Rockhounding With Wes

 We invited a few of our new friends to join us for a side by side ride and algal ball collecting expedition. We brought picnic dinners and I think everyone loved it. It was a beautiful night for it too. 

Trek 2022

 We were excited to be able to serve as a Ma and Pa at our stake's pioneer trek to Martin's Cove. We did this same trek 20 years ago. This time was a lot of the same but a lot different as well. We were supposed to leave at 7 am on Monday morning and at 9:30 pm Sunday night, the trek organizers got a call from the bus company they had chartered buses with and the bus company cancelled on them. At 10:15 the Stake President sent out an email to the whole stake telling them what happened and asking for help with transportation. 20 minutes later the Stake President had to send out another email asking everyone to stop volunteering, they had enough help. It was amazing to us how quickly everyone pulled together to help. We had people who were willing to drive us 4 hours there and back twice to get us there and back. We had people with 12 passenger vans dropping off their vans with the key and saying "take it." It was an incredible response and gave us a whole different perspective on "the rescue." The other negative thing was the cold and wind. The days we were there we had a big dip in the temperatures and the wind was at about 30 miles an hour non stop with bigger gusts of wind. We lost so many tents. Even our Springbar tent came down at one point. Luckily for us we had an extra pole. But we had a lot of people sleeping in cars. The second night they had the kids who had lost tents sleep in the two big wall tents that the food committee had brought for food prep. The weather was pretty yucky, yet we never heard a complaint from the kids. We are so impressed with the caliber of kids in our stake. So inclusive, so helpful, always ready to pitch in, so grateful, and so much fun. We enjoyed our family of kids. We played games with them and did awards every night. They were a good group. The actual trekking day at Martin's Cove was great. I think the kids will remember the river crossing and the women's pull in particular. The last day after we cleaned up camp we drove to a different location and had lunch and a testimony meeting at Rock Creek. Overall it was a wonderful experience for the kids and we loved it!

Samantha

 Olivia got to choose an American Girl doll for her birthday, and she chose Samantha. Sadly, Samantha was on back order at the time and we had to wait and wait and wait! But after almost four months, she finally arrived! I drove her down to Livi and Livi's reaction was everything I hoped it would be. She is the perfect age for American Girl. We had so much fun doing Samantha's hair and changing her clothes and ooing and ahhhing over all the little details. Jess and Julie got to come and play with Ivy too. It was a fun fun day. I hope Livi enjoys Samantha for many years to come.