29 June 2008

Friday I took the kids on a hike up to Battlecreek Falls in Pleasant Grove. Unfortunately, the pictures are on a camera that I can't find the cord for--so I have to wait until next week to get them off and I'll post them then. Anyway, it was quite a hike. It was listed as a 1.2-mile "easy" hike. Thank heavens! My friend (thanks Lisa!) recommended the hike, and said it was kid-friendly. Well, she's obviously never hiked with Aspen, who is apparently related to my sister Summer (love you!) when it comes to hiking. Not two steps into the hike she tripped and fell and skinned her knee. From then on it was, "Where's the waterfall?" "When do we get to eat lunch?" "Can I have my snack?" "Will you carry me?" So I ended up hiking with Connor on my back in a metal-frame hiking backpack (that also weighs quite a bit) and Aspen on my shoulders. Was I grateful for a 1.2-mile "easy" hike!

As I was hiking I thought of the poem "Footprints" that many of you are familiar with. I thought of the Savior who said that it was during the most difficult times of our lives that he carried us. Well, Aspen of course wanted to be carried during the most difficult parts of the hike when I was struggling myself, and already carrying another child. I wondered who else the Savior was carrying as he struggled with my own weight (not to mention walking the same path I was). When I finally decided I needed to sit down and take a rest and have some water, how was I to know I was literally 10 feet from the broken fence that marked the path to the bottom of the falls? 10 feet!?! We stood up from our rest and saw and long, steep, uphill trail (that apparently led to the top of the falls) and I thought, "I'll never make it." A few feet further, and there was the turnoff. What a relief!

It really was a beautiful hike. The kids enjoyed splashing in the waterfall, a picnic lunch, and a hike during the hottest part of the day. :) Okay, so that wasn't my best planning ever, but we survived, and the ice cream on the ride home tasted twice as good.

Shaylee came home from a birthday party Friday night with the most darling 80's hairdo:

A (more normal) picture of me outside the temple at the sealing yesterday: