We have done our best to make an annual summer trip to the Ashton family cabin. It's Christopher's favorite place to go, and it's big enough to take friends, so we always have a great time. This year was no different. We made it a bit of a "primary retreat" as the whole primary presidency (minus our assistant secretary, Merissa) was able to come with their families.
We got out of the cabin every day, sometimes just to take a nature walk, and other times to drive to hikes like in Bryce Canyon. We ended up in Brian Head on our last day and found snow, had pizza for lunch, and enjoyed incredible views.
The kids got along without a hitch, and the adults stayed up late every night sharing stories and getting to know each other even better. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such good people. Best cabin trip yet.
Everyone lined up to drop a stick and hurry to the other side to see who's made it under the bridge first.
Fishing on the only windy day we had there. The dads took the girls out happy, and they all came back quite wet!
Bryce Canyon
Squirrel!
Green! We ran to the little patch of snow and had a little snowball fight. In the picture below, Owen is laughing at himself after (surprisingly) hitting Scott!
Sneaky girls!
Olivia really wanted to walk out to the end of this ridge (like her big sister did), but after getting a few feet along she decided to turn back. We got a picture first, so she felt like that was still an accomplishment.
Cute little friends.
Now, on to the top of Brian Head, where the view allowed you to see parts of Nevada, Arizona and Utah!
"Thumbs up" for dad... have you taken the picture yet?!
Ugh, we knew we had bad tires going up, but for some reason thought we could ignore it till after our trip? This back tire kept going flat, and I could hear the air hissing out of it. Thank goodness for the Bates having a compressor. We had to use it a lot.
Playing by Mammoth Creek. Some of the big kids wanted to cross the creek by a fallen log, and without anyone seeing him, Owen decided he wanted to do the same! He wouldn't let Scott help him, until Scott suggested that he "jump" to him. It was great to see him be brave and independent (but safe too).
These pictures below have lots of repeats from above, as far as what we did. But, I took all the ones below with my phone. Sometimes that's just easier.
And then more tire drama. With the spare already replacing the back tire because it was leaking air, the front tire completely shredded. We had left the cabin, and were on the dirt road for about 8 seconds when it happened. We were packed up and on our way home, and didn't want to go back inside the now-clean-cabin, so we came up with another plan. We put the tire with a hole BACK on, and switched the spare to the front. We pumped up the tire again and prayed it would get us as far as Kanab so we could get everything fixed. The plan worked, and the tire people had everything switched out in about 40 minutes. We ate lunch while they worked, and we hardly lost any time overall. Lesson learned. New tires
before the trip next time.
