1) Riana and gear, 2) Niece Kaatlin and future “daughter” Celeste, 3) Straight out of Little House on the Prairie
–Naomi and Ashlyn (I’m pretty sure)
Our family and our family flag with our family names on it… even Tim Howard- US Soccer Goalie (Eli wrote it.) It turns out we had a family full of soccer fans. They also loved to sing!! They were obviously inspired when they chose our families!! Here is a more serious, typical pioneer type picture. I LOVE this one!
is a pit is ais her family--
The first thing we did together was play some get to know you games and then we loaded up our handcart. As Ma and Pa, we weren’t really allowed to help load or give very many tips either. They were to learn by trial and error, along the trail. After we were finished, we had about 10-15 minutes to eat lunch, before we headed off on the trail. I felt frustrated because someone had informed me that in the past, no one was given anything to eat all day long until about 8 pm, when they arrived in camp. I was thinking we were partaking of our last meal for a while and because of that, I was frustrated that we had such little time. Then my own daughter, who I had told to eat everything we gave her (including an entire 12 inch sub,) came to me in tears telling me that they made her throw the rest of her food away, when she hadn’t even finished half. That was frustrating too because I saw that a lot of our kids hardly brought anything for lunch. I ended up giving them some of mine so they wouldn’t starve. That would’ve been better if Riana could’ve had that option. In the end, it all turned out just fine, as we were given many fun snacks along the trail—maybe because they had problems in the past, or maybe because the temperatures were predicted to be over 100 all week. They had even asked all the wards in the Stake to fast and pray for the temperatures (and it totally worked!! It ended up being a good 10-15 degrees cooler the whole week, than it was going to be. Trek Miracle!!)
We headed off pulling our handcart along with our red
company. Right away, we started up a
pretty big hill and right away, Elizabeth started to struggle. I worried that she would not be able to
finish this long journey, if she was struggling in the first 10 minutes. I stayed back with her, and my family went
on. We talked and were able to begin
getting to know each other. I learned
that she had many health problems, and had trouble hearing. When our company stopped for the first water
break, we were able to catch up. After
we started walking again, some women came along and asked us to take care of
their “babies.” We were given baby
“Levi.” Elizabeth was the first one to
get to carry him, which was a perfect job for her. Some families, including Riana’s family, were
given twins. On our baby, was a tag,
which read, “Orphan’s name: Levi—Thanks for taking in this orphan! Please make sure your entire family is aware
of these rules for its care: Baby
Rules: Your baby MUST be held by someone
at all times! If baby is set down or
thrown around anywhere- it dies! Ma’s
and Pa’s may not hold the baby while moving on the Trek- only during
activities, games, and bathroom breaks.”
If your baby was to “die,” you had to have a funeral for your baby and
bury it.
1) Getting our baby, 2) Riana’s family getting their twins, 3) Speaking of twins, Savannah’s family was given a baby
that matched her perfectly. The blanket
and her dress were exactly the same and it had brown hair in two braids. Pretty crazy!
Everyone called their baby “Mini Savannah” or something like that.
4) So happy to have a son (I love Franky’s smile in this
picture), 5) Ma and her “son”
After we walked for a while, we stopped for some
activities. They were games that you had
to figure out working together as a team.
The games were a lot of fun for the youth. I think it would’ve helped to have the
parents involved too, as long as the parents couldn’t speak or something. Instead we watched and I tried to avoid the
horses, although I did have a bit of a reaction where my eyes were getting
itching and I started wheezing a bit, since I was downwind from them. However, after I stepped behind the tree, it
really helped.
1) Pa and sons, 2) Trust games, 3) Making shapes with a string, while blindfolded
After our company did the games, we went to a talk by each
of the Stake Presidency. Along with the
talks, they each gave us a snack—pepperoni sticks, apples, and I can’t remember
the last one. But we definitely enjoyed
being nourished in both word and food.
1) Riana and baby, 2) Eli caring gently for our baby, 3) Kylie and Riana holding the twins
Back on the road, we ran into some tougher, very, very, very
dusty terrain, and some very hot sun!!—bumps and dips, narrowing with trees, up
hills and worse down hills, etc. We
really started to have to work hard as families to get through the challenges. I think the hardest part of this for me was
that we were told, as Ma’s and Pa’s, that we weren’t allowed to touch the
handcarts or to help at all! I hated
that part so much!! However, something
that made it easier was just how positive most of our kids were most of the
time. Eli gave 200% effort, and always
with a smile on his face! It was truly
impressive! Our kids were hurting and
yet smiling! One of my favorite parts
was that our kids were singing the whole way, and in harmony, led by Eli most
of the time (I seriously couldn’t believe the musical vocabulary he had. He was always singing a different style of
music, to which most everyone in our family joined in.) We definitely loved that and other people
joked that we must’ve held auditions for our family, as they fit perfectly with
us. We enjoyed this music pretty much
the whole trek! J
1) David W. getting “run over”, 2) in the trees, 3) Riana’s family, 4) Nathanael, 5) Riana’s family, 6) Elizabeth, 7-9) our family working together to get up a tricky hill, 10) our family on another hill, 11) proof that Chandler did smile, 12) assessing how we would get through this
obstacle, 13-15) going for it and making it
through
1) Our beautiful view, 2-3) Our boys volunteering to go back to help other families up the last big hill before a long water break, 4) Ma and boys coming down the home stretch on the end of the first day, 5) washing off in the cool stream felt incredible!!!, 6) so refreshing!, 7) everyone celebrating that we finally made it—I think it was our longest walking day (I heard like 12 miles?), 8) Ma and friend talking to Chandler and friend (they wanted to go home, but the Stake "convinced" them to stay), 9) Pa and the boys looking for a tent sight, 10) eating dinner, which the Stake had all ready for us. It tasted so good! 11) Daniel relaxing, exactly how we all felt!
After dinner, we talked as a family about our day and some
of the lessons that we had learned. We
thought about what we could do better tomorrow.
It was amazing how much closer we already felt after only 12 hours
together. At the end of this talk, Pa
held a contest for a few tootsie rolls and some sunflower seeds. Celeste, who I thought was shy, recited an
amazing monologue for the candy, and Chandler (who hurt his leg) and Collin
raced around the tent on one leg for the sunflower seeds. It was hilarious!
1) Celeste, 2) Collin and Chandler, 3-4) Grant’s very dirty legs (we had so much dirt/dust everywhere)
That night, as we were falling asleep, the girls fell right
asleep, however the boys were talking and talking. We overheard them and they were talking about
soccer and trying to decide who the best player in the world was. Grant and I started laughing!! They truly were the perfect Trek kids for us! It didn’t take long and we were all asleep…
it was a long day!!
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