Girls Camp

 This is Earl.  

Earl is by far, the biggest bug I've ever seen.

This picture doesn't do him justice. 

He was about 6 inches long, 3-4 inches wide, antennas were about 4 inches long too!  No lie!

Yesterday I went to Girls Camp for the day.  Sweet Amy Beltran from our ward watched Blakeley (Thanks Amy!)  It was the longest I've ever been away from Blakeley!  I've never had anyone watch her for an entire day before.  Tyson picked her up after work.  I got home at about 10:30pm and she was asleep in bed so I didn't see her for over 12 hours!  It was a nice break but I missed my little munchkin. 

So it was about a two hour drive to get to the camp and it was a nice drive.  It was north of Austin in Leander, TX.  It was fun to see the girls and I'm surprised my ears were not ringing all night from all the cheering and yelling they were doing.  It was Cheer Fest!

It was a great camp.  When I got there, the girls were doing certification and then it was free time.  The camp had a HUGE blowup water slide and obstacle course, archery, horseback riding, and even a pool.  I wanted to go on the water slide!

In the late afternoon, I helped the girls paint their faces to get ready for Cheer Fest.  I painted one girl's face and then others saw it and I became the Paint Mama.  Dinner was delicious...we had steak, chicken, baked potatoes, salad, and green beans.  A guy in the stake has a BBQ smoker and brings it and cooks every year.  The steak was amazing!  It had that super good smoky barbecue flavor and it was really tender.  I'm not a huge fan of red meat but it was awesome.

After we ate dinner, the cheering began and it was really fun.  Everyone was teamed up by age level and the 4th years took 1st place.  The highlight of the night was when the judges left the room to deliberate who should win.  Everyone was pretty quiet and then all of a sudden, a couple girls started singing church hymns and then the rest followed.  We sang about 6 hymns before the judges came back and it was just amazing how it went from a loud, noisy room to a spiritual sanctuary where you could feel the spirit and everyone was just so reverent.

I'm really glad I went.  It was a fun time and it made me think..."Oh, to be a kid again!"

Bunch o' Daddy Long Legs
Sick, huh?!

Ick...I can barely look at this picture. 

Gives me the heeby jeebys!
Did I mention that I hate spiders?