Pioneer Trek

 Luke and I were asked to be a "Ma & Pa" on the Pioneer Trek for the youth in our ward. Since we live in Wyoming we got to travel along the actual trail that the pioneers traveled to get to Salt Lake City. We walked thirty miles over two days pulling handcarts. Our ward had three handcarts and one rickshaw.

Here we are starting at Sixth Crossing nice and rested and clean and ready to start our journey!

This was our little handcart "family."

A lot of the land we traveled through is owned by the BLM. They required all the leaders to attend a 45 minute meeting to lay out all their strict rules. The main rule was to never leave the trail! So we had to wait for certain stopping points for bathroom breaks.

They looked like little log cabins, but were just port-a-potties in disguise.

At one point along the trek we did a Women's Pull to represent when the all the men were called away to form the Mormon Battalion or were too sick to pull. All the men hiked to the top of the hill while all the girls and women pulled the carts up the hill. Our ward only had about three girls per cart. At one point I thought I might pass out but we made it to the top!

When we finally pulled into camp for the evening the tents were already set up. We were very grateful! After dinner and a short fireside given by the stake president we called it a night.

We started bright and early the next day with some biscuits and gravy before packing up camp and hitting the trail. 

The weather was pretty cool for a little while which was a nice change. We shared some pioneer stories and sang some hymns along the way.

When we got to Rocky Ridge we found out how it got it's name. The rocks could not be avoided as they came in huge ridges that you just had to push over. We thought the carts would break, but none did.

Past Rocky Ridge we were happy to be nearly home. Everyone was in good spirits after we rested and had lunch.

After hours in the sun we were aching for some shade (me!). Every time we stopped people grabbed water and looked for a good place to sit or hide in the shade which was pretty much what was made by our carts.

 When we got back home we found Batman in our back yard! We found that appropriate since "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" opened this weekend so we took Luke's parents to go see it. They didn't like it as much as we did.

Gold Rush Days

This weekend was Gold Rush Days at South Pass City, a historic mining town. We decided to check it out.  

They had baseball games throughout the day. The teams dressed in old fashioned uniforms complete with vintage gloves.

 Every hour they would explode an anvil into the air. It reminded me of Sweet Home Alabama.

We met a couple of guys Luke works with and their families and had a good time entertaining the kids. We brought Baxter and the three littlest kept wanting to take him on walks so I walked around with them while Luke helped the older kids pan for gold. It ended up being the three guys panning as the kids lost interest after a while. We got pretty sunburned but had lots of fun.  



Visitors

 My parents came to visit us! We don't get too many visitors so we get excited when we get one now and again. There are not many cool things to do around home so it was a pretty low key visit. My parents went and visited Martin's Cove while Luke and I were working on Friday. On Saturday my dad, the sprinkler dr., helped us to fix our sprinklers.

We also visited Sinks Canyon and showed them the sinks and the rise of the Popo Agie.

They brought Izzy to play with Baxter. He thought it was pretty great.

We had a fun time with the parents and love having family come to visit!



Red, White & Blue

Happy 4th of July! For church on Sunday we decided to dress in patriotic attire. Everybody loved Luke's blue suit. He had it custom made on his mission in Chile. He likes any excuse to wear it.

Because it has been so hot and dry and there are forest fires, all fireworks have been banned in the county. The parade is about all the 4th of July celebration that we got.

 We were missing the Idaho Dairymen's Association truck that hands out free chocolate milk, but this float was the next best thing!

 Free steak samples! We love beef :)

The tail end of the parade was a dozen or so fire trucks. Lots of sirens. They went crazy throwing candy, frisbees, and spraying us all with water. We were at the very front of the parade and we were pretty sure they would run out of candy before the end.

 One fire truck went crazy with the cinnamon bears. I love cinnamon bears!

 They had a BBQ in the city park that we went to check out after the parade but decided 8 dollars for a hot dog was a little more than we wanted to spend. We did take some fun pictures in the playground area which is an old west town replica. Pretty cool.

 Since the fireworks are banned and the radio stations refuse to play patriotic music, we decided to watch The Sandlot which has fireworks and baseball. How more American can you get?



Scouting

(Written by Luke) In preparation for the pioneer trek this summer, everyone going on the trek went on a hike to Popo Agie Falls. Courtnie and I were asked to be a "Ma" and "Pa" for one of the hand carts so we get to prepare with everyone else (pulling handcarts along the actual mormon trail in the heat of late July will be hard). Just above the main falls is a natural water slide.

I am also the assistance scout leader and last week we had Boy Scout camp which was a lot of fun. I was waiting to get these photos from my Bishop who came with us so I could write this post. He was the one taking the photos.

After going down the slide feet first the bishopric challenged me to go Superman style... Challenge accepted!

The cold water took my breath away and I almost gasped underwater.

Lots of people slid down the rock, but Baxter was the only dog brave enough to do it. He jumped right into my lap like he was excited to go down.

He smiled the whole way down, like when he hangs his head out the car window.

This is a great shot with his ears flying. He is about to change his mind about this adventure. Once we hit the water he realized how cold it was and swam like mad for the edge (which wasn't far away and there was no risk he could be swept away).

This is the river lower down. Only a part of the river flows over the slide. It is also near where we had scout camp.

At scout camp we had six boy scouts and were joined by two 11yr old scouts for one day. We worked on the cooking merit badge (among others) and had the boys plan and prepare all the meals. They needed a lot of guidance but the food turned out great.

We took a ten mile hike on which we purified water from a stream and almost had to carry the Bishop out. It was very steep and rocky, but we had a good time.

The night the Bishop was there he brought steaks, which were delicious! The plastic utensils and paper plates made it hard to cut steak, so most of us just used our hands. Good thing no girls are invited to Boy Scout camp.

Setting up and taking down tents wasn't the fun part but kept the boys occupied for a while. I'm not sure what Dillon is about to do with the mallet in this picture, but hopefully he hits stakes and not Isaac's head.