Sunday, June 26, 2011

I'm getting paid to do this????



Let's just say I'm the luckiest person alive... I never thought being an EFY counselor could change my life this much. I am SOOOOOOOOOOO blessed.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

SLC for Memorial Day

This weekend I drove down to see my dad who was visiting SLC to drop my step brother off at the MTC for his mission to Fiji. We did so many fun things including Thanksgiving Point, playing Monopoly Deal, purchasing at a 2 story Walmart, a crazy eat meat on a stick restaurant (Rio something), temple square, and laughing together. 

In front of the largest man-made waterfall in the world :)

 My dad not only found a snake, but picked it up to show us all his mad catching skills


 Jail with Pops


 Secret Garden
 I love my dad
Sick 2 story walmart with a exclusive escalator for shopping carts. I was thoroughly entertained.
Waterfall with the Steps :)

 Spencer. I'll miss this cute kid!
Oh, but he is so ready to be a missionary. He will be so great!

Uhhhhh... no comment.
Temple Square (no duh Lauren)

Deep Canyon Adventure

Last Saturday for the ward activity we went on the wildest hike I've ever been on up the Wellsville Mountains. It was raining slightly when we met at 6:45 in the morning. I almost bailed, but the bishop told me the rain never stopped him in Portland, Oregon. I'm so glad I went forth. Here is the dead carcass we arrived upon at the beginning!!!


The first part of the hike was steep and freaking hot!!! I continually stripped down my snow layers, but continued to sweat. I ended up going ahead with a little group that was going faster than the others. They were pretty fast, but seemed to know what they were doing.


So then the hike turned into something that looked a little like this and lets just say I was wearing delightful little tennis shoes that not only slid like popsickles on hot cement, but also soak up water like a sponge.


It was weird to still be sweating hot, but in the middle of a winter wonderland. On one of the up slopes we paused for a picture. I was informed that the Wellsville Mountains are considered the steepest mountains in North America!!! Are you flipping kidding me???


I was continually told by the leader of our small group that he knew exactly where he was going. I began to doubt this as we climbed a hill so steep I had to use my hands and the men had to come back down to make better foot holds for me to not slide down the whole mountain. I continually shouted, "Foot holes Men!!!" On one of my slides down the mountain (for real, it felt like 2 steps forward, one foot back) I noticed some curious movement way WAY below us....


And there it was... the bishop and the others heading up the complete opposite side of the mountain!!! Are you kidding me??? We yelled down to him to get his attention and he yelled back "What are you guys doing???? You're going the complete wrong way!!!" So, what do we have to do??? Yes, we have to slide down the entire steepy steep steep hill that we just climbed to meet back up with our company. I gave that boy who claimed to be a leader some shady looks. We didn't have tarps, so the men started going down squatting on their feet. I have no idea how they did that because when I started to go down, I went straight to my bottom. Yes, I slid down 75 feet on my bottom in snow. Lovely. Here is the hill I slid down. You can see our bottom marks... :)


After an additional crazy amount of additional hiking up pure snow, we finally made it to the top :)
 

It was super pretty up there, but even better than that was the next part; sliding down the entire mountain on a piece of tarp. The bishop had carried tarp in his pack for all of us and we began our lovely slide down. My crazy group leader, you know, the one that got us lost, went up an extra cliff to begin his slide. Yep, dislocated his shoulder... crazy man!!!


And then we were done, at approximately 1:15 pm. Erik headed to the ER room and I headed home to take a warm, WARM BATH, take off my soaking wet pants (with holes in the bottom from you know what), and rest from the most amazing hike of my life!!! I am so blessed!!!

Followers