It's the post you've been waiting for: the youth camping trip!!! Sorry I haven't been on top of things.
THIS IS PHOTO HEAVY. PREPARE YOUR EYES FOR AWESOMENESS.
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| First night: Nicole, Melissa, and I playing hearts. |
It soon became evident that it was a looong hike to the bathrooms so the girls decided to go together on Saturday morning to wake ourselves up. Later, we found out that there was a bathroom much closer. (Though you had to walk uphill.) And I was so thankful I brought hand sanitizer.
After breakfast (apple bread and cereal) we took a hike (longer than the hike to the bathrooms) in the mountains. We probably hiked for about two hours and were all very hungry when we got back to the campsite. But the views were amazing!!
Rest break! This is: Nicole's head, Alex, Christian, Cam, Kerri, Kevin, someone else, and Logan.
And that's Daniel, who didn't want his picture taken.
About halfway through the hike, We found these massive rocks, which we climbed and you could look out and see all the mountains. It was so beautiful! I think you could even see a bit of Tucson (or maybe Oro Valley, not sure which) in the distance.
Me and Christian! ^-^ All along the way, I picked the pretty flowers I saw and poked them into my braid. Sadly, they wilted by the end of the hike, but while they lasted, they made me happy! I love flowers!
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| Nicole! |
We took a (mostly) group picture on the top of the mountain. Not everyone was in it, but it's still a great picture! And we have few group pictures of us as it is.
After we got back to the campsite, we made sandwiches and had free time. We played a few card games and then the boys started playing poker. When they started to take their shirts off, the girls decided to hike in the nearby woods. We ended up sitting by a little crick and singing worship songs with the guitar. (The guitar wasn't singing though. We were singing and I was playing the guitar!)
For dinner, we roasted hotdogs on sticks. I pioneered the stick part as I was very hungry and the stick I found... well, it had character. It was a bit skinny and wobbly at the end, but I made it work. (All the while, burning the end of the stick. When I took the hotdog off, my stick was all charred except where the hotdog had been.) However, the stick ended up roasting several more hotdogs!
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| Jacob, Daniel, Cam, and Alex. I'm really not sure what they're doing. |
We got a huge game of hell (or "nertz" if you prefer) going, and Jacob was trying to distract us. Nertz is a fast game similar to Solitaire with multiple decks of cards (approx. one per person.) It gets harder the more people are playing. We played with six.
I'm a cowgirl at heart! Yeehaw! I tried on Jacob's hat for size.
More Nertz-playing.
Jacob, myself, and Christian! The flash on Jacob's camera was so bright! I was squinting in almost all of his pictures.
The boys did crazy things at night after the girls went to bed. One of these things included the decimation of our ladle and can opener. o_O Jacob replaced them for us though so it was all good. When it comes to this sort of stuff though, you're better off
not knowing what happened.
In the morning (Sunday), we packed up the tents and had a little worship/devotion time with Jacob. It was really nice. And Cam helped douse the fire before we left.
And that concludes our (awesome) youth camping trip!
All in all, it was a great experience. I loved spending the weekend on the mountain with my friends. We talked about doing hard things and how God has been working in our lives. And we also did a lot of goofing around.
Jacob also announced to us that he would be stepping down from youth ministry and another couple from our church would be taking it over. The transition has already happened and while it's been difficult for some of us, it has also been a good thing. Sometimes, God uses change in big ways and we just need to accept it. (Which is always the hardest part.) Youth ministry isn't the same without Jacob, but I've come to terms with it. And it's okay.
