Crazy Kids go on a Train

 

Kylee started school at Mt. Loafer on Aug. 19. We knew she'd only be there for a couple of weeks (our house was already sold, we were just waiting for it to close), but we thought it was worth it for her to get to see her friends for a couple days before we left for Florida.

 

One day Skyler didn't finish his yogurt for breakfast, and Ally decided to do yogurt finger paint, apparently. She was super proud of herself.

 

The week before we were moving we decided to post Andy's truck so that we'd have about 10 days to get it sold, just in case we needed that long. It ended up selling about 45 seconds after we posted it, which was CRAZY. People were even offering us up to $1000 more than we were even asking.

 

Since Skyler loved the Heber Creeper so much when we went last year, I decided we should go once more before we left Utah. We got a family pass for the Monday night train (they're a LOT cheaper if you go on Monday night!) and invited Todd, Tiff and Evalina to go with us. The kids loved it just as much this time as they did before.

Rocky Mountain National Park

I'm just going to warn you now...this is a total photo overload! I couldn't decide what to include and what not to, and picked too many.

 

In August (about 2 days after we got home from Trek) we went to Rocky Mountain National Park with my sister Connie and her family. My mom and Bruce were originally supposed to come as well, but then my mom couldn't get work off. Since we were caravanning to Colorado with Connie, we convinced Bruce that he should still come. He could fit with Connie and her kids on the way there, and then ride with us on the way back (we were dropping off some stuff that Connie is storing in her basement while we're in Florida, so we had more room on the way home!). The trip got off to a bit of a rough start - we left about 45 minutes behind Connie and Bruce and we ended up getting stuck in Spanish Fork canyon behind a mudslide that closed the road for several hours. Connie and Bruce made it through, so we literally got there RIGHT after it happened. We finally ended up taking a detour that took us about 50 miles out of our way, and we didn't get to Connie's house until close to midnight, but at least we got there!

 

The next morning we all got up and headed up to the National Park. The first day we got there in the afternoon, and after we set up camp we decided to go on a little hike that started right by our campsite. Most everyone was happy to be out walking.

 

 

Skyler wasn't sure if he was happy to be out walking.

 

Our campground was a really pretty place and had a shuttle stop to take us to trailheads and stuff.

The second day we decided to go on a longer hike that passes by three different lakes and some small waterfalls. It was a little too long for Pax and Skyler, so they got carried for part of the way. Mostly they did really good though.

 



 

It was a little chilly at first, so Skyler ended up wearing my sweater, which was like a dress on him. I'm sure people thought he looked kind of silly!

 

We passed this guy on the trail. He just stood there looking at us while we took pictures of him!

 

I realized that I don't always have very many picture of me, and with Ally in the backpack she doesn't get very good pictures either, so I took a few selfies, which are Andy's favorite photos of all time.

 

If this doesn't look like a redneck baby, I don't know what does.

 

I don't know why Skyler is making this face, but I love that Pax is lounging on a log watching him make it!

 

When we were waiting for the shuttle to pick us up at the end of the hike, we saw this guy come strolling down the trail.

 

I LOVE this one. I feel like they both look so happy and no weird/fake smiles!

 

Another selfie. This is going to be Andy's favorite blog post of all time.

 

Our campsite was up the hill from the Sugiyama's and Bruce's sites, and it was kind of fun to be in our own little secluded meadow. (Plus if our children cried it was less likely that others might hear them!)

 

Lest everyone thinks I'm the worst mom ever, she actually dropped the bottle and burst into tears AFTER I was already trying to take a picture of her walking up the trail. It was an unfortunate coincidence that I ended up with a picture of my kid bawling cuz her bottle got dropped in the dirt! This kid can burst into LOUD tears in a split second (or less). She is super dramatic, and her life is REALLY hard, apparently.

 

This guy was hopping around by our campsites.

 

On the last day, we decided to drive up this old dirt road they have that is one-way only and takes you way up to the top of the mountains (like to the point where there was still snow, in August). It was a really beautiful drive, but I'm super glad Andy was driving. That road was pretty narrow, with some pretty hairy switch-backs, and there were no guard rails whatsoever. We stopped and walked down to this waterfall along the way.

 

We saw a HUGE herd of elk in a meadow across the valley. There were probably somewhere around 200 of them lounging on the side of this mountain.

 

Then later we pulled off to the side of the road so I could find Ally's binki really quick, and suddenly there were these guys waiting to cross the road. They were like 10 feet (or less) away from us. It was pretty fun! Overall, the weather was a little cooler than we might have preferred, but the trip was great, and we all had fun.

Trek

 

Right after I came back from my family reunion, Andy and I had the opportunity to go to Trek with our Stake as a Ma and Pa for our ward. We had 8 "kids" (3 boys, 5 girls), and Connie was kind enough (or crazy enough?) to stay at our house to watch our real kids while we were gone. This was the same Trek that I had the opportunity to go on as a youth, (which I realized was SEVENTEEN years ago...yikes, I'm getting old...), so I was super excited for the chance to go back. I remembered it being a really amazing experience. Andy didn't go when we were youth (he chose to stay home and work instead), so this was his first opportunity to go.

 

I'm not going to lie, without these two sons (above), our family would have perished in the wilderness. It was HARD work to keep that handcart moving, and there were a LOT of hills. These boys pulled our handcart for the majority of the time, and we seriously would not have made it without them. Our girls put in a really great effort as well, but three of them were 12-year-old Beehives, and that handcart was SUPER HEAVY. I'm just glad all our kids were willing to do their share and take turns with it when they were needed. Some of the hills were so steep we had to turn our handcart around backwards, attach ropes to it, and have everyone in the family help lower it down. It was really hard work. My two big toenails are both purple from being smashed up into the top of my shoes on those hills, and all our legs got so sore it almost wasn't worth the effort to sit down because it hurt the thighs so bad. Our "family" talked a lot about how lucky we are - only walking 5-8 miles per day instead of 15-20 like the Pioneers did; not having small children to care for; and having huge amounts of super yummy food waiting for us at camp instead of being starving and having to prepare our own stuff; having warm sleeping gear, etc. It really is a humbling experience to get out there and get just a tiny taste of what they went through. We walked 21 miles in 3 days, and we knew how far we were going. Often the Pioneers didn't know how far, how long, or when or where they would stop. I've often joked that I would have died if I was a Pioneer (when I'm cold, mostly), and this just solidifies how strong they really were. I literally don't know how ANY of them survived. I only hope that I can someday have the kind of faith they had.

 

After one of the big hills where a rope was needed, we somehow got our rope stuck in our wheel. It ended up having to be cut to get it out, so after that we had to borrow ropes from other handcarts when those hills came up, and then we had to send one of our sons to run back up the hill and give it back to the family who loaned it to us so that they could use it coming down.

This photo (below) is of everyone in our ward: 

 

And this one is just our family:

 

At the beginning of the last day they had a women's pull, (to show us what it was like when the men were gone for the Mormon Battlion). Holy. Cow. It was uphill, and it was HARD. We gave one of our girls to another family in our ward for this because they only had 4 including their Ma, and we had 6. We figured 5 and 5 would be more fair. It took all our effort to get up that hill! It made us appreciate our boys even more when they re-joined us!

 

These are the three sets of Mas and Pas from our ward:

Family Reunion

 

The Timmins side of our family hasn't had a reunion in...forever? Maybe we've never had one. Anyway, so my aunt and uncle who live in Idaho invited us all up to their cabin for Pioneer Day weekend. Since Connie was coming out here a few days later anyway, she decided to come to the reunion, and I convinced Tiff to go as well. (Andy couldn't go, because he was working.) A bunch of the family ended up not coming, but it was fun to get to know some of the cousins that we haven't spent a lot of time with before. The cabin was at Palisade Reservoir in Idaho, and it was amazing! It had a deck that wrapped all the way around, and the views out all sides were super beautiful.

 

On of the days we were there, we went on a hike to a waterfall that is supposed to be like a geyser-type thing. Apparently at certain times of year it only runs every 12 minutes. I guess we were too early in the year, because it was continuously running when we were there, but I love to hike anyway, so I wasn't complaining!

 

I didn't get a photo of our group from the front...but here most of them are all walking back down the trail after we saw the waterfall.