Shane&Alicia Update (June 25, 2017)

Sent: 06/25/2017   From Shane 

Subject: California Westra Update -- June 25 2017   Sun, 25 Jun 2017 23:10:41 -0700

So glad to hear that Pam is doing better. We're praying for Chris that his surgery goes well this week. 

Here's a quick update of this week: 

• Interviews -- Work is still plenty busy for me. We had our CFO/COO (who really runs Shutterstock) in town Monday and Tuesday for meetings. He approved our growth plans for the rest of the year, and asked them to be accelerated -- opening the additional headcount immediately to help out. Which is good, but it means even more time spent interviewing, hiring, and training. 
• Girls Camp -- Adria loved Girls Camp! See below for her account. 
• Babysitting Bria -- On Friday, we tended a 11 month old baby in the ward (Bria), and she was so happy the whole time and got undivided attention from all of us. Calder was especially cute with her. 
• Beach Day -- On Thursday, Alicia, Rella, and Calder went to the beach with several other families from the ward (Leashee had suggested it to some ward friends, and had quite a few take her up on it). It was a perfect day for it. 
• Aquarium -- With Adria home, we wanted to spend some time together as a whole family, and with our membership passes to Monterey Bay Aquarium expiring at the end of June, we figured we'd go one last time. We ate lunch at a pizza place in Monterey before spending a few hours at the aquarium. We stopped off at a few fruit stands on the way home. 
• Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy -- Leashee was put in charge of a musical number, and chose Brightly Beams (Girls Camp had somewhat of a lighthouse theme). It's a mens choir arrangement in the hymnbook, although the words are equally applicable to women. Alicia couldn't find a good non-mens arrangement, and decided to transpose it. But she ended up doing a full original arrangement, and it turned out quite beautiful -- countless people mentioned how great it was (all the YW and leaders sang it in sacrament meeting today), and I completely agree. She feels she had heavenly help to do it so well and so quickly. 
• Today -- We went a little early for the YW to practice the song, and had a really nice sacrament meeting. In addition to the musical number, all the YW spoke about Girls Camp, and Adria did a good job as always (and as usual, didn't get any help in preparing her talk). I helped sub Calder's class for 2nd and 3rd hours, and Alicia helped me in the Sharing time portion, and a friend helped with the class time -- which was much needed. 5 wild boys (actually 4 wild boys and Calder, who was very well behaved), and one sweet girl -- it was quite an experience (and I get to do it again next week :) ). After church, I had a small nap before Calder came in with books to read to him; I took Rella home teaching with me (apparently my companion doesn't get cell service in part of his house...good to know...), Leashee ground wheat and baked 6 loaves of homemade bread, and we had dinner and played Apples to Apples before getting the kids to bed. 

Have a great week, especially Chris -- you are in our prayers! 

Shane, Composer Leashee, Camping Adri, Home Teacher Rella, and Well-Behaved Calder

----------------------- Adria's write-up of Girls Camp:

This week I went to my first year of girls camp. This is the stuff we did:

Monday: we gathered at the stake center where we were sorted into our car and tent groups, which were the same. Then we drove about an hour along the coast to a berry farm where we picked strawberries and ate lunch. During that time, two girls that were in our group caught up with us because they had been at the airport. After we spent half an hour looking for ripe strawberries to pick we continued to Lehi Park, where we would be camping. We set up our tents and organized a Lip Sync for the lip sync battle that would be held later. after that, we created boats for the Raingutter Regatta that would be held on Tuesday. We did cheers at flag, then went and had a delicious dinner with entertainment by the fourth years. Then we had our Lip Sync battle, and concluded our day with s'mores and tent devotionals. I took my shoes off right before bed, but then realized I needed to brush my teeth before sleeping. I decided if I went up slowly and watched where rocks were me and my sock feet would be fine. As I headed up the hill to the bathroom with our tent group I turned a corner and saw an inch long scorpion on the ground! I was glad when we discovered it was dead, and decided that there were a lot more dangerous things on the ground then rocks. (BTW they didn't warn us of the Scorpions!)

Tuesday: We woke up and got dressed with our swimsuits underneath our clothes. Then we did a Four and a Half mile survival hike, where we stopped every once and a while to do a survival activity, which consisted of preforming a first aid skill, compass skills, learning how to purify water using pumps, animal identification, and building a shelter that can withstand strong winds and rain. We then cooked our own burgers for lunch and played in a small creek while waiting for our teams to be done eating. Another girl and I went downstream a little bit and caught newts. We were the last ones to get back to the group because they didn't Inform us they were leaving until the very last second. We hiked back to our cars and drove to to a swimming hole with small cliff on the sides that you could jump off of. The cold water was a relief after being in the hot weather all day. We headed back to camp where we ate dinner, had the Raingutter Regatta, and had a really spiritual fireside about Asking in Faith. 

Wednesday: We made jam from the berries we picked on day 1, had fun doing crafts which were tie die socks, leather pouches, and creating our own pins by cutting the pictures out of magazines and using a machine that put plastic and the pins on it, went to the sports area where we sat there in the 85 degree weather doing nothing, did a thing called EFC which is like EFY but for camp and was only 1 hour and 15 minutes long. We then did a service project by crocheting hats for premature babies. Mine ended up being a weird colored pink hat with a purple pom pom on top. We then had free time, where I made even more pins (super pointless and addictive). Then we had dinner and were about to stay up late playing a game when two kids got dehydration sickness. One went to bed and just slept a lot, but the other went to the nurse. Both of then were better by the next day, which was great because.........

Thursday: BEACH DAY!!!!!!! We drove to the beach where we just hung out there until three o' clock in the evening. I learned how to boogie board, caught sand crabs, and got massive sunburns. We then went back, had dinners with our YW presidents and the bishops, and preformed skits. 

Friday: go home and sleep well.