looked even better but I couldn't take a photo since I have to keep really alert to help Seth with driving.)
Last Saturday (the 13th) I had a hair appointment in the morning. Frank was awesome and got the grocery shopping done for me while I was at the hair salon. That helped me out a lot! I don't remember everything else I did that day, just that it was busy with packing for Girls' Camp and a lot of other chores. We had the missionaries over for dinner that night and after dinner I took Seth driving again.
On Sunday we got to church early because Seth had a missionary correlation meeting at 8:00 am. We enjoyed attending Sacrament meeting in our own ward and not sitting in the foyer...the first time we'd done that in 5 weeks! After Sacrament meeing one of the nursery leaders asked me if I could be the second adult in nursery with her because her husband wasn't feeling well. I was happy to do that. There's only one little girl in our ward's nursery, so it was pretty easy! She colored and played happily by herself for most of the hour and we (the adults) got to chat.
After church I got in a lot of scripture study time and I also went with Seth for another drive. Jared & Jessie came over for dinner as usual and we played a new game that I got Frank for Father's Day...Uno No Mercy. It's a very aptly named game. We had fun though.
Seth did not hear back about his job interview before I left for camp (still hasn't heard from them, actually...he needs to follow up) but I left a list of things with Frank to have Seth work on while I was gone which included most of my regular chores (laundry, vacuuming, etc.) plus a few other jobs like breaking down cardboard boxes for recycling, shredding paper (we have two large garbage bags full of old receipts and stuff that need to be shredded), cleaning his room, and helping Frank clean in the basement. I also asked Frank to take him driving every day.
Monday morning Frank headed into work for a few hours but got a call partway there that the air conditioning was out in his building so everyone was teleworking that day, so he came back home. I said my goodbyes to Frank and Seth and headed to Costco when it opened to help buy some food items for camp. That was a very busy day because we got up to camp and had to unload all the food and get the kitchen all set up and then prepare dinner for 150ish people. (Dinner was pasta, salad, and bread. We made 3 or 4 different kinds of pasta and 3 kinds of sauces.) I also made a run to a local grocery store to get a couple of items we hadn't been able to get that morning. After dinner was also busy because part of breakfast for Tuesday morning needed to be prepared that night (french toast bakes) and lunch the next day was going to be served at a nearby lake, so we needed to pack up all the lunch food in coolers and boxes (sandwich fixings, fruit, chips, cookies, etc.) Oh, and of course we needed to clean up the kitchen and do all the dinner dishes too. The lady in charge of the meals (her name is Val) told me that we'd be in the kitchen from 6 am to 8 pm every day, but that turned out to be an optimistic estimate most days. On Monday we didn't finish everything until about 10:30 pm. After that we still needed to take showers before going to bed. We were in a cabin with 4 other stake leaders and it did have a bathroom with a shower and flush toilets, which was nice. By the time we got back to the cabin, the other leaders were ready for bed and they turned out the lights and went to sleep before we finished showering.
I forgot to mention that temperatures this whole week were in the high 90s or low 100s with high humidity levels and that there was no air conditioning in any of the buildings at camp, so it was miserably hot all week. The dining area next to the kitchen had two small air conditioning units to help keep the heat in that room down a bit and in our sleeping cabin we had a lot of fans which helped keep it relatively comfortable, but the kitchen and dish washing room were both really hot all the time, especially when we had the oven, stove, and / or grills on. The kitchen overall was a great kitchen, though...it was large and had all kinds of great equipment and gadgets including an industrial size refrigerator and freezer, a huge oven, two large grills, a serving area with built in warming trays and an area for keeping things chilled, a large pantry, a large stainless steel island for preparing food, plenty of shelves and drawers for cooking equipment, two microwaves, an industrial can opener, an ice machine, and several large sinks for dish washing. (There was also an industrial dishwasher like they have in cafeterias, but we didn't know how that thing worked, so we didn't use it!) The very best part of the kitchen, however, was the very large walk in refrigerator! All of us took refuge in the refrigerator at times when we just needed to cool down a little bit. A few minutes in the refrigerator, and I was ready to face the heat again for a few more hours. (I meant to take pictures of the kitchen, by the way, but I never had time for that!)
In spite of how tired I was, I didn't sleep very well Monday night. (I even took Melatonin, but I still kept waking up.) I woke up at 6:10 and got to the kitchen about 6:30. Val was already there...she hadn't slept well either and finally gave up and got up about 5:00. We put in another long exhausting day although we did have a little bit of a reprieve after we sent all the food for lunch to the lake around 10:00 am. Dinner that night was taco salad, though, and the following night we had Hawaiian haystacks so there were a lot of vegetables and such to cut up for those things. We did get to sit down for a little while after breakfast and got some planning done before we started working on chopping up ingredients for dinner. We did get done with dinner and clean up a bit earlier that night. I had planned to go home Tuesday night to take a really great shower (including washing my hair) and to hopefully get a better night's sleep and I was able to leave camp by about 9:15. It felt really great to get in the shower at home...I felt like I was washing off 25 layers of dried sweat! I still didn't sleep great, but it was good to be home for a night in my own bed and to see Frank and Seth briefly. (I had no cell service up at camp so I didn't have any contact with them at all while I was away.)
One of the reasons I had trouble sleeping every night is that my feet were hurting a ton. My back did not give me much trouble at all during the week (which I am VERY grateful for) but my feet were a different story. About 2 hours into each day my feet would start screaming at me and they would hurt a lot the rest of the day, which was usually 12 - 14 more hours. I was wearing good shoes so I don't know what the problem was but it definitely made the whole experience a lot more difficult. I very rarely had any time to sit down, but tried to catch a few minutes off my feet here and there and occasionally was able to sit down to do a few tasks (like peeling a lot of hard boiled eggs). The work surfaces we had were definitely made for standing, not sitting though, so it was really hard to get a chance to sit.
I returned to camp by 6:30 Wednesday morning. The drive to camp in the early morning was beautiful and I saw a couple of deer. While at home, I decided to grab my pillow (I took up an inflatable camp pillow with me, but it wasn't very comfortable), a fan for the kitchen (which helped quite a bit), and my nice vegetable shredder because I shredded my finger instead of some carrots on Tuesday when I was trying to use the shredder that we had at camp.
Val and I were the only two official camp cooks that stayed all week. We had at least a couple of other people come up to help us each day, but on Wednesday two of our helpers weren't able to come last minute, so we were short handed. Fortunately, a couple of brothers who were there that day to help with some dutch oven cooking (for a class) were free during the breakfast hour so they manned the grills and made pancakes for us. It was a huge help!! (We still had plenty of other things to do...warming up precooked bacon, making oatmeal, making whipped cream to go on the pancakes, setting up the serving area, putting out strawberries for the pancakes, yogurt, cereal, fruit, oatmeal toppings, etc.!) For lunch we had a salad bar and made little pizzas using Naan bread for the crust. It was hectic because even though we had 14 cookies sheets, that wasn't enough to make all of them at once so we had to keep making more pizzas and putting them on trays as they emptied. After lunch I had to make a run to Costco to get rotisserie chickens for the Hawaiian haystacks. I also got watermelons and grapes because we needed more of those. It was nice to get off my feet while driving there and back although standing back up after being in the car for a half hour was pretty painful. (I also really enjoyed the air conditioning in my car!!) By the time I got back to camp, dinner preparations were in full swing. (Thankfully we did have quite a few helpers.)
We were up pretty late Wednesday night because the 4th year girls, who had been on a backpack trip Monday through Wednesday, had s'mores ingredients they hadn't been able to use the previous night so their leaders asked if they could make s'mores in the kitchen. We didn't have to help or clean up, just needed to be there and everyone (girls and adults) hung out and talked for quite a while. When we got back to our cabin, the other leaders were still showering and talking so we talked with them too while we waited for our turn in the shower. It was the last night of camp so all the girls were in a party mood and wanted to stay up all night and everyone got to bed a lot later than normal.
Thursday morning we made a lot of scrambled eggs and warmed up more bacon and put out all the leftover fruit, bread, pancakes, french toast bakes, etc. We tried making some breakfast casseroles and I knocked one pan onto the floor which of course made a huge mess and I felt really bad about that. It all worked out though and after breakfast we got the breakfast stuff cleaned up and then packed up all the leftover food and kitchen equipment (we had to bring all of the cooking utensils, pans, etc...none of that was provided) and deep cleaned the kitchen. We did have a number of adults and also quite a few of the girls to help with all of that so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. We got everything done and the kitchen passed inspection and I was able to head home shortly after noon. Believe it or not, I have left out a lot of details of things that happened!
Meanwhile at home while I was gone...Frank worked from home all week so that Seth wasn't left alone the entire week. They did get some cleaning done in the basement and Seth broke down a lot of boxes so it looks quite a bit better down there. Seth also did some paper shredding and a few other household chores but not as much as I would have liked. They didn't go driving every day because I forgot that Seth's permit was in my wallet. (Faceplant.) I left his permit at home when I came home Tuesday night so they did go driving a little bit on both Wednesday and Thursday. It was Seth's first time driving with Frank in the car and predictably they got frustrated with each other but at least we got over that hurdle.
It was great to get home--see Frank and Seth, take another shower, get unpacked, and start working on some of the things I've been neglecting at home. I didn't get a whole lot done on Thursday but we did do laundry and I made it to the store to get a few groceries and also took some things to Goodwill. I had Seth take me so that he could get in some driving hours. Shortly after we got back from the store, Scott called and I talked to him for about an hour and then we needed to leave for the airport to pick up Tanner, who was arriving that night. It's great to have him here, of course! We got home pretty late and Frank needed to go into work the next morning so he didn't get very much sleep.
I got up around 6:30 Friday morning and decided to try exercising...I wasn't sure if my poor abused feet were going to be able to handle that, but I was able to do it. I had a lot to do yesterday too...meal planning for next week and updating the finances to name a few. I also had a really great scripture study session. I was only able to snatch a few minutes to read a couple of verses in the Book of Mormon a few days this week...a couple of days I never read at all. But yesterday was really awesome...I had so many strokes of inspiration while I was reading! I also had a few thoughts come to me about Seminary stuff so I pulled out a notebook to write those down and then kept remembering other thoughts that have come to me over the last few months so I wrote those down too and before I knew it I had filled up over two pages. It was sweet and humbling to realize that the spirit has been nudging me with different ideas through these last several busy weeks even though I haven't had much time to put into Seminary preparations. All those thoughts were in my mind waiting for me when I was ready to focus on them and write them down. So lovely and I'm so grateful!!
Jared & Jessie were able to come over for a while yesterday too. Last week was Jessie's last week at her job and Jared will be working until the 2nd of August. They are heading to Texas on August 6th. We will miss them so much, but we are so grateful they have been able to live nearby the last 18 months. Even though their reason for coming here was a difficult challenge, it's been a real blessing in so many ways to have them here. We have particularly loved getting to know Jessie better and can tell that she is a lot more comfortable with us now. It's been a real joy to develop relationships with her. Yesterday she was playing songs for us from her 80's playlist and we were guessing the song titles and what group sung them; it was fun! Jared and Tanner left to go shooting and Jessie stayed behind for a while before she had to leave to run some errands. I know she wouldn't have done that a year and a half ago...she would have left when Jared left. So glad that things have changed!
Here's a photo I took yesterday...I love seeing how much fun my boys have when they are together! (So cute that they are all squished together onto the loveseat.):
We've enjoyed visiting with Tanner the last couple of days. I can tell that Seth particularly loves having him here. Tanner has been pretty tired, though, and has needed to sleep a lot. He always has sleep issues and last week both he and Scott had Covid so he's still recovering from that. I didn't take Seth driving yesterday but Tanner had to go to a couple of stores so Seth drove him to do that.
Today (Saturday the 20th) I've been getting caught up on more of the regular chores...hopefully I'll be back to a normal schedule soon (maybe!). I'm slowly getting there.
I'll finish up with a couple of random pictures related to Girls Camp. I only took about two pictures the whole time I was there...no time for anything else!
Here's a photo of some of the leaders who decided to have a meeting in the walk in refrigerator so they could cool down:
The game was late and arrived while I was at camp this week.
I forgot to mention that the head cook, Val, is moving to Tennessee on Monday. I still can't believe she was at camp the week before moving!!! She is really an incredible person who can stand on her feet and work all day and still seems to have plenty of energy. I felt like a total wimp next to her! I've actually had to fight off feelings of inadequacy all week and on Thursday felt pretty down all day, feeling like I didn't do a very good job...that I wasn't much help and complained about my feet hurting too much, things like that. The more rational part of me knows that isn't true...knows that I worked really hard and did the best that I could and that it doesn't matter if anyone else thinks I didn't do enough because I know that I did all that I could. I think sometimes the adversary sows seeds of doubt in our minds when we are serving because he doesn't want us to keep serving others. That being said, though...I'm not sure I'll be able to help in that particular way again. My spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak!
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