Girls Camp

It's been quite awhile since I've gone to girls camp. Honestly, I haven't been since I was in the program as a youth. I really enjoy being part of the Young Women's program and girls camp was especially fun for me. I love working with these great women. It's amazing how completely different we all are, but somehow it's the perfect balance.


We went to Camp Zarahemla, I knew there were new missionaries serving there, but it was a fun surprise to discover that the new missionaries were from my home town, Kennewick. It just happened to be my Young Women's president from 15 years ago. Here she is on the left. It was a lot of fun to visit with her throughout the week.

It was fun to see the lighter side of some of our church leaders.

These ladies were the cooks. They were a riot all week and we had fun pulling pranks back and forth. Most of the jokes stemmed from a silly night at the beginning of the week where a bunch of us were helping the cooks wrap potatoes in foil. I turned around and noticed that there was a potato with an entire end that wasn't covered. I grabbed it and began to rewrap it, being careful to cover the entire potato in foil. The other ladies teased me about this and told me not to look at the rest of the hundred potatoes too closely. Once quick glance and I realized that most of the potatoes had peek-a-boo holes. I could hardly stand it and had to walk away to keep myself from rewrapping ALL of them. They thought it was so funny and jokes sprang up throughout the rest of the week. All of them including foil.

The girls were amazing and they seemed to be having lots of fun!

It's too bad the water was a little cold. I never tested it for myself, but the girls who did came out looking like this.
We decided to go green this year and asked all of the girls to bring a mess kit or plastic dishes that they could wash and reuse. This saved us from having loads and loads of paper waste. I laughed as some of the girls dollar store plates barely made it through the entire week.

I slept in a motor home and we had a little critter who decided to join us. We watched a chipmunk run up the steps and right through the open door one afternoon. We tried to scare him out but only had a few minutes before we had to race off and teach a class so we ended up leaving the door open a hoped he'd come out on his own. We didn't see much sign of him and assumed he must have left and we were very careful to always keep the door shut after that. Two days later one of the girls saw a chipmunk in the motor home looking out the front windshield at us. The door was shut and he was comfortably sitting on my bed. We were determined to get that little critter out, you should have seen the commotion. Jayne had a cookie sheet she banged as she hollered at him. Christie stuck her camera under seats and in dark corners to take pictures and see where we couldn't see with our eyes. I set up baracades to keep him from running back and forth and we finally watched him run out the door.

There he goes.

One of the silliest nights was skit night. Our stake skit was a lot of fun. Everyone really got into it and the girls had some good laughs. Stephanie was Miss Whimper and Wine, she claims she has seen her kids whine enough that it was easy for her to do, but I've never seen anything like it.

We had some great laughs, lots of fun, and we certainly ate well, but for me, the highlight was watching the girls and seeing how the older ones really run the camp. They are amazing and they are already such great leaders with strong testimonies. Their influence on the younger girls is crucial and their example is so important. I was very impressed with them. There was a great balance of fun and opportunities for the girls to grow spiritually. I can't wait for my daughters to be old enough to be a part of girls camp!

Red Rock

One of our favorite places to go while we are in Waterton is Red Rock Canyon. It's the greatest little hike, and it's especially fun to do on a hot day. You hike up a river bed. It's shallow in many places, but along the way there are rocks that work for sliding or even pools for swimming. There are small waterfalls in places and it's just so pretty. It's somewhat of a challenge deciding which path to take that will keep you from getting completely wet, although some don't seem to mind that at all. The red rock makes the scenery gorgeous. Linsey and Hunter were really into the challenge, Emma found her first pool of water and was content to stay put and throw rocks with Papa .

Here we are.

This is the only picture I had of Jared. He was the only one brave enough to cool off completely.

All About Linsey

Linsey is 8 years old and the highlight of our weekend was her baptism. She is such a joy in our family and although she was very nervous a few weeks ago, she was thrilled on the morning of her baptism and could hardly wait. She put her hands close together and said she was only this nervous, then she put her hands as far apart as she could and said she was that excited!

The day was absolutely perfect! Linsey's Grandpa's both spoke at her baptism, we sang Linsey's favorite songs, and the feeling there was so wonderful. She seemed so confident and happy. She later wrote in her journal that she felt important.

Afterwards, we invited all our family and friends to come over for refreshments at our house. The day was beautiful and the kids were able to run and play outside while the adults visited in the house. Like I said, it was perfect!

We have been celebrating Linsey for weeks now! Her birthday is July 3rd, and since we were going to be out of town on our marathon of trips we decided to give her a birthday gift before we left (back in June).

It's a real guitar, not a toy. Jared thinks it would be really neat for her to learn to play. She's already made up a few songs... sort of. We might get her a couple lessons and a how to book, but so far she's had a lot of fun with it. It's black and came with markers that you can use to decorate it. You can wipe it clean with a wet rag and decorate it over and over. Pretty cool!

We were actually in Waterton, Canada on July 3rd (Linsey's real birthday). Jared and I filled her room with balloons and decorated our hotel with streamers so she could wake up and feel like it wasn't just any old vacation day. Happy Birthday Linsey!

We had a big dinner that night with Jared's family. Aunt Bri made some cheesy potatoes with bacon in them that were a huge hit for Linsey, she ate 4 servings. We sang Happy Birthday and most everyone had a cupcake. Hunter tripped and fell on the way out of the hotel room and sent one tray of cupcakes flyinig. oops.

Once we got home from our trips, the celebrating continued with a Garden Birthday Party!

We started out by having a flower find. This was done much like an Easter Egg hunt, only Linsey hid silk flowers all around the yard and flower bed. She had them sticking out of dirt and looking so real, it made our yard look amazing!

Here the girls are after the flower find.

Each of the girls decorated a flower pot and planted a flower. I thought they did a beautiful job.

We did a couple relay races. For one of them, the girls had to carry a shovel full of dirt one at a time until they filled a small pot. Then someone had to race over and plant a flower. Last, they had to water it to win the game. It was a riot.


We gave each of the girls pet ladybugs to take home as party favors. (I think all the moms were okay with that). The girls loved it and since we had bought a bag of lady bugs and still had lots left over, we decided to have a "free the ladybugs ceremony" at the party. All of Linsey's friends stood in a circle around her while she opened the lid to the bug jar and instantly lady bugs began to fly out and crawl all over her. It didn't take long for all the girls to swarm around and get down in the grass trying to catch them. They all had lady bugs crawling up their arms and on their clothing, in their hair, and even on their faces. I kept expecting someone to freak out, but they really loved it. It was so much fun to watch!





We sure love Linsey and had a great time celebrating her over and over and over again these last few weeks.

2 Weeks of Vacations!

Our vacation marathon started with a trip to Bear Lake. My dad and his brothers had this great idea to have a giant family reunion with all their kids and grandkids. It turned out to be so much fun. Here are some of the highlights.

Here's my dad (on the left) with his two brothers.

The kids loved the beach.

My fun aunt decided that one of the all time favorite kids activities is an easter egg hunt, so she decided to do one just for fun, in June! She was right, the kids loved it!

We took a trip to visit Minnetonka Cave. (Notice Emma is still in the dress phase. We finally got her to put jeans on under a dress, but there is no way we could convince her to not wear a dress... silly girl)

Here's a picture of the whole group.

Then, we packed up the car and headed over to Canada for our traditional 1st of July McInelly family reunion. We always look forward to spending time with Jared's grandfather and love the small town feel of Raymond. Jared was raised making the trip to Canada in July every year and it has such special memories for him and his siblings that the tradition has carried on. As we drove and drove to get there, we talked about all the trips we've made before having kids, with babies, and now with our larger family. We've hardly missed and as we counted we realized we've gone back 7 out of the 10 years we've been married.

It was pretty HOT the first couple days, thank goodness Jared's sister brought this fun slip and slide for all the kids.
Check out the air Hunter gets with the help of his dad and Uncle Mike! Looks like fun to me.

Here is Jared's mom and his grandpa. He is 88 and never fails to amaze us as he jumps in lakes and even goes bridge jumping with us. He is always fully dressed in a cowboy shirt, jeans and a belt. It's a crack up.

The parade on July 1st. (waiting for candy...)

Emma ate whatever she got just as quick as it landed at her feet.

The rodeo is always lots of fun. Emma and her cousin Brody went down to the grass for a closer look.
We took a fun hike in Waterton. It gave us a gorgeous view of the town and I think the most exciting part was the chipmunks that were so incredibly tame.


They would come and eat right out of your hand. That was cool enough for most of us, but Jared and his brother Mat started trying to get them to come closer and closer.

We thought no one could top this .....

.... until Mat did that.

Cameron Lake is always a favorite spot. We took Jared's inflatable raft out for a family ride. The kids had fun playing on the dock and throwing rocks in the water.

Emma spent a long time trying to figure out what was under the dock.

She especially loved throwing rocks in the water.. what toddler doesn't?

Of course Jared always gets up early to sneak away for a fishing trip or two. No trip to Canada would be complete without it. He loves the thrill of catching Pike.

One of our favorite parts about visiting Canada is the chance we get to be around horses. Sometimes we all go riding, but our kids are content just to feed and pet them.

Both of my girls are horse lovers. These miniature horses were so cute and non intimidating even for little Emma.

Grandpa Bill had some horses out back that the kids could walk out and visit anytime. Emma woke up in the middle of night once and stumbled around the room trying to find her flip flops. I asked her where she needed to go and she said, "I want to go outside." I thought she must be sleep walking and put her back to bed, but in the morning I asked her about it and she remembered everything clearly. She explained that she had wanted to go see those horses out back.

Here are my girls going for a ride.

Hunter took a turn too.

Here are the kids with their Great-Grandpa Bill.

We are so grateful for him and the wonderful memories we have going to visit him in Canada every year!