Happy Happy Birthday Brooklyn Dear!

We celebrated Brooklyn's birthday at Grandma and Grandpa P.'s house.  In the morning we went to Henderson park.  They have a lot of fun playground equipment.

Micah and Brooklyn enjoying one of the saucer swings:

Conner loved this swing.  He swung back and forth like this for a long time:

 

Grandpa bouncing Alan and Brooklyn:

The park is right next to a small lake.  The kids enjoyed looking at the huge fish that were swimming just off of the shore.  The boys got so excited that they ran along the shore to the dock to tell some fishermen about the large fish.  They also saw some crayfish:

Then we came back to the house and had lunch and took a rest/nap.  After that we were ready to open presents.  Brooklyn got a little kitchen set that she has enjoyed:

We kind of rushed her after her nap.  She likes to wake up slowly and we were eager to get started with the celebrations.  As a result she was kind of grumpy, especially when we tried to put this crown on her:

Pouty face:

 

That's better!  Once we started opening presents she decided she liked birthday parties:

Brooklyn didn't have a ton of emotion as she opened her presents.  Micah was the complete opposite.  He was so excited and was bouncing all over.  We always know how Micah is feeling - he is very expressive:

 

Looking at the tea party set:

 

I looked at a few cakes with Brooklyn and this is the one that she got the most excited about: a puppy

We lit a sparkler candle and Brooklyn was not too sure about that:

She was happy with the regular candles though.  She tried to blow them out but her brothers finally helped blow them out:

Yum!

Brooklyn got this cute little chef outfit for her birthday but she refused to try it on so Dad showed her how cool it was:

Conner also tried to show her how cool it was - no luck.  She did not want to wear that:

She got this light up wand thing and LOVED chasing people around with it.  Everyone pretended to get an electric shock out of it and Brooklyn just laughed and laughed:



Happy Birthday Brooklyn!  We are so glad you are in our family!

Swimming lessons

I put Alan and Conner into swimming lessons this year.  We decided to do them at the high school this year.  I was curious to see if I would like their swimming program better.  I decided it was a tie - I liked some things about the high school and some things about the pool next to our house.  I guess we will see what I decide for next year. 

Alan - ready to swim

Conner - eager to go

Alan's strokes improved a lot this year:

Conner doing a crazy jump to his teacher:

Alan jumping off the diving board:

Conner made a ton of progress this year - he started swimming with no help.  Here he is on the last day playing with his teacher:

 

Conner jumping off the diving board:

Brooklyn and Micah had to sit on the side with me.  Despite my best attempts to keep them entertained they were pretty restless.  Brooklyn's favorite thing was to walk to the edge of the pool and just stand there - it made everyone nervous.  The head lady even asked if I wanted to put her in a lesson but I told her Brooklyn wasn't even 2 yet, so that probably wouldn't work out.  I spent a lot of time walking the deck with the two of them.

July 4th

This year we decided we wanted to go camping for Independence day.  It was a hard decision but the kids helped us decide.  Since we wouldn't see the big firework show we bought our own fireworks and had our own little party.  The kids particularly enjoyed the smoke bombs:

We had our traditional tank battle.  I think Brooklyn is trying to show who is stronger: her or the tanks:

The camping was fun.  We went to a new spot and enjoyed spending time in nature.  Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures.  I do remember seeing deer in the camp site next to us while we were cooking our breakfast.  And we decided to do a hike without knowing anything about it beforehand - big mistake.  It was steep, long and kind of boring.  The kids were not impressed and we were practically dragging them up the trail at the end.  Oh well, live and learn.  The boys LOVED the campfire.  Glad we got in a family camping trip this summer!

Pioneer Trek

Reed and I were asked to be a Ma and Pa on our Stake's youth trek this summer.  We were so excited to go!  We got to do a practice trek in May were only the leaders went.  It was really nice to get to know some of the other couples in our Stake.  At the end of June we had the real trek.  The day that it started dawned cold and rainy.  We made sure we had our rain coats and headed out.

At the launch area - this is before we divided into families:

Here is Reed and I with our family: l-r: Kyle, Kyler, Ashley, Secora, Madison, Boston, Zion

Trying our the family hug before we all got too stinky:

Us with our handcart.  They gave each handcart a different colored flag.  The kids had to have at least one hand on the handcart while we were moving.  Reed and I were not supposed to help unless it was absolutely necessary:

We would walk for a while and then stop and everyone would grab their bucket and we would sit in a circle and talk.  Everyone brought a bucket with all of their personal belongings in it:

The first day we had a mob scene.  These horsemen rode down out of the hills and started yelling.  Then they told us to get out of here and they dumped some buckets out of the handcarts:

At the end of the day we crossed a river to get to our campsite:

We hurried to set up our tents because the rain clouds were looking ominous (it didn't actually rain on us during our walk although it was very cloudy)

However, as soon as our tents were up the clouds let loose and it poured.  We were supposed to have our hoe down but everyone had wet feet and it was getting dark so it was a very short dance.  Luckily a guy in our camp offered to dry all of our shoes that night (he had a heater in his tent).  That was a life saver! 

The next morning we got an early start.  Our meals were all taken care of by a cooking committee and all of the meals were great.  This was going to be our longest and hardest day of walking. 

We walked and walked and walked.  We had never done trek in this area so we didn't know how long it would take.  The kids walked faster than we thought so our trail boss had to lead us on several detours so that we stayed on schedule.  The kids were not happy about having to back track because our trail boss "got lost"



We did the trek on a ranch in the foot hills of the mountains.  It was absolutely beautiful country to walk in:

Our long line of trekkers - about 90 kids

We did the women's pull about mid day.  The boys were all led up a hill and they talked with their leaders while the girls talked with their leaders at the bottom.  Then the girls pulled the hand carts while the boys walked silently from the side of the trail:

We had a good talk afterward about how the girls felt after they made it and how the boys felt as they watched the girls struggle.  This was one of my hardest moments because we, as leaders, had been given strict instruction to not help the girls.  It was hard to walk beside them and see them struggle and know that I could have made the pull easier if I had pushed, but this wasn't supposed to be easy.  It made me think a lot about Heavenly Father and how he must see us struggle sometimes on earth.  I think he probably wants to help, to make things easier but he knows that this is not supposed to be easy and that we will learn more from the hard things than from easy times. 

We stopped and played stick pull.  I think some of the leaders were more competitive than the kids:

More walking:

That day at lunch time we pulled out a bag of biscuits and talked to the kids about how the pioneers only had 4 oz of flour each day (at the end when they were running out of food).  We gave each of the kids a small bag of flour to let them see how much that was.  Then we told them that the biscuit was lunch.  I expected a lot of groaning and complaining but our kids took the news quite well.  We walked for a few more hours and then a horseman rode up who was acting as Ephraim Hanks and he passed out beef jerky and told the story about how he was sent back as part of the rescue group from Salt Lake and how he found a buffalo and killed it right before he found the stranded saints.  Then he told us that he had killed another buffalo down the trail and we could go there for lunch.  Before this news the kids were starting to drag - we would say "Lets go" and they would slowly grab the hand cart and trudge off.  At news of food they grabbed the hand cart and took off and we had to remind them not to run.  We went down the trail and found two big coolers covered by buffalo skins.  Inside the coolers were sandwiches and carrots and chips.  

We walked and walked and finally arrived at the same river crossing as we had the night before.  As we approached the river crossing we saw all of the bishops and branch presidents waiting beside the trail.  We sat next to the river and our Stake President talked to the kids about the role of a bishop in their lives.  He talked about how the pioneers came to the last crossing of the Sweetwater river and how many of them simply couldn't make it across and so a few young men carried the pioneers across.  He talked about how those rescuers could be compared to our modern bishops.

Then each bishop walked across the river with each youth from their ward or branch.  It was great to watch.  Bishop Holt with one of the girls from our ward:

We got back to camp and had dinner.  Then the pony express came and delivered letters from the kids' parents.  Then we gave the kids some journaling time and then we had a testimony meeting in our little family.  It was definitely the spiritual high point of the trek for me - the kids in our family were amazing.  The kids were so mature and each bore a powerful testimony.  It was amazing to me to see how quickly we went from being a bunch of strangers to caring for each other and feeling like a family.

The next morning we got up early and had breakfast and then we broke camp.  Then we played some pioneer games.  We did the three legged race:

Madi and Kyler are in the lead!:

And more stick pull.  Go Madi go!:

All of the trekkers:

Then we headed out.  The last part of the hike was "Rocky Ridge".  We talked about how rocky ridge was for the pioneers and as we walked it one person from each family was pulled out and had to stay behind.  We talked about the many deaths that happened on the trail and how the gospel made the partings a little easier but they were still hard.  After we made it to the top we stopped for lunch and a discussion and our lost family member returned to us.  Then we walked back to the cars.  As we got close all the parents lined the trail to welcome us to the "valley".  

I am so glad we got to participate in trek.  It was great to be able to interact with the youth.  It was so nice to be able to feel the spirit so strongly and to learn more about the pioneers and especially about my own pioneer ancestors.