High Adventure Camp

Kings Peak is the highest point in Utah.  As the young men's president Brad was privileged to go with the teachers and the priests to hike to the top of Kings Peak at the end of June.  They had a pretty good turn out, about 20 young men and leaders.  Which is not even half of their group.  They have 20 priests and 18 teachers.  We have a lot of youth in our ward!

They left on a Wednesday and camped by their cars that night.  Brad didn't feel like setting up his tent that night, so he slept in the pilot.  He said that it was nice.

Thursday morning they got up and hiked 5 miles to their base camp.

You can see Kings Peak in the background of this picture.

After setting up camp some of them hiked up to a lake.

Then they hiked down to another lake.

Early Friday morning the much anticipated hike to Kings Peak began.  It was about 15 miles round trip, taking them about 10 hours to complete.

They hiked up through the saddle, that you can see on the left side of the picture.  Then around the mountain that looks like the highest peak, and up to Kings Peak that you can see in the background.  The saddle is higher than Mount Timpanogos.

Here he is on the saddle.  We are look down at the valley that he just came from.

 This is looking down at the valley on the other side.

Next they hiked up the ridge.  Brad said,  "Hiking the ridge was mentally challenging.  There wasn't really a trail and it dropped off on both sides.  I just needed to focus and remember Shay's encouragement that I can do hard things."

This is looking up at the peak from the final saddle.

This is halfway up from the final saddle.

Going up the final ridge.

Success!  They made it to the top!

Now for the hike back down.

They decided to go down the shoot.  It saved them two hours, but it was just loose rock and straight down.

Brad said this about his feelings of hiking down the shoot, "It was one of those, I don't think I want to do that again, experiences."

Looking back up at what they just came down doesn't do it justice.  But, if you look close enough, those teeny tiny ants are actually guys still hiking down.  It is a 1275 ft. drop in .78 mile.

Then they had a nice stroll through the valley back to their camp.  They were hungry and tired.  Brad ate an entire meal that said that it feeds three people!  They still had enough energy to have a nice fireside, visit and relax that night.

Saturday morning they hiked the 5 miles back to their cars and came home.  Brad didn't walk very well for a few days.  What an amazing accomplishment it was for him!  He is so glad that he did it.  He liked being able to see what he could accomplish with some hard work.

He also enjoyed the camping.  He has fond memories of the many backpacking trips he did with his Dad while he was growing up.  He looks forward to doing backpacking trips with Cade.  As Brad and I talked about how difficult and rewarding the hike was, we were reminded of a quote from Larry M. Gibson from the April 2015 General LDS Conference.  He was talking to his son about a race that they just completed together.  His son said, "Dad, that was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and I will never, ever do it again.  (Pause)  Unless my son wants me to."

Indoor Camping is so Fun!

Brad was getting ready for his big hike that he was going to take the priests and teachers on.  Aleah and Cade saw the tent and wanted to do a little camping.  Since Brad and I didn't want to sleep in our backyard with them, we decided to do some indoor camping.   

We got the tent all set up in their room and they were very excited!

They pretended to sleep so that I could get a picture of them.  A few minutes into their camping Cade decided that he would sleep on his bed for a little bit.  Aleah lasted a while longer, but the tent didn't get much use that night.  It's hard to sleep on the floor when your nice comfy bed is just a few feet away!

My sister and brother-in-law decided to move to California so that they can go to chiropractic school. We had to spend as much time with them as possible.  Aleah and DeLayna have so much fun together.  They are such cute girls!

Aleah is such a great helper.  I asked her to put the wash clothes in the drawer for me.  She did it happily and even folded them!

I have said before how much I love the notes that Aleah writes!  She wrote this song for me, made me some flowers, and colored a picture.  She even gave me one of her necklaces.  I totally love it!

We had a staycation with my family before my sister and brother-in-law moved.  We had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Before bed Grandma read us a story, Robert the Rose Horse.  It is such a fun story.

We had a pool party, and went hiking.  It was nice to spend a lot of time with them before they moved.  We love our family.  We always have so much fun together!  We sure miss BreAnne and Tyler and their kids.

Grandma Bushman has been having a hard time lately.  She got Guillain Barre.  She was in and out of the hospital for a while.  Then she stayed in a care center.  Aleah and Cade had fun trying out Grandma's wheelchair while we were visiting her.  We are so thankful that she is home now and that she continues to improve.  We love her so much and love spending time with her!

May! Our 14 year wedding anniversary and our family getaway.

On the first day of May Aleah and Cade had their music recital.  They have inherited Grandma Great and Grandpa Great Stone's musical talent for sure!  They did so well.  Aleah learned how to play the piano this year and Cade learned how to play the bells.  They were very excited for their recital. 

The best part was when Aleah and Cade got to play a duet.  They played, "I Am Learning How To Skip".  Aleah played the piano, Cade played the bells, and Cade's class sang with them.  They played their parts perfectly and stayed together the whole song.  It was so fun!

They both passed their classes and are ready to move on to the next class.

Brad got to go to California for his company's big conference called HUG (Hughes User Group).  I really wanted to bring the kids and go with him!  California and a really nice hotel sounded like a marvelous vacation to me! Sadly, we were not able to make it happen.  Brad enjoyed his morning swims, good meals, and excellent golfing!

Aleah has been wanting to do a dance class.  Just Dance Kids on the Wii is just like a dance class, right?

Mother's Day was the best this year.  I really love being a Mom!  My kids and husband spoiled me with notes, homemade paper flowers, real flowers, a delicious meal, gifts, hugs and more hugs!  I felt very loved and thankful for the blessing of being a Mom!  Being a Mom is something that I always wanted to be and looked forward to since I was a little girl.  What a precious blessing it is!

You can see why Aleah loves school.  Since I was a PE teacher, it is always fun for me to hear about the things she does in her PE class.  I love that her teacher sends pictures.

In her class they watched caterpillars changed into butterflies and then released them. 

Brad and I have had a blast together these last 14 years that we have been married!  I'm so thankful that we are best friends.  Brad is so loving and always makes life fun.  It is such a blessing being married to him.  On our anniversary we went out to lunch as a family.

Aleah and Cade make life fun too!

My sister BreAnne and her husband Tyler let Aleah and Cade have a sleep over so that Brad and I could go on a little anniversary date to watch a movie.  They are so wonderful!

Cade loves to climb trees!  When he see a good climbing tree he has to try to climb it.  And then he likes to have me take his picture.

All school year Aleah and her friend Mckella were begging to have a play date.  When the day finally arrived for Mckella to come over Aleah made some signs.  She is such a cute writer!  She wrote, "Cade Aleah Mckella are going to be at our house.  We are going to have so much fun. We are going to play outside and inside.  We are going to have so much fun."  Then she made a list of the things they were going to do.  She was right, they really did have so much fun!  I love that Aleah and Mckella included Cade in everything they did.  I hope it continues that way for a long time!

Aleah and Cade got to spend a whole day with their Uncle Todd and Aunt Rachel, and their cousins Bryton, Nathan, and Katie.  They were so incredibly excited!  They woke up and got ready for the day and then sat by the window waiting for Uncle Todd to get to our house.  They had a wonderful day.  We really have the best family ever!

Aleah decided that she was ready to get her ears pierced.  We talked about it a lot and she was determined to be brave.  We set a date, May 27th, and after gymnastics we went to the mall.  She was very excited!

She picked the cutest earrings and we got ready to do it.  I was very picky and made sure that the dots were in the right place on her ear lobes.  I made the lady redo it several times!  Some girls her age stopped to watch her and cheer for her.  They were planning to get their ears pierced soon (well, as soon as their mom would agree to it).

She held my hands as they pierce her ears.  She was trying so hard not to cry after it was over.  As I hugged her I could feel her little body shake as she held it in.  I told her it was ok to cry.  She cried a little as I hugged her and then she was ready to look at her earrings in the mirror.  She is such a brave and determined little girl.  She loves her earring and is so glad that she did it!  I love her earring too.

Brad and I really needed to get away!  Brad surprised us with a mini trip to Dinosaur Land in Vernal. It was just what our family needed!  We looked at all the bones in the hillside.

There were some bones that we could touch and some that we could read about.

One of our favorite parts was hiking around and finding all the petroglyphs.   

Another favorite part was hiking to the Echo Canyons!  

We loved that we could just drive a couple of hours and explore a new part of Utah.  It was beautiful and peaceful!  It was such a blessing to spend this time with my amazing husband and kids.