It's Official!

After many (okay four) months of waiting, it is finally official. We are moving. Dan is getting a pseudo-promotion--more responsibilities, no more money. We are excited about moving to a bigger city, new parks, new things to do, better schools, etc., but we will miss all our friends here and know that the next couple of months are going to be a pain. I always hope to settle down eventually, but Dan assures me that we will probably only be there two to three years, then it will be onto another opportunity. Aww, the joys of working for the Federal Government, where usually the only way to get promoted is to move.

Flaming Gorge Days

Flaming Gorge Days took place the last weekend in June. We decided to go to Green River on Friday, June 26th and check out the free kids play area. They had a giant slide, a bounce room, a ninja obstacle course, and a smaller kids slide and bounce area. The kids had a blast! Here are Eliza and Gideon in the big bounce room.

Emma and Ben finishing the obstacle course. It looks like Ben won this time.

White Mountain Petroglyphs and Boar's Tusk

In order to train for the trek, we have gone on some short hikes. On June 20th, we went to the White Mountain Petroglyphs and the Boar's Tusk.

Here are the kids in front of some petroglyphs. I don't know how many of these are "historic" and how many have been done within the last 30 years or so, but it was still fun to see. The kids also enjoyed crawling around the rocks and finding little caves.

Here is the Boar's tusk from a distance. The kids really enjoyed climbing up it.

They made it to the big V in the middle, but to go to the very top, they would need rock climbing equipment, so we figured this was good.

Fun in the sun in Wyoming. We were excited to see so much green prairie grass and wildflowers. Wet springs and summers are very nice.

Trekin' With the Handcarts

We have been really busy the last few weeks and I haven't had a chance to blog, so my next few posts will probably be out of chronological order (which drive me nuts as a history major) but it will just have to do, as I wanted to write about our handcart trek first.

We left on Monday, June 29th and drove to Martin's Cove where the Martin Handcart Company was rescued. We pushed the handcart for a mile or so and then left the handcart and walked up into the cove. We had been there before when we lived in Rawlins, but it has been a couple of years, so we enjoyed it. We also went back a little different way that made the trek a little longer. It was between 6 and 7 miles for the whole thing. The kids did really well. Emma and Ben walked the whole way. Eliza and Gideon walked a good portion. The bugs weren't too bad and nobody got sunburned. The above picture is a statue near where the rescuers helped the pioneers cross the Sweetwater River.

On our second day, we only walked four miles, but had three major river crossings. The water was deep enough that it was a couple inches over the bottom of the handcart. Some men got into the river and helped everybody across. I got wet a few inches above my waist. Dan carried Gabby, so she was dry. Eliza and Gideon rode in the cart, but Gideon still got a little wet. Ben and Emma walked part way and then were carried across by one of the guys in the river. We were prepared with water shoes, and we walked for 3 miles after the crossings in the sun, so we dried out really well afterwards. It was fun and amazing to experience a little of what the pioneers might have gone through. Of course we had great weather and lots of food to eat, so it doesn't really compare.

Eliza and Gideon rode most of the 2nd and 3rd days. Emma and Ben walked most of those days, but both got to ride in the cart for at least a little while. The 2nd day we were grouped with 3 teenage boys, so it was a pretty easy day for us. The 3rd day we walked between 6 and 7 miles.

We took this picture on the third day right after the women's pull. Our ward had consolidated carts down to 2. We were supposed to have 10 people per cart, but on this day we had about 14. It worked out really well. They took the men (Dan took Gabby) and they went to "serve" in the Mormon Battalion (historical discrepancy, but that's okay). The women then had to push the carts up the steepest part of the whole trek for roughly a half an hour. It was hard, but it was good to be on our own, and acknowledge how much we need the men in our lives.

We had a good time, feel closer to members of our ward, and feel feel more of a kinship with the handcart pioneers and how much they suffered to get to Zion. The mosquitoes were pretty bad at our campsite and on the 2nd and 3rd days. All of us except for Gabby got tons of bug bites. All except for Emma and Ben got sunburned somewhere. we really enjoyed our experience, but we were really glad to get home, take showers and sleep in our owns beds without any bugs.

Puzzleman and Horserider

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a few weeks now, but life happens. Now that school is over (Virtual Academy included) I want to say how good Gideon and Gabby have been. I have had to spend a lot of time helping Emma do her schooling and I think they got the shorted on mommy time this last semester. Gideon has been a trooper and has learned to do puzzles really well. So well, it's kind of scary. Gabriella has just gone with the flow. She is a really laid back baby as long as mom is there and general chaos is reining. They are good kids and I look forward to when the older kids go back to school and they get more individualized mommy time. Of course then I will miss the older kids, but in order to keep me sane we decided to send them all back to school.

Library Day

This is what our house looks like after going to the library:

It is great to have kids who like to read, but sometimes it is hard to get them to do anything else!

Pulled Over for Walking!

We are going on a handcart trek with our Stake in a couple of weeks. All of us, even Gabby are going. I've been worried about how the kids are going to walk 7-8 miles a day and so we have been "training." We have been going on 2-3 mile walks at least every other day. Yesterday we decided to walk to a Arthur Park which is about a mile away from our house across a pretty busy street. As I was walking with the kids, a police car pulled up behind us and honked his horn. We stopped and he asked us if we needed any help. I told him no, we're just walking to the park. He asked us about an abandoned vehicle a little ways back. I said I knew nothing about it. He asked where we lived I pointed to our neighborhood. He asked why we weren't going to the park over there. I said we wanted to go to the new park and we wanted to get some exercise. He said okay. I then proceeded to walk away with my kids. I know he was looking for whoever abandoned that car, but can't I walk a couple miles with my children without getting grilled about why and sane person would walk a mile to a park? It is sad that walking is not recognized as a proper form of transportation anymore.