Arlington Ward Camp out 2010

Sharon, VT

Matt and I were so excited to participate in our first Arlington ward camp out. We had heard such great things about it and were literally counting down the days until we could take off and set up camp.

We bought all the necessary camp equipment, loaded up the car on Friday night and made our way to Sharon Vermont. We stayed at Camp Joseph which was absolutely beautiful and the perfect location for a camp out. I'm a little bit of a wimp sometimes, so the hot showers, flushing toilets and our air bed made the whole experience so much nicer for me. Seriously, I never want to camp again without an airbed. It truly made a world of difference!

Having never been to any church history sites, I was so excited to be camping literally next door to Joseph Smith's birth place. Matt and I took a small tour and walked the grounds where his home once stood.

It was so cool to hear the Tabernacle Choir singing from the trees (they had hidden speakers that surrounded the place) as we read the prophets testimony and learned more about his life.

After having lunch back at camp and playing a little catch (my new favorite activity) we decided to get ourselves some real desert and check out the Ben & Jerry's factory. We died laughing as we pulled up and saw the huge containers of ingredients. Check out all that SUGAR!

There were about a million people at the factory and it wasn't even running because it was a Saturday, so we opted to forgo the big tour. We did walk through their flavor graveyard however which was just as cool. I seriously couldn't believe some of the flavors they tried out. One of them was seriously peanuts and popcorn. Not a huge surprise that one didn't work out.

Matt and I couldn't leave without getting our hands on some of the flavors that have lasted though, so we made our way to the gift shop to make our purchase. Why the gift shop? Well, there was a massive line to get a scoop of ice cream and it cost the same as getting a whole carton. We laughed to ourselves thinking about how we could have just driven two minutes up the road to the nearest Shaw's Market to get the same thing. Maybe one day we'll have to go back when it's not so busy, like on a weekday when the factory is actually running. :)

Once we returned to camp we took a seriously needed nap, ate some awesome tinfoil dinners prepared by Matt and roasted enough marshmallows to feed an army.

We met so many new people in our ward and really enjoyed sitting around the camp fires listening to them all tell the funniest stories. I think we were all up until around 1:00 a.m. on Saturday and still had to get up the next morning for our 8:45 testimony meeting. It was such a blast. Our bishop even brought up his banjo to play around the fire and to accompany the Sunday hymns which was so cool.

Getting away from the city for the weekend to hang out with awesome people in the great outdoors was just what Matt and I needed. It was the perfect camping trip!