Hiking the Y

On Saturday Becky and I took the kids on a much anticipated hike up to the Y. The older three kids have been asking and asking to do this for over a year, Candace and Joshua even longer. 

Here is the group at the trail head. 

Any rock we found, the kids loved to stop and sit on them. 

Luke was quite the trooper. He walked about half of the way up. 

Joshua and Levi. 

Beautiful view.

Joshua would run ahead the whole time and then turn around like this and wait for us to catch up. He never tired the whole trip. It was incredible. He literally ran up the whole mountain and then back down as well.

The littlest Y-hiker. When he finally started to get tired,  he would drag his feet and just drop to the ground to let us know he wanted to be carried. 

Aunt Becky. She helped so much. We never could have made it without her. She carried Luke a huge portion of the hike.

Water break. 

Levi also did great! He needed us to hold his hand most of the way, but only at the end did I have to carry him for about 30 minutes.

Luke taking a break. 

The three boys.

Another water break. 

Joshua found a friend for part of the hike. They each had a stick. It was cute.

The three kids, sitting atop the Y.

Getting out lunch. We had sandwiches and apples at the top. 

The view from the top.

We continued past the Y and went about 30 more minutes up the mountain. We reached this place with huge rocks and we could see into the canyon. It was beautiful. The kids thought it looked like Narnia.

Narnia.

Provo City.

The tiny dot in the center of this picture is Joshua. Sometimes he would get so far ahead. 

We made it!

Candace wrote down her testimony the other day and I wanted to share it with you guys. 

Monster Truck Family

When Candace was younger and even now sometimes she plays house. She assigns someone to be the dad, mom, sister, brother and baby. Dolls are always included in the equation. Our boys haven't been as interested in playing house in general. However, the other day, Levi came out of his room after he'd been playing quietly for a long time. He was pushing these three trucks all stacked inside of each other and when he got to the kitchen, he exclaimed, "Did you know that dump trucks can be in a family with monster trucks?" Then he introduced me to the whole monster truck family. Dad, mom and baby monster truck. 

Captain Hook

This is Levi's costume minus the accessories. I really like how the pirate coat turned out. I'm not that thrilled about the hat. My dad and husband both agree that it looks like a revolutionary war hat. Thanks for the support guys. 

Harvest Time

Our garden has done really well this year. This is an average harvest every 3 or 4 days. We are hoping some of our pumpkins last on the vine till near Halloween. 

Can you guess who I am?

Another great find ...

Dear Journel,

I am a girl.

I like T.V.

I like set. (It's a game we play)

I like swimming. 

I am seven years old. 

I can ride a bike.

I am a fan of Olimpics.

I am not a football kind.

Can you guess who I am?

...............

Camping or as Candace put it "Trying to Camp"

We went camping this past weekend at Utah Lake State Park. We had a really fun time during the waking hours and a not so fun time during the "sleeping" hours. 

Here is our camp site in all it's glory. 

After setting up our tent we set off on our first adventure, geocaching. It was probably the best part of our trip. The kids loved it. You search for GPS coordinates that indicate where some "treasure" is hidden. We rented a GPS and taught Candace how to use it. She loved it. 

Here are the geocachers themselves. 

This is the littlest geocacher.

On the hunt .... I love this picture. All the kids in a row.

And here is Luke. Sitting in the middle of a field examining his shoes. 

We found it! Inside a metal box covered by a rock was a sign that read, "Congratulations! You found the FIRST hiding place. Now back on the hunt for the second part of the hunt. The kids were really excited at this point.

Utah Lake.

Handsome daddy.

The second hunt led us close to the lake.

We got distracted by skipping rocks for a minute.

Joshua took some turns reading the GPS.

Needless to say there are no pictures of the second site because we never found it. It was very disappointing. When we reached the place the coordinates indicated instead of the treasure we found a snake. A big snake. So we lost our desire to keep turning over rocks in that area. 

When we returned to the camp site, we roasted hot dogs and smores. The kids loved this part. Luke sat quietly in my lap for a long time, mesmerized by the fire.

This is a fun, very short video of us right before James took the picture in front of our tent. He thought it was on picture mode, but instead took this video.