TREK

I am slowly making progress on all of our summer fun!  This trek was...HARD, but AMAZING!  I am so glad that I was able to be a part of this great event.

It was like 5:30 in the morning, but look at how happy we are!

This is our cute family - ready to go!

back - Jamee, Sarah, Montana, Kyra

front - Brett, Matthew, Tyson, Mitch, and Conner

I can seriously say from the bottom of my heart that I LOVE these kids...and they are AMAZING!!!

This is what the line up looked like. Every time one wagon would stop...it would hold the rest of us up.  We found ourselves saying "why are we stopping, AGAIN"!

We thought we were stopping in the spot for lunch, but shortly found out that this was just a snack and later, like 3pm, we would have lunch.  Now, we left that morning at 5:30 and only had a granola bar and a juice box since that time.  We kinda did feel like a pioneer...hungry!

This place is called the needles and it was the turning point of flat roads to many...many...many hills!  I have a picture of just one of the hills further down.  It was quite fun, because we experienced super hot sun, to pouring rain, to almost hail...also another similar experience to the pioneers!

We had to cross a little stream and before we put our shoes back on we got a "foot" picture.  Notice the dirt and cow pies all over our feet!  Gross!

My cute boys, just chillin!  And one of the amazing hills we had to climb!

The views we saw were gorgeous!  And isn't that Pa...just SO handsome!

 These two family pics were taken on the second day...the day we thought all of our trek leaders were leading us to our death!

We walked and walked and walked and walked some more and they kept telling us it was only a quarter of a mile more.  By that afternoon - okay more like dinnertime, it was 98 degrees outside, our water was running out, the medic staff ran out of IV's for those that were dehydrated, there was sand blowing straight into our faces and we still had 4 miles to go before we could camp.  Thankfully, miracles happen and among all the sagebrush, there was a meadow that we could camp in that night that was just 3 miles shy of where we were supposed to camp.  I think I walked about 5.5 miles on MAJOR blisters on my heels that day.  It was super hard, but all I could think of was the pioneers and our Savior.  It was a very REAL moment for me, if that makes any sense and when I awoke the next morning my right heel had NO blisters and my left heel was much better...like I said...I BELIEVE in miracles.

That night after we were settling down for the night, Brett removed his hat for our family devotional and all the kids busted up laughing at his dirt line...seriously we had dirt blowing in our faces for about a half a mile.

Because the first 2 days were SO HARD, they let us have a play day the 3rd day with no trekking!  It was awesome and well needed.  The kids played dodgeball, kickball, tug of war, had a hoe down, and just got to sit around a chit chat.

The next morning we were ready to trek the 4 miles to the bus (which only took us about 2 hours instead of 5 like the second day...crazy what heat and rest can do).

Look at that dust...oh just thinking about it, I can feel it in my teeth again!

WE MADE IT!  And they are still all smiling...okay most of them!  We had a GREAT family!

Just a few pictures of the Porter Way Ward Ma's and Pa's

Brett, David Libby, and Joel Bales

This was at a Priesthood meeting that they held the second day when they told us we couldn't help the kids as much as we were.  They shared a story about a young man not knowing how to change the wiper blades on the car when he was in a rain storm all by himself, because his dad had always done it for him.  It was hard to not help our kids pull that cart!

Aren't we the prettiest pioneers you have ever seen!

Alisa Bales, me, and Dannie Libby

I have so many more pictures, but I will save you from more.  To suffice, it was AMAZING, or did I already say that!