I got invited to go to Youth Conference- being one of the leaders of a platoon. The theme was A.R.M.Y. (a righteous Mormon youth) Strong. We stayed at a military training place called Camp Navajo just outside of Flagstaff, AZ. My partner was Brother Mike Riggs - I really like him so it was fun to be with him. They split the stake into platoons and then groups of platoons made up a company. Our company was Delta and our platoon was D4 so we called ourselves D-force. Kristen was in my platoon and Sydney was in my Company. My sister Bonnie was a leader there and my brother Curt came up because he is our Bishop.
We got there on Thursday and checked in then put our stuff away in the barracks. The first day we did outside games then inside games and two classes. The next day was the same but we had a obstacle course to do. It was tough to do in the snow. We used the obstacle's that the Army uses.
A funny story about that was when it was our turn to go a friend in charge of it (Cody Hatch) told me that the 3rd thing in the obstacle course my sister Bonnie did. I told him that I had to do it then - couldn't let Bonnie show me up. So I get to it and couldn't believe that Bonnie did it. I had to climb up three planks of wood then climb on a piece of wood on the side to get to a metal bar and flip across it and drop down to the ground. Thank goodness for snow and for Brother Riggs to catch me. Later I found out that I actually landed on him. How embarrassing. I was in such a hurry to finish I didn't even notice. We were being timed and I didn't want to hold my team back. Anyway, later at dinner I told Bonnie that I did that thing she did. "What thing?" "You know the 3rd thing you did in the obstacle course." "Julie I haven't even been to the obstacle course yet." I told Cody who was setting a table away what Bonnie told me and he says "I got you to do it didn't I?" It was pretty funny. Then Bonnie tells me the next day when she did the course she runs by the 3rd obstacle and says "cool, Julie did that, Wow!" and kept on going.
Kristen fell into some ice water up to her waist on the obstacle course. She had to be pulled out of the water 3 times before she finally got out, was soaking wet, and still beat me to the finish line. :) The picture of her without a boot is because water got in one of her boots and she had to pour it out.
The 3rd day we got to have "chill time" which was go to a place where we went tubing, shooting and a 4 way tug of war. We won the tug or war and when we got back to camp had to go against the other winners. We took grand champion and got shirts that said A.R.M.Y Strong on them. Later that night was the dance. The kids had so much fun at it.
The food was great and the lessons were awesome. It was a super fun time. Brandi missed us so much that she gave each of us a huge hug. Brandi doesn't give hugs that often so when she does it's shocking.
