Desolation Lake

 Grandpa Ham sent a text to Rockwell letting him know what a great job he did hiking to Emerald Lake, especially through a rainstorm. I was surprised to read Rockwell's response saying that he wanted to hike again soon. Although we had all said we didn't want to hike again for a long time, I think we felt quite a bit better after we had dried off and recovered. :) Jonah had also expressed interest in hiking with Grandpa and Grandma, and so we planned one more big hike this summer. Wyatt decided last minute that he wanted to come too, so it was a fun little hiking party.

It was a very beautiful trail! It was also very cold on the way up, which was nice. Luckily I grabbed a long-sleeve shirt on my way out, so Rockwell and I took turns with it.

The hike was a little over 7 miles, and had some pretty steep parts. All the boys did great!

Desolation Lake is gorgeous! I have been there once before with Grandpa and Matt, but we took a different trail to get there. It's one of my favorite lakes. It's so peaceful and beautiful.

The boys had a great time skipping rocks on the lake. They had some seriously good skips!! And I had a great time visiting with Grandma and Grandpa while we enjoyed the beauty.

Then it was time to head back down.

We had been bummed that we didn't see any moose on the way up, and figured it was too late to spot any of them out and about on the way down. But we rounded a corner, and there were two moose eating across the stream. That made the hike feel complete. :)

Grandma took a pretty hard fall on the way down and got a bloody lip, a few cuts and bruises on her arm and hand, and a bruised knee. Grandpa and I found some tissues, sanitizer, and band-aids and tried to help her get as cleaned up as possible. Jonah was so sweet the rest of the way down and made sure to stay close in front of her and call out any root or rock that might trip her up. She did trip one more time, but was able to catch herself on Jonah's shoulders. We were all glad that he took such great care of her! It was a great morning hiking with so much family, and visiting with my nephews on the car rides. I really love spending time hiking with Rockwell. We have good conversation, he's so sweet to always check on me and how I'm doing along the way, and I love to see his appreciation of the beauty of this earth.

Life Lately

Wyatt had his birthday party on Tuesday. He took Ammon and Rockwell to Lowe's Xtreme Sports, they got McDonald's for lunch, and then played at Wyatt's house for the afternoon. They had so much fun at Lowe's and jumped for two and a half hours! 

Al decided to get tickets for them to see Space Jam that night too. Rockwell was in heaven spending the whole day with his cousins!

Tessa and Damon both have gymnastics Tuesday evenings now. Damon's class starts half an hour after Tessa's and so we hang out in the car and read while we wait. I'm so glad it worked out for them both to go on the same night and save me a trip driving there. :)

When Rockwell and I got home from hiking Timp, we went up to South Fork and met Al and her kids. Ammon went home with the Loosli's from Bear Lake and Rockwell has loved getting more time to spend with him this week. Sadly the storm followed us there, so we went home after about 10 minutes. They came and hung out at our house instead, which was still really fun.

We went to Katie's to swim on Thursday with Audrey and Al. It was a really fun afternoon! Damon was thrilled that he can jump off the diving board without his life jacket now. He was showing everyone his flips and tricks. He told Al, "You're going to want to do a video of this because it's really cool!" Haha! He's so funny.

The boys all had fun doing chicken fights and playing games in the pool.

After the ropes course, jumping for two and a half hours, hiking 13 miles, and swimming...Rockwell was very tired! I found him like this after we got home from Katie's house. :) He has been so active over the past week and needed a little nap.

Emerald Lake

 Rockwell and I hiked to Emerald Lake with Grandma & Grandpa Ham on Wednesday. Mel and Ataiya were planning on hiking too, but Mel dislocated her shoulder last week. We definitely missed them and were bummed they couldn't be there with us! We got to the Timpooneke Trailhead just before the sun started to rise and hit the trail as soon as it was light enough to see where we were going. We got to see a mama moose and her baby, which we all loved!

There were beautiful wildflowers a lot of the way.

I've never seen these flowers before. They look like Dr Seuss flowers that belong in WhoVille. :)

It was fun to visit while we hiked and enjoy all the different views and beauty all around us.

We were all excited to show Rockwell the toilet. :) It's so unnerving to use the toilet out in the middle of all that open space! He thought it was hilarious...and disgusting. It truly was disgusting and I was so grateful that I didn't need to use it. Grandpa really wanted a picture of him on it, but he took one look at it and decided a humorous picture wasn't worth it!

All the other times we've hiked the Timpooneke trail, we've gone through the meadow and up to the saddle or the top of Mount Timpanogos. We decided that we wanted to go to Emerald Lake this time, so we crossed over and went up a new trail to get to the lake.

In the picture above, you can see the gigantic hill of rocks that we climbed up and over to get to the other side. I much prefer a nice dirt trail, but Rockwell liked hiking on the rocks.

The lake was just on the other side of the rock rim, and it was beautiful!!

I love the colors of the water.

There were about 25 mountain goats around the lake and up on the glacier. Rockwell had a lot of fun throwing rocks in the lake. We headed back down after enjoying the view and eating some lunch. As we were climbing back down the rocks we started to hear thunder in the distance. I really thought we would get back to the car before any rain started to fall, but the thunderstorm hit when we had 3 miles left to go. We kept hiking through it just wanting to get to the bottom and be finished and out of the rain sooner. But then it started really coming down and filling up the trail pretty quickly. We decided to find a tree to cover us and wait out the storm. The raindrops were huge and cold, and eventually turned into hail. Grandpa brought two parkas, so Grandma and Rockwell were able to put those on and that helped. We were all covered in mud and soaked to the bone though, which really put a damper on the hike. As we were waiting under the tree, we all agreed we didn't want to hike again for quite a while.

This hike was 13 miles total, making for Rockwell's longest hike yet. The rain made for quite the adventure, but the first 10 miles of the hike were just awesome. I'm so proud of Rockwell for how well he did, and I loved spending that time with him and seeing him get that time with his grandparents. Way to go Rockwell!!

Bridgerland Adventure Park

 On Saturday some of us went on a small hike near our cabin. At the top of the loop there were 3 trees that have all grown together. Gary and I took turns taking the picture so we could each be in one. It was a nice little hike, and it was fun to get to visit with Julie as we walked.

After lunch we went to Bridgerland Adventure Park. The tube slide and ropes course were both a great price, so we had a really fun afternoon doing both those things.

Cody, Jacob, Jonah, Ashley, Rockwell, Kyle & Paige all chose two levels of the ropes course to do. Rockwell says he's afraid of heights, but you would never guess that by watching him on the ropes course! He did all of the passes without any trouble. It was fun to watch them all up there having fun and doing hard things together.

Tessa, Damon and I got passes to ride the tube slide 5 times. We had so much fun that we went back and bought 10 more.

The sprinklers that you passed through on the way down were my favorite part. It felt so good to cool off that way!

It was also really nice that there was a moving sidewalk that carried you and your tube back up the hill. :)

Damon and Tessa thought it was so fun to go down with Hallee, Caitlyn and Elena, and race them to the bottom. Damon also thought it was fun to go backward and close his eyes the whole way down. :)

Rockwell came and rode the tubes after he finished the ropes course. He was pretty tired, so it was nice to just ride down the hill a few times.