So here are two things I promised to post on a while ago and never got around to.
First, stake girl's camp:

I was super excited to go this year because last year I was unable to hike King's Peak because of my health. That is, I was excited right up until a day or two before it was time to go. Then, all of a sudden, sleeping in a tent and hiking everywhere (including the restrooms) and not being in my own bed for almost a whole week sounded a lot less fun. But I went anyways (I couldn't ditch, after all, it was my younger sister's first year going) and at first it was okay. I was in a tent with most of my good friends from the ward and hot dogs were nowhere on the weekly menu (yes, that's a good thing. Hot dogs are nasty.) I had a cot so I didn't have to sleep directly on the ground, and some of the more inactive girls in our ward were at camp with us this year which made me feel like a good Mia Maids president. Then came 3:30 am of the next day... it had been raining for most of the night and it was freezing and my cot was noisier than a large man with sinus problems. I was already awake when I heard someone gagging/coughing. At first I thougt Hailey was just bored and making gross noises, but then it sounded like puking. I found my flashlight and called to the girls. Tyller, one of the girls in the tent, had thrown up all over her sleeping bag. We all helped clean her up and got the leaders to take her home. I felt so bad, it was her first year and she was really excited to be there. :(

Okay, so maybe not this bad,
but it was pretty darn stormy.

Then it started raining again and our tent started to leak so we figured "what the heck, let's get soggy" and got our ponchos and danced in the rain. It was really fun until the thunder and lightning came. Then left. Then came back. ALL DAY. The worst was when my group was doing crafts (at a pavillion, thankfully) and it started pouring and hailing--seriously, the worst I've seen in a long time. It was a miserable day, but that night the stake presidency came. Our stake president promised that because of our faith and endurance that the storms would stop. Believe it or not, the rest of camp was perfect weather. How's that for the power of the Priesthood, eh?

Now to tamale making. This part's going to be just a couple of pictures. I got teamed up with Sam for tamale duty, and let's just say it didn't go as well as one might hope...

It started well...

but then he got that
mischeivous look in his eye...

and squashed our tamale-in-the-making!

The finished product... :D

So we went on a family outing last week to the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point. While you can imagine that an outing with a family as large as mine (9 people in immediate family only. Grandparents and cousins came on this trip) is definitely going to be a bit hectic, going to the Gardens always gives me the opportunity to get some great photos. It was a beautiful day and I think I managed to get a couple good ones. :) Enjoy.

The three chairs and the door are from the Secret Garden (my personal favorite), the arch with the roses was in the Rose Garden, and the picture of the daisies was just taken along the main walkway. I don't remember which garden the fountains were in. :)   

Hey guys, sorry for not writing in forever. (Oh, and I'm not going to write again for almost another week because I'll be at camp, but I promise to write oodles of posts when I get back. :P)

It's just been a little crazy the past few days, I was sick and all that fun stuff. But I'm back now, so hopefully I won't go weeks+ without posting again. :)

So yesterday afternoon I looked out the window and everything was pink. It sounds weird and it's hard to explain but it was like the lighting in an older movie or the way they sometimes show flashbacks where everything's tinted. I'd never seen anything like it before, it was actually kind of surreal.

It was the most amazing sunset EVER. I tried to get some pictures, but sunsets are always kind of hard to capture perfectly on photo so imagine these only 10x more vivid. :)

Oh, and there were lots of clouds because it had just rained.

And this last one isn't the same sunset but I was looking through my pics and I think this is a sunrise from back in February... I thought the clouds looked cool. :D

Thanks for reading!