Happy 69th Birthday Dad!

Today was really fun.  After I got all the kids out the door, Mike and I went and picked up my dad, Rachel, Marie and Mina.  We went to Bruges Waffles & Frites.  Mike had heard good things about it, so we thought we should check it out.  It was mighty delicious.  It wasn't really a restaurant because there wasn't any room to sit inside.  They had some tables set up on the patio upstairs, so it worked out just fine.

Mina & Rachel

After Mike took this picture he teased my dad saying he looked like a patient in a mental hospital.

Dad & Stephanie

I was laughing so hard after that I could hardly stand it!

 Stephanie, Marie, Dad

Once our delicious breakfast was over, and after setting my dad up so he could view instagram pictures, we went home to digest.  I picked Preston up at the bus stop and went straight back to my dad's.  We went to Wheeler Farm with Rachel and her girls.  Mike stayed home.  He likes to stay as far away from farm animals as possible - and their hay. I have a ton of pictures from the farm, so here you go!

 Mina

 Mina, Marie, Preston

 Marie, Preston and Grandpa No-Head

 More Grandpa No-Head with Marie & Preston

 This was their favorite part.  The LOVED feeding the ducks!

 Preston, Grandpa, Marie

 Grandpa, Marie, Preston

 What a throw!

 Rachel & Mina

 Grandpa, Preston, Marie, Mina, Rachel

 Preston, Marie & Grandpa

 Marie

 Mina, Grandpa, Marie, Preston

 Mina waving good-bye - she loves animals!

 Marie, Mina, Preston

 Grandpa, Marie, Mina, Preston

 Mina, Preston, Marie in the treehouse

They didn't want to leave!

When we dropped Marie and Mina off Preston was MAD!  He said we didn't get to celebrate Grandpa's birthday.  He wanted to stay.  So, we let him stay.  I took Stockton to diving and asked Mike to pick him up around 6:30.  Mike brought Jorja down and they stayed for quite awhile.  Mike felt bad because he didn't know they were having a big dinner.  He said he would have taken Stockton to diving for me so I could have gone.  I knew that I needed Mike to take Stockton on Wednesday and Maysen to pottery on Thursday, so I didn't want to add any more..... Anyway, they got to stay for dinner and cake, I think.  At least cake.  I heard it was delicious.

Straw Stew

Wow.  You can sure tell when my life goes crazy.  I get so behind on my blog!  It kind of stresses me out too.  This time my life got crazy for a super fun/awesome reason.  I have been playing with Rachel and her girls!  They stayed at my dad's house from Saturday on, but I followed Rachel around every chance I could get.  Today we had my family come over for Taco Haystacks.  It was a quick dinner because my dad doesn't get out of church until 4.  We also had a YW/YM fireside where the speaker was my dad.  He did a great job!  Becky wanted him to talk about, 'What's a testimony and how do I know if I have one?'.  She also wanted him to relate as much as he could to the Book of Mormon so we could tie it in with our Book of Mormon challenge going on right now. The only thing I regret about the fireside is I didn't record the entire thing.  I remembered about half way through.  I really wish I would have had a copy of the beginning.  I would love for Jorja and Preston to hear it.  Maybe if I get ambitious I will transcribe it on here one day.....but it will be missing the first twenty minutes!

Here is my next scripture challenges.  I am not writing these on here because they are particularly interesting, I just want to know where to find in the future.....

1 Nephi 20 - 2 Nephi 5

2 Nephi 2:25

Who said "Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy?"

The first three people to text Stephanie Smith the correct answer will receive a candy bar.

2 Nephi 3

The first three people to text Becky Johnson 4 Josephs talked about in this chapter will receive some goodies.

2 Nephi 5

How could you prove that Nephi had sisters?

Nephi quotes Isaiah extensively in the Book of Mormon.  How many years before Lehi's family left Jerusalem did Isaiah live?

Hint:  See Isaiah in the Bible dictionary.

The first three people to text Jaime Staker the correct answer will receive a plate of treats.

***Darby was one of the three who texted me.  I wrote back and asked him if he liked Snickers.  He wrote, "Yes!  And thanks  I'm so happy :) :) :)"  Cutest text from a 12 year old boy ever!

Oooo.  I just found some pictures I took.  They are random, but cute.

Mina, Abigail, Marie

 Marie & Preston

 Preston making 'straw stew' - he was so proud

 Marie with a balloon animal Jorja made

 Preston again with his straw stew.

Don't worry, the stove is not on.

17th Anniversary

I had a LONG night last night.  It was really hard to sleep.  I was also pretty cold.  Maybe I couldn't sleep because it was so quiet.  Eerily quiet. There was absolutely no sound.  Not even crickets.  No birds.  Nothing. It was kind of cool, but very strange.  When we woke up this morning, the battery on my phone was dead.  Luckily I had my little red camera, so we were able to get a few more pictures.  Too bad I didn't empty the camera card before we left, because we ran out of room quickly.

2nd Reservoir

 Dam with a hole blown in it

I'm not sure why the dam was built in the first place.  It seems a long way up to build something like this.  I'm really not sure why they decided they didn't want it after all the work they put in it.

Mike was excited to go fishing, but he had no luck.  I didn't see any fish at all.  Mike said that was the only thing he was disappointed with in this trip.

Mike

The water line was really low by the time we got up here.  You can kind of see where the water usually hits on this tree.  Mike said that he has never been able to walk all the way around the reservoir before.  He was quite surprised.

 Mike

Mike remembers a lot of water coming down this stream.  He even remembers his brother, Steve, seeing a fish, sticking in his pole and immediately pulling out a fish.  It was bone dry today.

 Stephanie - still cold

 Mike - I love this picture

 Stephanie & Mike - man, I'm getting old

I took a picture of this tree because #1 Maysen would like it and #2 it looked awesome.

 The other side of the dam

 We are high!

 What a view!

We started hiking down the mountain about 11:00.  The boulders were super scary this time.  I was trying not to cry in parts.  I was so scared. We missed the 2nd waterfall again on the way down.  I will now call it the mythical waterfall.  Not sure it really exists.  We decided not to stop at the first waterfall. I was so tired, it was hard to decide what I wanted more; to rest or to be done hiking.  I wanted to be done hiking.  I enjoyed myself on the way down, except the rocks - hated those things, and the last hour.  I was so tired and wobbly by the last hour.  I'm not sure if I have ever been so happy to see Mike's jeep.  Actually think I have.  There were many, many days when the kids were little that seeing his jeep pull up lifted my spirits so high.

Anyways, we stumbled into the jeep about 4:00.  The hike took up 6 1/2 hours up and 5 hours down.  Mike cut some sunflowers to bring home for our anniversary.  When we got home, we had about an hour to get ready for Mike's family.  They were coming over to swim.  Rachel was awesome and had the kitchen clean.  Yes, Rachel came all the way from Japan to watch our kids and clean our kitchen.  What a nice sister-in-law I am!

I know it was crazy to have Mike's family over after the huge hike.  That was not the original plan.  They were supposed to come over last week, but it was stormy.  We changed it to this week instead of missing out on them all together.  It was fun to have his family over.  I enjoy getting to know them better.  Have I mentioned I love living in Utah?

Rachel and the girls swam with us for awhile.  (When I say us, it was not me.  I sat and didn't move.)  After they were done swimming, my dad came and picked them up so they could watch a movie at his house. They decided to sleep over there.  We have 9:00 church, so it was probably a wise choice.

This was a fun weekend.  One in which Mike had been looking forward to for a long time.  Am I glad I went on his crazy trip?  Yes.  Will I go again?  I'm not quite sure.  I joked with Mike that maybe it will be like having a baby.  After awhile I will only remember the awesome experience and forget all the pain involved.

2nd Reservoir

Mike and I went on a hike today to the 2nd Reservoir.  It was a LONG hike.  Who stayed with the kids while we were on this hike?  Rachel did!  How nice of Rachel to come all the way from Japan to babysit our kids.  Yep, I feel kind of guilty about that.  Originally we had planned to have my dad watch the kids.  He stayed at our house tonight with Max so he could get lots of time in with Marie and Mina.

Anyway, back to our hike.  Tomorrow is our 17th anniversary.  Mike has always wanted me to go on a hike with him to the 2nd Reservoir. (Everyone on the hike called it the Upper Reservoir.  One person even called it the 'Upper Rez').  Mike and I even put it as one of our physical goals to accomplish this summer.  When I suggested the idea of going on the hike for our anniversary, Mike got super excited.  Then he started ordering backpacks and other such nonsense.  Wow.  Can I just say that hiking with a backpack is more than 100 times harder than hiking without a backpack!  I was quite tired by the time we made it to the 1st Waterfall - the same waterfall we had hiked with the kids a couple of weeks before.  We still had a LONG way to go.

Stephanie & Mike - 1st Waterfall

 A nice guy named Sterling took our picture

 Stephanie - We called this Moon Rock

 Mike - I can't believe how high we were already

 Stephanie

 This hang glider was flying with an eagle for awhile

We missed the 2nd Waterfall on the way up.  Mike said it was right along the trail . . . we must have taken the wrong trail.  At one point we did and ended up needing to backtrack.  The end of the hike was the worst.  The picture below does no justice to how steep those rocks were. Have I mentioned I am afraid of heights?  I was so scared!  Especially with the backpack on.  I felt that if I moved a couple of inches in the wrong direction it would be all over for me.  We had to hike about an hour after this point.  I was so tired.  I even had to say a few silent prayers to be able to keep going.  Exhausting.

Stephanie climbing the rocks of doom

 But look at this view!

Okay, it is kind of hard to tell how pretty it was with the pictures.  I still can't believe I was able to get this high.  Using my feet.  That seemed like an unlikely event.  The picture below isn't a super cool picture, I just like how blue the sky is and how crisp everything looks.

Stephanie's back

There was a really cool campsite up there.  It had a great place for a tent, a fire pit and little chairs made out of stone.  There was nothing that even compared to this on the way up.

 Mike on the cool stone chairs

Mike had brought some 'Mountain Man' dinners or something like that.  They weren't the best thing I have ever tasted, but at the time I certainly wasn't picky.

Stephanie's dinner

 Mike's dinner

Here is a picture of the 2nd Reservoir . . . aka the Upper Reservoir.  My sister-in-law, Shannon, doesn't believe this reservoir exists - so she calls it the Mythical Reservoir.  Steve got lost on that hike with Shannon while they were dating.  I am glad we made it to this campsite before it was dark.  I was really worried while we were climbing those rocks that the sun would go down and I would have to try to navigate the rocks in the dark.  I did not want to do that!

2nd Reservoir

After dinner, hot chocolate and hot apple cider I crawled into my sleeping bag.  I was so tired!  I am glad I made it all the way.  I enjoyed most of it.  I did not enjoy the rocks.  I was very glad the kids weren't with us on the hike when we were on the rocks.  I am glad I didn't fall. The only problem is . . . I have to go back down them tomorrow!