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Echo writes, "We based our theme for girl's camp from President Uchtdorf's talk entitled, “Your Happily Ever After,” which he gave at the Young Women Broadcast in April 2010. We tweaked the title and made it “My Happily Ever After” so the girls would feel ownership of their own ever after.

We loved the idea of using fairy tales to teach gospel principles. We sprinkled little lessons from several fairy tales throughout all of camp, but we chose three fairy tales to focus on, one for each full day we would be at camp. We thought this would bring continuity to each day and give us focus in planning.

On the first day we gave each tent a flag and let them decorate it with a fairy tale name. That is always so fun.

Fairy Tale Mini-Devotionals

We asked each leader to prepare a three to five minute mini-devotional. These were shared before each meal. We got charm bracelets for the girls and got a charm to go with most of the devotionals. That way they would have a nice reminder about the lessons we wanted them to learn. But even without the charms, the devotionals were great. Here are some of the things they came up with:

We compared a princess's parasol, which she used to protect herself from sun and rain, to the gospel and how we should use it to help protect ourselves from outside forces.

Rapunzel didn't recognize her magical hair as a useful talent until the moments she needed it. Sometimes we had talents that we don't recognize or appreciate but we need to discover them and let them shine.

We read The Paper Bag Princess and talked about how you shouldn't date anyone who doesn't like you for who you are instead of what you look like. We also talked about how we determine our own destinies. We don't need to sit around and wait.

To go with star gazing, we talked about President Hinckley's quote about the North Star and how we should all be as constant and reliable as it.

Aladdin went through a lot to learn that he should just be himself. We should all be ourselves too. Don't change to be liked by others.

We read Fanny's Dream and then talked about how Fanny had wanted to marry a prince, but that she wouldn't have been happy with one. We talked about how a man doesn't have to be a prince to be your prince. And how a man is truly determined to be a prince depending on his actions.

Cinderella Day

Focus: Since Cinderella day was the first day, we focused on hard work. We figured that was easy because the first day is so much work. The leaders had made each of the girls aprons out of old jeans and we gave the girls their aprons. We also found a pair of glass slippers from a local party store. (They were actually plastic.) We used these slippers to highlight girls who were working with a cheerful attitude. A leader gave the “award” the first time, but then every time we met together for a meal or devotional or anything, whoever had the slipper would choose someone else to give it to and tell us all why. We continued to pass the slippers until the last day. The girls loved it.

Certification: We wanted to do certification that went with the theme of the day. It was pretty easy to make the connections. We did fires for “Cinder”ella (how she got her name).

Craft: Every Cinderella needs her glass slippers! We did the craft where you tie fabric onto flip flops to make them cuter. We had the girls tie satin on them to make them just a little fancier than usual. We got the flip flops from Old Navy on their $1 flip flop day. That takes a little planning ahead because you need to know when it is. And just a tip—they only allow each customer to buy five pair of flip flops, so bring enough people with you.

Fireside: Cinderella's Fairy Godmother came and gave us a great fireside about being prepared. She compared midnight in the fairy tale to the second coming and talked about how it could come sooner than you expect.

Rapunzel Day (Tangled)

Focus: Tangled is great because the whole thing can be analogy for our lives. We all leave our Father's kingdom without remembering where we are from or who we are. We are all lost princesses. Our Father sends out signs (lanterns) in hopes we will see them and follow them back home. It's great to talk with the girls about what some of those lanterns are.

Certification: We did knots (because of her hair), navigation, our hike, (because of the long trek she made to the kingdom) and star gazing (because she had charted the stars on her ceiling).

Spa Day: After the hike, we did a little spa day where we washed and did hair and mini-manicures.

Activity: We played a game where the girls were broken into groups and had to use sharpies to write on masking tape things that they should beware of. Then they had to stick their tape to balls and then hit the balls with frying pans. We talked about how they need to always be on guard.

Fireside: We waited until after dark to start this fireside. We set up lanterns for the young women to follow. We really wanted them to be floating lanterns, but it didn't happen. We used solar lights that had charged all day and put them in a white lunch sack on the ground. The lanterns lead away from camp to another clearing where we had a pretty big temple made from butcher paper (stuck on cardboard so it was stiff). A spotlight was on the temple so that it was highly visible. There, one of our leaders talked about how our path to our happily ever after is directly through the temple. Then we played President Uchtdorf's talk for them. It was great to hear all about our theme directly from a prophet, and he is a great speaker.

Beauty and the Beast Day

Honestly, this day we had the least amount of activities that went with the theme. I don't know why!

Certification: We did shelters and talked about how if Belle had known how to make one she wouldn't have needed to go the creepy castle. (Hee hee.)

Activity: Have the girls come up with some of the things in their lives that are weaknesses. Call these their beasts. Then have them brainstorm ways they can turn their beasts into handsome princes. Talk about how Heavenly Father helps us turn our weaknesses into strengths.

Craft: We made wooden blocks that had a picture on it for many of the activities we had done the whole week. We originally saw the idea from Jenny Phillips, but we tweaked it so it would work for us. We used modpodge to attach the pictures. [.jpg] [.pdf]

Fireside: Our speaker emphasized virtue. She talked about how they should guard their virtue the way that the Beast guarded the rose in the glass case. She also talked about repentance.

The Menu

We had a lot of fun planning the menu to go with our theme. We did rice cripsy treats in the shape of a star with a dowel in them for magic wands, pumpkin cookies on Cinderella day, a flambé on Beauty and the Beast day because it mentions it in the Be Our Guest song, an object lesson with "poisoned" apples, spaghetti for Tangled day, an Ariel Sea Shell pasta salad, and then to all of the regular food gave cutesy names like dragon burger instead of cheese burger.

Awards

We made royal award certificates. We always have our fifth year girls fill them out. The girls really like that. [.jpg] [.pdf]

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