Ethan's (and Jared) Summer Adventures

Being 14, brings some definite advantages over the siblings. Ethan (and Jared) got to go on High Adventure Camp.  For 3 activity packed days, they got to mountain bike, hike, horseback ride, climb up and repell down a cliff, kayak, and basically completely exhaust themselves everyday. The total mileage of the high adventure added up to 50 miles. Jared said one night they didn't even get back to camp before midnight, most too tired to eat dinner and just went straight to bed.

Ethan will admit that he was more than a little nervous. He was one of the youngest, the boys ages were 14-18. Ethan told me that he said a prayer and the Holy Ghost really did comfort him during the different activities. He kept up and even did more than some of these "older" boys. Definitely a new, exciting experience.

The following week, Ethan left for Trek to Martins Cove, Wyoming. He honestly thought that it would be a cakewalk after the 50 miler the week before. For 3 days they walked, pushing/pulling a handcart with their "family" and group. Again, being the youngest in his group, his "Ma" and "Pa" said that he kept up with the rest of the group and they were very impressed.  We are still getting bits and pieces of the journey. I think it is one of those life experiences that takes reflection to really see the benefit of all that walking...37 miles of it.

 Can you see Ethan's little eyeballs?? The wind during the Trek was brutal.

 He makes a handsome pioneer, right?!!

This was his "family" for Trek

I took Ethan to see the movie "17 miracles" about the Willie/Martin handcart companies, before he left on trek, hoping to give him a little wisdom before the journey.  After Trek, we picked him up, he was EXHAUSTED. He even fell asleep at the dinner table, knocking over his glass of water.  He could only repeat how long the journey was.  But as the days past, he has been able to share more with us. Again, we took him to see the movie "17 miracle" and this time he had more perspective. It changed from "WE WALKED 37 MILES" to "we walked only a speck of what the pioneers walked."

Campfire with marshmellows and hot dogs

 Jared and I actually made it happen only a couple days after the dare -- give us a challenge and guess what?!!  Actually we were only able to do part of the kid challenge due to bad weather and lots of July activities already in the works (more on those to come).

I thought we were only making yummy smores, but after those were eaten, (and of course it was around 9pm) Brady decided he was still hungry and wanted hot dogs too. Ethan and Luke quickly joined in the roasting. Because of the impending storm, it was quite windy, meaning we kept shifting seats to stay out of the smoke stream.