Labor Day 2011

What sort of activity would leave a pile of shoes in this condition?

Well, let me tell you, a great one! For Labor Day this year, we truly labored. We began by getting up, eating breakfast, and cleaning the house. I told the girls that they needed to help out more, since I used to clean the house while they were at school, now I have to do it on Saturdays. Saturday we just played, so Monday we were in dire need of some labor!

After that, we made a lunch and headed out for our activity: a hike up Adams Canyon. My landlord told me about this place, said it was sort of strenuous, but ended fantastically with a waterfall. So we headed there!

We hiked for a couple hours, then had lunch. Up to this point, it was long and uphill, but beautiful and not too difficult. We were tired, and contimplated going home, but the girls wanted to continue on. There were lots of people on the trail, and people with little kids were saying they had made it to the top. So we persevered!

I carried Ninny in the backpack most of the way, we let her out for a bit but she really slowed us down. Here she shows the advantage to being small:

The girls were loving the scenery and the all the water. There was a stream nearby for most of the hike. This girls went under this big rock, the water flowed under it. Ava carried a little bag that she put treasures in, and we all had walking sticks.

A side ways pick, I really wish I could get these the right way. I started to get difficult after lunch, with some almost straight uphil climbs on rocks, and some scary parts! It is hard to do that with a 30 lb kid in a back pack that also has water and rocks (thanks Ava!) in it.

But, we made it. It really was a tough hike, but I am proud of everyone for completing it. Especially Ava, she was a trooper. She did ask me to hold her a few times, on the way down, but I couldn't. She feel in the stream by the waterfall and got scared, but other than that she didn't cry the whole time.

A favorite past time, throwing rocks in the water.

Michaela and Payden apparently didn't get enough climbing, because while I was resting, they climbed further up. Michaela got so high up that I got worried and told her to come down!

There were people who would stand in the water fall, it was very cold. Michaela thought she might, but when she got there, this was as close as she would get. There was a lot of spray.

With wet shoes, we headed back down. Here the girls are under that rock I showed you before.

This was Ava's trick to getting down steep slopes, I must admit I used it a bit myself.

And here is the damage caused by it! She collected flowers on the way down. I wish she would have done it the other way, flowers on the way up, rocks on the way down, but oh well!

This was a paticularly tough spot. On the way up, we went over it, but on the way down, I didn't realize we were on this spot until it was too late to turn around. It was sheer rock with a long drop to the stream at the bottom. I coudn't help Ava with Corrine on my back  so a very nice man helped her across. I was having a hard time finding footing for my feet and felt stuck for a moment, and this 20 something girl goes "you got it Mom". I about died. Do I look that old?

Here is a self taken photo of me and Corrine! She was pretty good back there, she did whine when things looked scary to her. And oh my, did she get heavy. My back ached so bad and my shoulders are raw from that backpack. I keep the backpack by our 72 hour kits, thinking it would come in so handy should we ever have to get somewhere on feet. I used to think I could carry kids like this for days, but after 5 hours I realize that would take some getting used to.

Thats right, I said 5 HOURS. That is how long it took us start to finish. Are my girls troopers or what? And they are ready to go again someday. They want to go back in the fall.

On the way back, we took a different trail. Right away, I thought it was the wrong way, but Payden was persisitant that it was the right way. Since we were on an easy part, not uphill or down hill, I followed her for a bit. But it was the wrong way, and it took us another 1/2 hour longer that it would have otherwise. It had beautiful views, though!

Here we are on our wrong way excursion. I just couldn't carry Ninny in the back pack anymore, so she was walking. She biffed it twice on even ground! She also was collecting flowers, and sage brush. She said, "mmm, it smells so good Mommy, I am going to let the wind smell it!"

Here she is letting the wind smell her sage brush. She stuck it up high in the wind for a good sniff!

Such a cutie.

This is the view of the valley. It was so pretty.

It was a fun hike, and we most definitely earned our ice cream that night. Afterwards, I was so tired. It took so much longer than I though it would. I was going to have someone take pictures of us in our dirty glory, because we were all filthy. I forgot though. We went to Walmart to pick our TV dinners, and got some pretty funny stares. I just told the kids to say, "We played hard today. What did YOU do?"