This year Jacob and I decided to become youth conference parents......something we have been wanting to do since we got married. It was so much fun! The first night was a talent show that each ward did an act in and some were pretty funny. Then we finally got to meet our kids, after being there for four hours!! We were blessed to have 8 girls in our family: Mary, Hailey, Jenessa, Megan, Samantha, Selena, Estefanie, and Jackie. We were also paired up with two other families in our ward which made it so much fun! The next day we headed up to Camp Emerson in the freezing cold mountains for some EFY type workshops!! It was around 37 degrees when we got up there and it continued to get colder. We were supposed to be there until about 9 at night so I was getting pretty concerned. However, at lunch they told us it was just too cold and we headed back down the mountain to finish the workshops at the stake center. The talks that were given were really great and my favorite one was the "Purity Suckers". You'll have to ask one of the youth for an explanation on that one but it was great. That night we had a fireside with the Stake Presidency and then we were able to go home and have some fun with the other families. If you have ever played silent football then you will know that laughs that we had (more the adults than anything!). I still continue to laugh when I think of Wes. The next day was a service project at a special needs school. Our girls did really great helping out wherever they could. My husband was a huge help as well, as usual, which was great considering I did absolutely nothing but take pictures. After the service project we went home and had a good time watching the girls get ready for the dance. Let's just say it took us the whole 3 hours to get all girls showered and ready! Jacob really enjoyed all of the craziness in getting ready because it reminded him of growing up with all of his sisters and the chaos that ensued there. Then we had a special dinner that recognized some people in the community. It was really cool to hear all of the youth sing the youth conference song for these non-members. It was not cool that we were the last table to get our dinner and they had run out by then so we got half of a meal. Thank goodness that Mary loved her pregnant mom enough to give her some of her meal!! Finally it was the dance and it was a lot of fun to see our girls having a good time. Of course the boys were asking them to dance left and right because they were so cute!! We were sad to say goodbye to our girls but we know we'll see them around. We can't wait until next year!!
