Girls' Camp 2012

If you know me...you know I am one of the hugest fans of girls' camp in the whole world. It's the best experience a girl can have to go out into the wilderness with a big group of girls of similar faith and have time to play and think, read and write, get close to those around her, and get in touch with who she is and wants to be! I loved my years at Shalom and wouldn't trade them for anything! Plus, who doesn't love learning how to make a fire or tie a bowline? Singing as you hike? Coming home literally covered in a layer of dirt? hehehe. So! I was beyond thrilled when in our first family ward, after Chris and I were called to be joint youth sunday school teachers (our ward is teeny so all the youth ages 12-18 meet in one class that Chris and I teach) so I got to love these girls, I was called as ward camp director. Talk about dream calling! And it was a good year for 'first time camp director' because it was a winter camp. It was only one night up at mutual dell. We did snow shoeing and snow caves. We did our one on one time, they called it solo time. We made some cute vinyl tiles and decorated journals. We got to do skits and play and sing and listen to great speakers and share testimonies. It wasn't a usual camp, and no camp fire was very hard for me, but it was a good mini-camp. They'll be doing a pioneer trek this summer as well, so they'll get another great like-unto camp experience there. Here are a few pics from girls' camp!

First morning at breakfast. My ward: aren't we cute girlies?

Making our tiles. Cute, no?
Can you also see the star board on the wall?
We wrote down moments where people shone on stars!

Cleaning, but aren't we awesome?

I'm crawling in a snow cave!!!

Playing in the snow

The final group pic! Aren't we shiny and goofy?

Debi and I were the leaders, had to have the 'new besties' pic!

Concert

  As part two of my sweet husband's Valentine's gift to me, he surprised me by taking me to a concert! A band I've really enjoyed for a while is Hot Chelle Rae. Tonight, Tonight and I Like it Like That were huge favorites of mine. He knew this because I made him listen to them over and over! hehehe! It was a blast! Here are my 3 favorite pics from that night (it was hard to narrow down...but here they are:) If you can't tell we're wearing part two of my valentine's gift for him! Matching shirts... his says "Get Back Witch" and mine says "I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!"

Valentine's Day

Ok, first thing first, you need to understand that Emily is not a fabulous gift giver. I try so hard...but I'm just...not. I always feel like my gifts are... sub-par. But I try. Well for valentine's day, I had flowers delivered to him at work. Additionally, he got me the cutest valentine's day dress! Then we went to The Roll-up, it's one of our favorite places, open late, and the atmosphere was perfect for valentines! I should have taken pics...but I didn't. hehehe.

Chris' B-Day!

Let me tell you a tale about a boy who's not used to a girl who loves birthdays! This boy loves surprises but knows that the girl can't keep a surprise to save her life. He also knows surprising her is usually a bad plan -- because she can't plan. hehe. He knew she loves birthdays, so he wasn't very surprised when he got to do everything he wanted on his birthday, specifically watch his favorite movie that is not her style. However, he was very surprised when they go to his favorite restaurant (not a surprise yet) and find...
A SURPRISE PARTY!

Yay for managing the first surprise of her life! (Hopefully the boy understands now that she knows she's able, the girl may not try to do this again... all month she was just trying not to tell him!) Balloons and colorful flame birthday candles, family and friends, and presents. So exciting!

February

So I'm cheating and post-dating so these will be in order. (buggins it will be if I don't!) February was a fun and busy month!
We had Chris' birthday, Valentines, a concert, and girls' camp!

My personalized 'sentiment' blocks!

So my mom has gotten me addicted to the cute 'crafty mommy' blogs. You know the kind. And it makes me want to be, you know, crafty! hehe. Well, as I've been decorating my 'mantel' (a shadow box) and around my apartment I've started decorating in 5 ways.

1. My 'mantel' shadowbox.
2. My door
3. My table centerpiece
4. Hanging something on the back of my cupboards
5. Window clings

Well, for the shadowbox, I saw some cute blocks at my aunt Dana's once, and then mom's cute 'title' blocks on her mantel, and talking to mom about sentiment blocks, I decided to make my own! Here's what I did!

First I purchased five cute little 2" blocks at hobby lobby. Then Chris painted them black for me. (Chris is artsy and was pretty excited when I asked him to paint to help me with a craft.)

Then I found different scrapbooking paper for each theme. I decided to do 5 different sheets (1 per block) that fit the theme. My themes are: Snow, XO<3XO, Lucky, Spring, Sun, and B-Day. Then I cut the paper into small squares, slightly smaller than the blocks.

Then I lined them up by theme and which block I wanted them on. (The order mattered to me.)

Next I mod-podged the paper squares onto the blocks.

Following this, I borrowed my mom's cricut and cut out the themes onto colored paper.

Then I mod-podged the letters/symbols of the theme onto the block, and covered with a layer of mod-podge. Because I used cut out scrapbooking cardstock for the letters, I had to double and sometimes triple layer the outside mod-podge to seal the letters on.

AREN'T THEY CUTE!?! I'm going to have to make some more sets!

make animated gifs like this at MakeAGif

Quest for Fries

While eating ice cream with Jordan and Karli (who both came to visit, epic no?) we started talking about fries somehow. And I wanted to compare different fries! However, since it was 10 PM we could only try fries from places that were still open. We ended up going to Arby's, Carl's Jr, McDonalds, and Wendy's. It was a lot of fun. (sure, there are still tons of fry places to try: five guys, chick-fil-a, in-n-out, etc) I think we need to define a rating system still, because everyone likes something different in their fries. I like firm and thick, and not too spicy. Some like their a little more spicy or a little more squishy. Some even like 'em crunchy (curly fries). So yeah! What's your favorite kind of fries?

still posting!

guess what! my catch up is over and I'm POSTING AGAIN! (aren't you proud of me?!)

now we just have to wait until next month. (heads up. posting lazy. don't expect anything from me.)

I have three quick bits of news.

1- I've been called as our ward's girls' camp specialist! AH! (since this year our stake isn't calling any directors. crazy i know. so essentially- i'm ward director... woot!) Teaching the Sunday School class with Chris has been amazing. We love all these kids to death and have a blast with it! We're all great friends (even on facebook where they get their reading assignments for the week)! So to get to be involved with girls' camp again (besides the fact that I love girls' camp with a passion and it's always felt like... i dunno... my place to really shine and feel the spirit more than anywhere else) with these girls I already love to death is super exciting! It sounds like the stake girls' camp is only going to be a weekend in February, but I'm gonna see if I can convince the yw pres to let our ward do a little more later in the summer.

2- I bought my first blow dryer. that's right. For all this hair, I've never had my own blow dryer. When I was little I used the one mom put in the downstairs bathroom for guests- but only for the warm air to heat my bed....then mom found out when I singed my blankets... and I wasn't allowed to take it out of the bathroom. But I've just always been an air-dry kinda girl. put it up in a towel, then let it down to brush and dry straight and natural. I'd blow dry in specific situations where I ran out of time but I typically don't worry about it. But when my hair froze (still air drying) once this month, and having thought about it for a while, I picked one up. I didn't even have it on the list (which is surprising, because I'm usually a follow the list in the store kinda girl. Unless I go to 'go shopping' which is not a 'run to the store' which I usually do) and was at Macey's (grocery store) of all places and walked down the 'beauty' isle really quickly to get to the eggs and saw this cute little pink travel size blow dryer. I bought it. Chris just laughed when he saw it. Though I bet he was surprised considering I run a lot of random stuff past him before purchasing. Now I just have to make sure he makes me hold up to the rule of no blow dryers in bed. hehehe.

3- I was reading friend's blogs today (cuz it's what I do. and why i'm posting) and Chris' friend Carl (who I will most likely link to many times- his blog is really thought-provoking, nerdy, fun, and well written) posted this and I just had to link it up for all of you! I commented there, but I got to thinking and now I have to say: it really makes me think how many people's talents go into things that we love. How many writers', directors', composers', choreographers', costumers', illustrators', programmers', crafters', chefs', etc work I totally love and never even think to find out who did all the work for my enjoyment, amazement, etc! I love so many things in tv, music, movies, online, books, food, etc that I can't even begin to thank all these people! So I thought to myself- I want to look up a composer today. Who composed my favorite movie soundtrack? I don't know. Well now I do. My favorite score is to the movie Stardust.

I'm typically a gal who enjoys music with lyrics. I'm a singer, what can I say. But the first time I saw this movie (which I totally adore!) I actively took note of the score! (this was more unusual before knowing Christopher who notes score more often than remembering some character's names! -a trait he learned at the Space Center, he says.) So, when I thought about the talent behind this beautiful music, I looked up the composer. His name is Ilan Eshkeri and he's done several things I've also enjoyed and never known! Crazy, right? It made me happy. I officially know his name, even if I can't pronounce it.

Suddenly I wanted to look up all these talented people. But... well that would take me forever. So I'll just say really quickly.

Bob Fosse (who did a lot of amazing work) choreographed White Christmas uncredited.

Oscar Brodney and Cid Ricketts Sumner wrote the Tammy movies.

Robin Preiss Glasser illustrated the Fancy Nancy books (and a few other awesome children's books, I'd noticed her art and been excited, but now I know her name). And there I have to make myself stop so I can do my stuff for today!

Lots of Loves from the newest Call household!

Friends

I've just been thinking about friends a lot lately. How grateful I am for friends, how much I miss some old friends, and how great it is when you get to spend time with those old friends you hold so dear.

This last weekend was actually pretty good as far as friends go.

Thursday, my dear friend Christel did my eyebrows. Granted I'm still getting used to them... but it was fun at the very least to see her! We talked about old friends that I haven't seen and decided we need to hang out more. That made me happy.

Friday night my oldest friend (I've known him since I was born. literally.) came to hang out, and it was so fun to see him and my hubby playing games and getting to be great friends. It made my heart happy! It was fun to just have him in our home!

Then on Saturday my angel (Megan. She's amazing! you should check out her blog here: http://meganbethadventures.blogspot.com/) came over! She's going on her mission in February and I'm so proud of her! But getting to have a special hang out to spend time with her before she's gone to Ukraine was exciting. We got Juice Press wraps (tradition!) and hung out. We ended up talking, showing her our apartment, and watching a documentary about Pixar (instead of going out to a movie. not like me, but when Chris turned it on, it turned out to be really good!) It was so much fun to see her. Anytime she's around it makes me happy!

So! Friends: if I haven't seen you recently, it's not because I don't love and miss you, I do. Sometimes I just don't make enough effort to see people! SO! Bug me, or just come by! I'm gonna make a renewed effort to add some joy in my life by seeing more friends more often!

I love you all! Have a great day!