I think even my eyelashes are tired

The good news, the best news, is that I survived.  And so did all the kids.

So there's that.

Wow, that was exhausting.

But also kind of wonderful.  We spent a lot of time on Temple Square in Salt Lake City which is always beautiful and uplifting.  

Here's our group, 22 girls and 8 boys.

To help be in charge of that many meant always having a bagful of granola bars and Capri suns to give out at frequent intervals.  (I know hungry kids are no way to travel.)  It meant answering the question, "What's for dinner?" thirty thousand times.

It meant when a girl went AWOL (for only a few minutes, but still, heart attack city and I was the mayor) the other Young Women leaders turned to me.  They also turned to me when one of the chaperone's car broke down, when there were scheduling snafus, when they needed driving directions (I know!), when one of the pretty pretty princesses was pouting, and when one of the girls was hiding in another girl's hotel room and refused to leave.

(Teenage girls.  Not for the faint of heart.)

I was able to turn to the Young Men leaders quite a bit too.  Especially when the hotel complained about some of the boys flirting with other hotel guests.  I just let the Young Men leaders know.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I saw the girls in new and different lights too though.  I saw them be incredibly kind to each other.  I watched them fill hygiene kits at the Humanitarian Center like it was their job.  They listened respectfully on tours (for example, the Utah State Capitol which knocked my socks off):

So pretty.  In my next house, I want a rotunda...

One of our activities was this:

It was crazy.  The kids had a terrific time and luckily no one even got hurt, despite a few raw knuckles and Braeden somehow skinned his chin(?).

There's Braeden on the right in the Hawaiian shirt he got from Deseret Industries.  At the Humanitarian Center, they talked about donations of clothing that go to D.I.  Braeden excitedly said, "That's where I got this shirt!"  Emma is somewhere in that jumble of bubble balls too but I can't see her.

Our culminating activity for the two days was going to the Utah State Developmental Center which houses severely intellectually disabled adults.  Each of our youth was assigned a resident.  The residents are mostly in wheelchairs and nonverbal.  Our youth were there to have a dance with them.  Our exhausted kids pushed their wheelchairs and interacted with them and danced like crazy until the residents had wide gleeful smiles.  I almost cried when the kids were doing the Hokey Pokey.  You've never seen such enthusiasm.

You can forgive a lot of shenanigans when you see such unabashed and selfless service going on. 

All in all, it was worth it.  These are good kids.  They really are and I was glad to spend some time with them.

Especially these two monkeys.  They are my circus.