Sunday, August 4, 2013

Edgemont 10th Ward Activity Days

My calling is one of the best-kept secrets in the church ... shhh! I get to play with the 8 and 9 year old girls twice a month. Yes, play. My sweet friend Kesley Westover and I have been partners in crime, I mean, this calling, for about 18 months. She's moving at the end of the month and that makes me sad. We've had such a good time doing this calling together! We trade off at each other's houses, plan the activity and play with the girls. So not hard.

All of our activities are fun but we had two this summer that were especially great! One was our daddy daughter date held at Jerolyn Stringham's house. Jerolyn goes ALL OUT when planning something and this activity was no exception. Kesley, Jane Myers and I helped set up then the girls arrived with their dads (or helpful stand-ins) and they immediately got busy painting the girls' fingernails. It was kind of humorous to watch since some of the dads had never done that before! But they all did great.

There were baby pictures of the dads that the girls had to figure out. Some were easy - bald as babies, bald as dads! Haha!

There were three relays - one where the girls had to tie a necktie on their dads, one where the dads had to put their daughters' hair in a ponytail (that was harder than it sounds for some!) and there was a bubble blowing relay too. One of the hits of the night was watching the dads and daughters do the "Stroll," a line dance Jerolyn taught to all the dads and girls. Some dads got pretty creative with how they went down the middle of the dancers, twirling, swinging or carrying their girls!

Jerolyn also had the girls learn the tune "Lollipop" to sing to their dads, complete with cute fake lollipops as props. This came after refreshments of beautiful cupcakes and cookies, bagged popcorn, cut fruit and salt water taffy. The girls also learned a little more about their dads by asking questions and recording answers. It was a really fun night for the girls, one they'll remember for a long time!



















































































The second summer activity was going to Camp Jeremiah Johnson on July 11. We met at Jerolyn Stringham's house to carpool to the camp which is in Hobble Creek Canyon above Springville. Jerolyn, Kesley Westover, Beverly Cannon and I had fun watching and sometimes participating with the girls in so many fun things! Our first activity was playing on rafts on the lake. We had to row and row and row to try to scoop up colored alien eggs. We competed against each other but we all won because we all had fun!

The girls also got to shoot arrows from bows, make a bead craft, try to contain water in a tube with holes, shoot BB guns and probably the favorite of all - shoot rockets into the sky! The girls made paper and foam rockets and had fun putting them on the launchpad, watching them go high and then running to get them. I'm sure they were pretty worn out just from that activity.

We ate dinner together in the pavilion and watched a wonderful rainstorm blow in. Some girls bought items at the camp store and we earned beads at each activity and for cleaning up camp. We'll do it again next year!

Here are some photos from our time at Camp Jeremiah!