Hulls Gulch

In preparation for our upcoming Stake Pioneer Trek, we did a hike with the young women,

at Hulls Gulch.

We have about 40 young women, from our ward, going on trek. Just over half of them were there that night.

It was interesting to hear the different attitudes of the girls. Some were totally excited and loving every minute of being outdoors and with their friends. Others worried about getting sweaty and dirty and screamed at the HUGE beetles along the trail. And a few thought the hike was a total drag and SO HARD they might die!

On the way up, I was in the back of the pack. I found myself trying to encourage, but also relating to the girls who thought this was tough. I didn't complain out loud, but did think a few times..."Are we there yet?"

About forty minutes into the hike, it was 8:15p. (Mutual is usually over at 8:30p.) If it had been solely up to me, I think I would have turned around at that point... but it wasn't solely up to me, so we hiked on.

When the sun started setting and we were still not at our destination, we stopped and consulted our map. We were told by other hikers around us (another group also preparing for trek) that we had the wrong map for that part of the trail. Following the trail we were on, would NOT loop back around getting us back to our cars, but to a different parking lot.

After much deliberation, we decided that we would turn around and go back the way we came.

This time I was in the front of the pack. Three girls, one other leader and I, jogged along the trail. (I don't know why we were jogging, but I wasn't willing to go too slow and get left behind either.) The speedy girls got out in front of us and temporarily out of our sight. They were FAST! We finally caught up to them at a fork in the trail. They had let us catch up, because they were unsure of which trail to take.

Uhh..I don't remember either. Sister Read and I were ready to take the trail leading down, but then we were told by the other group of hikers that we needed to go up. Ok.

Thank goodness they were there. That's twice they saved us from our selves that day. :)

Here are the SPEEDY girls...Kaylie, Kamryn and Katie.

We got back to our cars, way ahead of the other part of our group. Sister Read started calling. She called leaders from the group behind us to make sure they took the right fork in the trail. Then she made phone calls to leaders that had stayed home and had them start calling all the parents of the girls to let them know that we would be WAY late.

When our group was finally all back together, it was dark. We rested a bit and drank another bottle of water. Then we divided the girls up into carloads and took off for home.... all the way across town.

By the time we got home, it was close to 11:00p! I was sweaty, hot, dirty, tired and ready for bed.

I think this hike was a great way to physically prepare the girls for trek. Although some of them thought they would DIE, they didn't. I wonder how trek will go for them?

Good luck girls! :)

A Hiking We Will Go!

On Monday, we decided it would be fun to take a hike to the "Wind Caves".

We each made our own sandwich wraps, slathered on sunscreen and put on our best hiking shoes then headed out. Becky (7+ months pregnant) and 3 younger ones stayed back, not knowing if a hike would be that enjoyable for them.
Nicky-Taylee-Jay-Treyson-Jason-Cheyenne-Madelyn-Marissa-Savannah-Abree-Rylee-Emilie-Me-Brayden
Our hiking group (minus Spencer).

Spencer finally decided that he WOULD hike with us, when given the choice of staying in the car and not having anything to eat or coming. He said he would rather hike, than "starve to death". :)

Here we go!

About 1/3 of the way up the mountain, we came upon some people stopped on the trail. When I listened, I knew why they had stopped... I heard loud rattling! There was a rattle snake close by and he was warning us to STAY ON THE TRAIL! It made some of our group (including me) a little nervous about continuing, but we did.

Taylee begged me to let her go see it. I begged her to leave it alone and just keep going. She was so disappointed.

Our group was divided into 3 parts most of the way; the teenagers and older kids, me with some younger kids and Jason, Jay, Nicky and the youngest kids. The first group made it to the wind cave a head of all of us. They explored without restraint.

I heard a person (not from our hiking group) say, "Did you see that boy fall? He made me nervous." I was almost certain it was Treyson they were talking about. I found Treyson and the big kid group, scaling the rocky mountain side. There was a narrow ledge that if you hugged the mountain and shuffled your feet, you could end up in another big cave. (So I was told. I was not brave enough to find out for myself.) As I was getting down to the first cave, I saw Treyson disappear around the corner on the narrow ledge. I told him to tell our group to come back and that I didn't want anyone else to go back over there. I couldn't handle the worry of someone falling. The cave had a lot of loose dirt and gravel and it was easy to slip and slide around.

And yes, he was "that boy that fell".

Looking down from the top of the wind cave.

Even when hiking she looks good. :)

Beautiful views.

Rylee-Me-Abree-Jay-Taylee-Treyson

Marissa-Jason-Cheyenne-Savannah-Madelyn-Spencer

Brayden-Jeron-Emilie-Nicky

On the way down the mountain, Treyson started running and wiped out. I yelled to him, "Treyson, are you ok?" He didn't answer right away.

"Treyson are you ok?"

When I got to him, he had scraped up his knee and elbow, but he was ok. He stuck by me after that, but that wasn't the end of him falling. By the end of the day, he had many bumps, scrapes and bruises and his legs and hands were filthy!

Later, he was talking to me about his fall. He said, "When I fell, I started going down the mountain, so I just grabbed the strongest plants I could see. When I didn't answer, did you think you lost me?"

After we all made it down the mountain, we went to a park to have lunch and then headed home.

Nicky had an awesome dinner planned... dutch oven chicken, dutch oven potatoes, cheesy veggies and homemade rootbeer. The kids were fascinated by the dry ice and just had to play in it.

Catchin' clouds.

After dinner, I pulled out some old photos of Jason, Jay and Ira in highschool. We sat around and reminisced.. listening to stories of "the good ol' days".

Cousin Fun -Day 1

Plan A- Go camping as a family, for our summer vacation.

Plan B- Jared, Teresa and family come up from Utah and go camping with us.

Plan C- Jared, Teresa and family come up, but stay at our house and forget the camping thing.

Making Teresa and I happy. Less work, less dirt.... maybe.

Plan C addendum- Julia and her 4 boys join us and stay the night on Friday.

Although our plans had evolved we knew what ever we did we would have fun together. Jared's family arrived Wednesday night. We stayed up late playing and talking.

Thursday morning we decided to take a hike.... literally. As we drove up the windy Bogus Basin road, I talked to the kids and asked them questions about our surroundings, trying to distract them from possibly feeling carsick. It worked for about the first 20 minutes. Pretty soon we started hearing things like, "My tummy doesn't feel so good". I half acknowledged the comments and then pointed out the window, "Look! There's cows over there."

Pretty soon I was looking at Jason and asking, "How much farther? Now my tummy doesn't feel so good." :)

I'm happy to report that no one made good on their threats and we reached our destination barf-free.

First on our agenda was a picnic.

It was a cooler Summer day in Boise, maybe 75-80's. Nice if you're in the valley, but going up several thousand feet made things really cool, like 55 degrees cool. We were unprepared for this. We scavenged a few sweatshirts and jackets, then wrapped up in blankets we found in the trunk.

Teeth-chattering, chilly picnic- sandwiches, chips, cookies and lemonade.

We were pretty sure we'd be warming up as we started to hike, so we put the picnic and blankets away and started up the trail.

It was a BEE-U-TI-FUL hike.

This was the same trail Jason had taken the kids on when they did their little camping trip. I was glad to be there with them this time.

Teresa & Jared

and "cup holder" rock. That's for you Jared.

Jade & Rylee

Carson, Treyson, Colton, Taylee, Abree & Jordyn

Thinking about peeling off their jackets... starting to warm up.

Abree had just recently re-discovered her camera she got for Christmas. She took many headless and off-center pictures along the hike.

The kids LOVED climbing on the rocks and getting too close to the edge for my comfort. Many times I felt my heart racing, wondering if I should say something or if I should just bite my tongue. I did a little of both.

Nice pose Colton!

Brothers... Jared & Jason
"Sucka!"

Toward the end of the trail, there was a beautiful meadow of purple flowers.

We also discovered this cool log. It looks like some sort of animal/reptile.... platypus or crocodile?

Carson...

and Abree had to sit on it and try it out.

To avoid the "my tummy doesn't feel so good" trip back, I told the kids to take a nap. I was sure that they could use a little rest, cuz we weren't done yet.

When I looked back, this is how I found Abree. Yes, she's totally asleep.
A little creepy, huh?

Next, we had decided to check out the Morrison Knudsen Nature Center.

"Just keep swimming...swimming, swimming." -Dorey from FINDING NEMO

They had a cool indoor center with lots of animal taxidermy and hands-on kid stuff. I swear I had been there before, but didn't remember all of this. I liked the center where you could make animal tracks in the sand.

Carson LOVED looking through the book, then finding the same animal in the room. He spent several minutes there and kept saying, "Look! There it is."

Next we went outside and walked along the nature path. The kids enjoyed looking at the fish and the underwater life.

One of our favorite parts was looking at the HUGE sturgeon, as we crossed over a bridge. There was a sign calling them, "dinosaurs". The kids LOVED that they got to see "dinosaurs".

We were WAY hot by now.

After dinner, we headed to our neighborhood pool to cool off.

Jared and Jason DID end up in the pool. Teresa and I DIDN'T. We were content to lounge poolside. :)

A nice end to a LONG day.

It ain't over yet.... more fun tomorrow at Eagle Island.