Fat Man's Misery

So I just remembered that I didn't copy the photos from Bryan's camera onto my computer, so I have some catching up to do.  So go back to May 19th for Fat Man's Misery hike.

They got up early, packed up, and took off to Zion.  They decided to do a loop this year because having someone drive in to pick them up is the biggest pain in the world.  This is a hike the boys love!  They fight for the chance to go and I'm glad they have this great tradition.

They hike, play games, jump in a pool of frogs, and walk in some amazing slot canyons.  It's beautiful.

  

  
After they get all wet and swim with the frogs, they play some crazy game that I don't understand.






Bryan is always the "unofficial" cameraman on these adventures and I am so glad he is because he gets some amazing videos and pictures.

Here is the game I don't get:

Here is Ethan's repel when he knocked a chunk of rock off and it almost hit his leader below:

The hike out was brutal because it was in the sand and long but they had great weather.  It was cool temperatures and cloud cover so they didn't have too bad of a time.  It was a great experience.

Socks

Courtney loves it when Ethan wears her birthday present to him.  He has worn them each Sunday and has fun with them!  This is a more tame pair.

Angel's Landing

Ethan's ym leaders are amazing and love to take the boys on hikes and adventures.  They decided to hike Angel's Landing in Zion.  There were 2 leaders and 5 boys who went.  The reward they always give these boys is lunch at Wendy's and the boys can eat and eat.  They love it and have a great time.

Here is the pic from the top:

Chicken Hat

Our Stake Girls Camp theme is "Birds of a Feather."  We are trying to have unity among the girls and teach them that, no matter what bird you are, you are still a bird!  The Stake is an owl and the YCL girls are the flamingos.  But we went rogue and decided to be the Mother Hens.  So I made the knit hat and my counselor added the beak, head, and legs.  I think they turned out really well!

Trek

Our ward did Trek this year as their youth conference.  Because they only do it once every 6 years, they invited the Beehives and Deacons to go along.  So both Ethan and Courtney were able to go.  They didn't go to Wyoming because it is so expensive to get all our youth up there, so the leaders found a way to do a Trek in Pinto.

Ethan was in the Evan's family and Courtney was in the Lee family.  They were well taken care of and they worked so hard.

Thursday morning we took them to the Stake Center to get ready to go.  I was in charge of getting snack foods so the kids could make snack bags for themselves for later.  Ethan and Courtney were happy to start...kind of.
  

Ethan and Courtney are on the back row by the carts on the right-hand side of the picture. What a good looking bunch of trekkers.


Did I say this wasn't completely authentic?  The porta-potty that followed them on the trail.



On the video, Courtney is on the far right on the first cart and Ethan is on the far left on the second cart.  Then you will be able to see them easily on the other video.

This was the first day (ignore the watermark, I had to cut a lot out of the video and this was the free program I used):

On the last day of Trek (Saturday), all the ward members went to the Ence cabin at Pinto to welcome the families back and to have a ward party.  I almost didn't recognize Courtney because she was so tan!

  

She wasn't in too good of a mood, as you can tell from the "talk to the hand" picture.  She was exhausted and just wanted to go home.  Unfortunately, Bryan was in charge of cooking the Dutch Oven potatoes for the ward party.  This is what Courtney thought of that:

Here are their families after 3 days of Trek:

This is how Courtney made it home from Trek:


The kids had a good experience but they don't ever want to do Trek again. Ethan ended up helping pull the sick cart and there were some heavy kids in the sick cart.  But it was a great learning experience.

Licensed Driver!

Ethan finished driver's ed, drove with the instructor the required hours, took the driving test with the instructor, and took the online tests he needed to finish.  When he had his completion certificate, I made an appointment and drove him out to the DMV.  We had to pay a fee (of course), have his picture taken, and then he got his license.  Right now, it's just a paper license, but his plastic one will be coming in the mail soon.

It's crazy that he can drive how!  Now we have to get him on our insurance which will be painful because it's so expensive to insure a teenage boy.

Huntington Beach

My Uncle Kelly was getting married the weekend after school let out.  Courtney and I decided we wanted to go down.  Courtney would babysit during the sealing for my cousin.  We left Friday morning to drive to Huntington Beach to the hotel.  Then Courtney and I went to the beach!

It was super windy so it was cold and the water was freezing.  We got in anyway and stayed for a little while but it wasn't as fun because of the wind.  It did make it so there weren't many people at the beach though.

We showered, changed, then met up with my parents to go to dinner.  Then we went to bed.

Saturday morning we got up, got ready, and made our way to the Newport Beach Temple.  We met up with my cousin and Courtney took their girls then the rest of us went into the temple.

The sealing was beautiful and I'm so excited for Kelly and Liz.  It was fun to see so many family members at the temple. We went to a luncheon afterward at a very nice restaurant.

 The siblings:

 The luncheon:

 They had such beautiful flowers:

 Courtney went outside her comfort zone to try some food she wouldn't normally eat.  Some was a hit others, not so much.

 Courtney's steak dinner:

When we finished the luncheon and had visited with all the family, we took off to change our clothes and go to the beach again.  This time it wasn't windy and there were more people.  The water was still freezing but we had a great time playing in the water.

Then we went to bed.  We drove home Sunday morning.  It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun.