Yard Sale!

We started throwing around some ideas about 6 months ago about going on a different kind of girls camp this year.  The kids have Stake Trek in July, so  it's up to each ward to do what they want for girls camp. 
Bonnie is an avid hiker and threw out the idea of going to Moab and doing some of the cool hikes there.  We thought that sounded really fun, but thought the idea would probably get shot down by the Bishop.  So we hesitantly approached him and laid out the plan.  He listened patiently as we pleaded our case...the girls have been going to camp Timberlane since the beginning of time...the boys always do fun adventures...why should the girls not be able to fun things too? , Bonnie knows her way around down there...etc.  He sat there for a minute after we finished, then burst out in this big smile and said "Lets do it!"
So then the real planning began.  We picked a time to go that seemed to work for everyone ( or so we thought...I had them change it to a week later because Camille was due on the 12th of June and I had planned on being there with her when she had the baby to help with the kids.  Then in the past month, the Dr. has moved her date back to the 17th...which is cutting it pretty close to the day we picked to leave..the 20th....oh please, please please have her sooner rather than later!)

Then Bonnie started looking for a camp ground we could stay in.  She really did a lot of research trying to find the best place that was affordable.  She found a campground on the outskirts of town which was kind of a trailer park too.  She put some money down to reserve it but we weren't feeling great about it.  Then Reed Arnold went down there for a job he was doing and thought he would check out the camp ground.  He came to young women's the next week and said he probably wouldn't let his girls go there. He said it was pretty trashy and there were people out in front drinking and carrying on.  He said he was going to be working down there for a while, so he would look and see if he could find something better.  He told us later that he had checked out some camping spots in this national forest that is about 6 miles out of town.  He said they have nice camp spots, out houses, but no water.  But he said he had a big tank he would bring for water and he would even set up a shower  for the girls.  He is such a good guy.We were glad to get that figured out.

Bonnie had told us about some fun hikes she had been on down there so we started planning what would work for the girls...we have a big range of physical fitness among our girls so we needed to take that into consideration. We decided on some neat hikes to delicate arch and one in goblin valley.  We are going to be quite close to a lake there too, so we can play there if we have time.

When we first started planning, we wanted to include a river run in our activities. Bonnie checked on doing one and found they had some that were pretty mild that would accommodate all the girls.  It was kind of pricey though... so we thought we would approach the Bishop with the idea and a plan to raise some money for it.  He was all about the idea of the river trip and said if we could do a little fund raiser to help with the cost of the river trip, that would be great.

So we presented the idea to the girls and had them brain storm a bit on how we could raise  some money quick.  They chose a yard sale.   I loved this idea cause I had a ton of stuff I could donate to it myself and the girls and other leaders all said they would come up with stuff to sale too.  We decided to add a bake sale to that too.  We made it really clear to the girls that this was Their fund raiser and they were going to have to do the work.  They were great about it and were all willing to pitch in and help.  We made posters for it one night, then delivered fliers another night...then on Saturday morning, there they were, at 6:30 in the morning, ready to load the trucks and go to work.  They brought baked goodies and stuff they had rounded up to sale at the yard sale.  I was really proud of them.

We loaded up all the trucks at Becky's ( she had been collecting every ones donations for a couple weeks and had a garage full of pretty cool stuff) then we headed up to the church.  This really was the perfect place for the  sale...right on a busy road  where we would get a lot of traffic, but with a nice big parking lot they could pull off into to park.  Kelley, KC and I had gone around the day before and hung up the posters on the corners of the busy streets.

It was really helpful to have the church tables there to be able to set all the stuff out on. Grateful for Kelley and Rick and Randy for their help.  We had lots of electronics, kitchen things, decorations, sports equipment, toys, and tons of clothes.  The ward members had really donated some nice things for the sale.  .  We worked fast to get everything set out, but people started coming about 7:15.    The girls were great and worked hard to get things ready.

Kelley and I had to leave about 9:30 to go to Curtis's dad's funeral but at this point, everything was running smoothly.  Lots of people came and were buying everything!  Our ward was so supportive!  So many came and would buy things, or something from the bake sale or not buy anything and just hand us some money.  I was pretty overwhelmed.  When we left, we had made about 400.00.  We went back up there right after the funeral and they had cleaned everything up and were just driving away with what was left for the DI.  Bishop came up to me and gave me a big high five and said did you hear the good news?  I said no.  He said they had made over 1100.00 dollars!  Then when we added in the money Becky had been paid for things before the sale and some that was handed to me after the sale, we had over 1200!  I couldn't believe it!  Look out Moab...here we come!