Trek

Well, we did it!  We survived trek!  It was truly awesome and once-in-a-lifetime!  I would leave tomorrow to do it again!  We met at the stake center on Monday morning at 7:30am after dropping Porter off at Amy's.  We had a little devotional, and then we were off!

Here was our crew...Emilie, Aleah, and Quinton

We arrived at the trailhead around 10:30am.  After quite a long wait while things were planned and coordinated, we finally got to start on our journey.  We hiked a couple of miles before stopping for lunch.

Here is our family right before heading out - Aleah, Ellie, me, James, Emilie, Quinton, and Roxxi.  Ethan is hiding behind Aleah.

 

Each family was given a baby doll to carry along the way.  It was not allowed to be put in the cart.  Emilie took the first turn carrying our little baby Charles.

At one point along the trail, we stopped for a little devotional.  We were each given a slip of paper.  Each slip said something different.  One of our slips said that our baby had died that day from exposure.  Here are all the babies that didn't make it in our company.

Another one of our slips said that Quinton fell under the wagon and broke his arm, so he could only push with one hand for the rest of the day.

One of the toughest parts of day 1 was Gravel Hill.  It was very steep, and we had to turn the cart around and tie a rope to it so that we could all help get it down the hill safely.  It was pretty intense!  I basically just slid down the whole hill.

 After about 8 miles of trekking, we finally made it to our campsite for the night.  We had to cross over Muddy Creek to get into camp.  That was quite the adventure!  We had a great cooking crew that had dinner ready for us.  We set up camp, ate dinner, and then learned some square dancing.

Nothing wore James and I out more than the square dancing!  Holy smokes!  We were exhausted at the end of the day!

Aleah

Emilie

Quinton square danced with two ladies apparently!

James and I were up bright and early the next morning.  This was the sunrise...

We had an awesome breakfast, and then jazzed up our cart a little with our left over bandanas.  We had a lot of down time until we headed out for the day, so we started getting creative and playing pioneer games and taking naps.

Then we were finally off.  Day 2 was a short trekking day.  We only walked for about 4 miles.

 

 

The women's pull also happened on day 2.  About half way into our trekking for the day, we came to a pretty large hill.  They had all the boys walk ahead up the hill, where they had a little devotional.  They were told to just stand and watch without saying a thing while all the girls pulled the carts up the hill.  All us ladies stayed behind and said a prayer and sang, "As Sisters in Zion".  I was all ready to help my girl push that cart up the hill until they told us that the ma's couldn't help either.  I was pretty bummed and worried that our four girls wouldn't be able to make it.

Being instructed for the women's pull.

James said the hardest part of the whole trek was watching all the girls struggle up the hill and not being able to help.  I think it was quite a powerful experience for everyone.

My girls gettin' it done!

I obviously would not have made a very faithful pioneer because our girl made it up the hill with no problem.  The cart in front of us only had two girls pulling it, and they even made it.  As we came up the hill all the men were standing there silent with their hats off.  The women's pull is done to remember all the women who had to cross the plains alone.  It was a pretty neat experience! 
Shortly after the women's pull, we made it to our campsite for the night.  We had several rounds of tug-of-war and a delicious dinner.

Our friends, the Swensen's, were on the cooking committee.  It was fun to see them at every meal!

That night we had a testimony meeting.  It was cool to hear all the youth bear their testimonies.  When James and I were asked to be a ma and pa for trek, I told James that I wish we could do the trek without the teenagers.  Let's face it, they are pretty annoying most of the time!  But hearing their testimonies and how much this trek experience had taught them made it totally worth it.  Experiences like these are important for youth.  I just had to keep reminding myself of that when they were getting on my nerves!

Testimony meeting

James and I crashed again and were up bright and early the next morning.

He just wanted to see what it was like to wear a bonnet!

We had some time that morning to play some Farkle!

Before we knew it, we were off for another long day of trekking.  The first half of day 3 was a doozy!  It felt like we were going uphill for 4 miles straight.  One of our kids, Ellie, had a sprained her ankle on day 2 and wasn't able to join us for day 3.  Then about a mile into our trek, another kid, Aleah, sprained her ankle and she had to stop too.  So most of day 3 was just James and I and four kids.

All along the trail we would pass grave markers.  Most of them were just piles of rocks, but some had actual markers.  It was humbling to walk the path the pioneers walked.  There were many times I would kind of hang back from our group and take just a few minutes to think about those who had gone before.  We had perfect weather, fancy hiking boots and awesome breathable shirts, chapstick, a water cooler that we could fill at every stop, meals cooked for us, sunscreen, bug spray, etc. and it was still challenging.  It was humbling to think about all the trials and difficulty circumstances those early pioneers went through!

This was our company boss, Bishop Foy.  He kept us on track and organized!

We stopped for lunch at Dibble Rock. 

 

After eating lunch, we gave all our kids letters from their parents.  Everyone spread out and just had a little alone time.  After a while, a sister started playing "Come, Come Ye Saints" on the violin, and we all headed up to a natural amphitheater for a devotional.

 

 

 

We sang, and a few people shared their testimonies, and we got to hear the story of Philo Dibble.  He hid from Johnston's Army in this little amphitheater and while hiding carved his name in the rock.  Then we headed back down to our hand carts and finished the trek.

We were never happier to see our cars all lined up ready for us to head home.  We piled back in the cars and drove the two hours back home.  The cooking committee had hamburgers ready for us back at the stake center and everyone's parents came to get them.  James and I headed home to shower and clean up a bit before going to get Porter.  We were pretty excited to squeeze our little buddy!  At first he just looked at me like, "who in the world are you?!".  It wasn't exactly the reception I was envisioning, but we had woken him up to take him home.  It wasn't long before he couldn't stop saying, "mama, daddy, mama, daddy".  We sure missed him!
Last night we had a final trek fireside.  A few people shared their testimonies and there was a slide show.  It was fun to reunite with our trek family one last time!  It was all experience never to forget!