Are You Ready to Wiggle-O?

Apparently I suffer from selective amnesia. I already knew that, but I forgot.



It has happened with high school, with pregnancy, and now with girls camp.

A few years ago, in preparation for a trip back to New Hampshire and Boston with Dan, I excitedly anticipated a small reunion of sorts with quite a few former classmates. I loved high school!

But when that reunion happened and memories and feelings from that time came flooding back to me, I said to myself, "What the heck? I didn't love high school! I pretty much hated high school, aside from basketball and a few of my friends."

And when we decided it was time to have another baby I thought, "It wasn't that bad being pregnant."

And when I thought about girls camp I thought, "I'll only hate one thing- the heat"

I have come to realize that I have this habit of blocking out the negative and only remembering the good things. And it's not because I'm an optimistic person, unfortunately. It's seriously an unrealistic memory problem.

So Girl's Camp, overall, was a good experience for everyone. Even the girls who couldn't let on that they were enjoying themselves at least part of the time consented at the end that it wasn't that bad.

The girls liked to sit on this random purple hippo and even made up a cute little song about her.

Henrietta Hippo

And the canoing was one of my favorite parts. Because a few of our girls were not certified to a certain swimming level prior to camp they had to have a leader in the canoe with them and that ended up being my job. It was great fun. Especially on the last day when we canoed and swam in the lake as it poured rain.

"Swamped"

I taught our girls the cup game. I remember playing it at girls camp and now the legacy lives on.



There was just about zero drama, which is just how I like it. What a nice surprise.

Eating dinner with the Bishop

I know the girls even better than I did before and had the added bonus of getting to know the other leaders. And you never know someone as well as you do when you live with them. In August. With no air conditioning. In Houston. We had one night of delirium in which the girls thought we had gone out of our minds and told everyone they saw the next day that their leaders had "gone crazy".

Making friends with the gorilla who tried to scare them

But one thing? Really, Elise? Just one?

I hated the heat, along with everyone else, just as I had anticipated. But how could I forget my phobia of public bathrooms? I know I should just be grateful for the flushing toilets, but I hate going in a "stall". (Probably too much info here but I only went potty 3 times in the 4 days I was there!) And just knowing I had to wear shoes in the shower didn't mentally help me feel clean. In fact I might have felt dirtier. And bugs. And spiders. And snakes. We (meaning they) killed 3 copperheads in our very campsite! And I know I said I liked the singing and there is no good reason why, but I lied/forgot. Now I remember that most of camp singing is annoying. Especially when the song involves sitting and standing repeatedly, excessive hand motions, and any booty shaking.

A pictorial metaphor of the week

So how in the world I only anticipated hating one thing, is beyond me. But even with the memories only days ago, camp was a lot of fun. I feel lucky to have been able to go. And while there is now a whole paragraph about all the things I didn't like, I'm sure that in a few days, I won't even remember them!