You know that ancient Gavin DeGraw song "I'm In Love With a Girl"? Well yesterday, I caught myself singing it with the words "I'm in love with the world!" Totally sneaked through my subconscious, that little devil, and made myself laugh. I had never once practiced those lyrics to the song, or - to my knowledge - had ever sung that before...um? Quite the surprise. Here's why those lyrics of my version of the song made their way into Summer 2012:
I believe in
this program so much. It changed lives these past two weeks, including mine. I was a counselor for the two sessions it currently enrolls, and each week I had twelve amazing girls! It's a camp similar to EFY in the sense that it's spiritually uplifting, built around the Mutual theme of the year, wonderful speakers come, and we are involved in so many fun activities! But it's different, of course, because it is an all girls camp. I was a participant at Retreat for Girls back in 2005 and again in 2006, and I encourage all girls between the ages of 11 and 15 to save their money and go, it is so absolutely worth every penny. I can't wait to return next year!
However, it was an exhausting process getting ready for it (extra: I went home to prepare and bought a car from my parents! my mom drove back to utah with me...and my five million bags and buckets of supplies. So blessed to have a car!) and even more exhausting living it. I was up hours before my girls and up hours after them, and the hour a day I wasn't with them, I was in a meeting talking about them, and how to better myself for them. It was a really interesting experience, living such a selfless life for that little bit, that returning to regular life was a challenge. I was so used to counting 12 little heads behind me (or, like most times, counting 10 and going on a wild goose chase to find the missing 2), and constantly praying for patience and love, and crying over sweet things my girls did. It was amazing. Here are some pictures:
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| some of my cute girls (1st week) |
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| all of my chic chicks (1st week) |
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| last day :( (1st week) |
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| we got SOAKED as we left the dorms for the weekend. but, we went to texas roadhouse to get out of the rain. good thing? yes |
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| some of us spent the weekend in between at Bo's beautiful place in Idaho! |
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| Go Team Kenton! (counselors, 2nd week) |
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| counselor roomies (love them, duh) |
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| my girls relaxing with "green goop" (they'll learn the importance of it one day) on their faces (2nd week) |
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Last day! (2nd week) Miss them.
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I love and miss all 24 of my girls so much! I've received a few e-mails from them, but I just want them all back!
I wasn't in Provo very long after this, but I had some exciting things to look forward to for the few days I was in town! A very important one being:
That was an exciting, emotional three hours in our apartment.
Jennae, who was away from us visiting her family, texted me and said, "Watching the bachelorette proposal and fully sobbing right now." Oh yes. I know exactly how you felt, bbyJ.
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we wanted to world to know how excited we were to talk about the satellite...not. (stop hitting on us, you're 31.)
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I also just took full advantage of being a new car owner (let this be known: the car is not new, the ownership of the car is new) and ran errands around Provo. Monday night was full of trying to pack, seeing my brother, reuniting with Cafe Rio, talking about astronomy and watching a satellite make it's way across the sky (weird experience), catching up with fellow CP-ers, and then doing some REAL stargazing. The kind I like. You know, with a boy.
This is really all I have to leave you with, that life is wonderful. And, as I've been telling my girls the past couple weeks, you don't choose the happy life, you make it. Even if things are hard, if you keep waiting for the good times, that's exactly what you'll spend your life doing: waiting. Choose to be happy, especially when it's easier to choose to be sad!
ox/C
