More trek fun

No trek is complete without the obligatory decomposing cow on the side of the trail. Check out the teeth on this thing. This was far enough into the trek that the girls barely even flinched when we walked by it. Now, seeing Bro. W.'s grandfather's finger that he carries around with him is another story...
These are the tents that we slept in. No floor. At all. Just us and the dirt.
Here's a few members of our stake presidency and some Bishopric pretending to be riffraff
Pony Express came riding in to deliver some mail...so cool!!!!
Porter Rockwell came to do a fireside devotional. Funny sidenote, he was introduced and we overheard some of the kids whisper to each other
"who's Porter Rockwell?"
"oh, he's that painter"
hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! no, not NORMAN Rockwell....PORTER Rockwell.

hmmmm, guess you had to be there.

Women's pull pictures

This is us starting up the ridge for the Women's pull. Taking a break before the final push up the hill in the distance
As we were pushing, the only thing running through my head were the words to the hymn "Come come ye Saints..no toil nor labor fear, but with joy, wend your way. Though hard to you, this journey may appear, Grace shall be, as your day."
What an incredible blessing, to have this experience
Taking another breather part way up the hill
If you enlarge this picture below, in the middle of the picture is a truck with the restrooms on it, that is where we were seperated from the men. We went around and up. This shows just how far we pulled. This picture was taken right before we did the final push up the rest of the hill. Check out how rocky the ground was... we are really going to have to talk to our city reps about getting those roads fixed....

More Trek

Trek

We just finished our pioneer trek with the youth of our stake. We were a ma and pa for 9 kids, 2 "aunts" and an "uncle". It was one of the hardest, yet most incredible experiences ever. We were blessed with so many little miracles, and it was so fun to start off the trip pointing them out to our youth, and by the end of the experience have them point the miracles out to us. It was amazing to see testimonies grow, and self esteem grow as they overcame incredible challenges.

This was a picture of our "family" after the women's pull at the top of the hill. The women's pull was the absolute hardest thing physically ever, but also the most rewarding and spiritually uplifting. We were seperated at the bottom of the mountain from the men, who portrayed the men going off to war, or dying off along the trail. We did a "hurrah to Isreal" shout to the men, who were taken on a hike through rattlesnake country. The women were given the handcarts, and told we had to pull them up a ridge, then up a super steep, rocky hill. We had such an incredible experience, as these girls discovered that they had a strength that came from within when they thought they had nothing left to give physically. The best part, was that when we got near the top, the men and young men from our families were there, cheering us on. They said that was the hardest thing ever, to stand and watch, knowing they were so close, but couldn't do anything to help us. We had to get the handcart past a stake in the ground up on the top, then the young men and men grabbed that carts from us and the girls dropped to the side. They pulled it the rest of the way up the hill. As you can see in the picture below, the ground was so rocky! Also, the angle I was at does NO justice to how steep the trail really was.

This is a picture of our family getting the handcart down one of the many hills we did on the second day.

We did 2 river crossings. This one, they had to get momentum because it was a flat start, then muddy on both sides, then straight up a steep hill. We had such an awesome group of kids in our family, who started off as strangers and ended up really becoming a family...incredible experience!

We came home today, showered, napped and are so sore...but would do it again in a heartbeat tomorrow!

Seriously

Okay, so this may be the comeback of the century. Who knew that old men could look so good? All I can say is Kelli...this one's for you.... Check it out and let me know what you think!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TLv1tm9kws

Stake Olympics

Can you tell our ward color was red?

Here is Crazygirl with her best bud doing the stick pull.

I think someone got the better deal on this 2 lap race!!!!





Right before the senior primary bike race. We had to get a picture of our ward representation! Crazygirl, by the way, took first in both the preliminary round and the finals. Isn't this a qualifying match for the summer olympics in Beijing? We'll be sure and buy our plane tickets soon!

We are alive!

So, I know it's been awhile, something is messed up with my memory card (I hope, because that would be a lot cheaper than my camera) so I don't have any pictures to post. Not that you would necessarily want to SEE any pictures from this last week. I had a HORRIBLE sinus thingamajiggy that tried to turn into a serious bronchial thingamijiggy. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. Even with that, of course life went on. Kindergarten field trip to the zoo. What more needs to be said? There were kindergarteners, animals and a lot of poopy smells coming from the giraffe area. Seriously, they need to look into opening some doors in there to ventilate. Even I smelled it, and I can't smell Anything!
We had the first half of dance tryouts this week. The girls learned their routines, then next week they will have actual tryouts. I know you are all on pins and needles to find out which team they made it on, but never fear...OF COURSE I will post on Friday after the Company picnic and announcements are made!!!!
We had our stake olympics today. It was actually pretty fun. today our weather actually decided to be normal, instead of 30 degrees below, so it felt like a heat wave. We are all dehydrated and sunburned. My fantastic neighbor and friend with a working memory card took pictures and promised to send them on over, so I will post those when I get them. I feel lost without my camera!
On a happy note, I am finally starting to feel better...Yea!!!!

Back to back field trips

Yesterday crazygirl had a field trip with her 5th grade class. Outdoors. In the rain. And hail. On a bus that went 10 mph. Seriously.

It was actually pretty interesting. They got to make candles (see below picture), make bricks, pretend to shoot a rifle, run the pony express, go to the schoolhouse etc. They had to stand and salute to get permission to talk or answer a question. I think I'm going to try and implement that in our household...hahaha!

Dramaqueen got to go with her class on a field trip today. It rained this morning, but was dry, cold and windy for the actual field trip. Luckily, part of it was indoors. They got to go to the big copper mine. Since I chaperoned, she got to pick who was in her group. She of course picked her 3 best friends in the class. That made it really convenient for me, since they actually WANTED to stay together! This picture is in front of one of the wheels for the trucks. It is 12.5 feet tall and weighs over 10,000 pounds. There are 6 on each truck. See, now you can never say that reading my blog isn't educational! We went to the park after for lunch and froze our hineys off. It is pretty sad that my daughter is wearing a winter parka in June. This is promising to be a weird summer!

Can you tell it's windy out there?

I'm so glad I was able to go on both field trips. It's fun to watch the kids interact with their peers and to get to know the other moms. (sometimes I think we have more fun than the kids!)

Next week...the zoo...with kindergarteners...

Last day of 7th grade...

First day of 7th grade... they were all so excited. Look, the girls even did their hair.


Last day of 7th grade. Man, that flew by fast! I can't believe we have an 8th grader. We are so grateful that she has such incredible friends in the ward. This is such a good group. They are all so talented and smart and funny. We couldn't have asked for a better neighborhood for our girls to grow up in!

Judging by the reaction of EVERY GIRL IN THE PICTURE, I'm pretty sure this was staged... but all Dan has to say is hmmmmmm............! Honestly, Crush has been a really good sport about being a crush at the beginning of the year, and now they are good friends, which is so much more fun anyway!

Happy Summer all!!!!!

dog and dance shoe drama

This is Bug's dance shoe. It's A LOT more expensive than it looks. Try the close to $40 range


This is our dog. She looks so cute and innocent, doesn't she?
(can you see where I am going with this?)

This is Bug's dance shoe about 15 minutes after getting home Thurs night after dress rehearsal.
Oh yeah, it's shredded. Beyond repair. Now might be a good time to mention that there is only one performance left, the end of the year recital. Bug has exactly two dances, which translates to just over 4 minutes of dancing left. By next season her foot will have grown and we would be needing new shoes, but we don't neccesarily need THESE shoes, the style and color depend on the class and teacher. Are you starting to feel my pain? We are about to drop a fairly decent amount of money for 4 minutes. 4. minutes.

Is anyone in the market for a dog?