Since I work on most Fridays, I only go camping with my troop about every other month. On the off months I try to take them on a weekend adventure, and this month's activity was snowshoeing! Saturday morning we met at the church and carpooled to the trailhead of Green Pond, near Snowbasin Resort. After fitting everyone's snowshoes and ensuring everyone had the gear they needed, we headed down the trail. As we got quite a bit of snow overnight and it was still snowing, we were breaking trail, so it was good for each boy to experience leading the troop. At our turning around point we discussed some avalanche safety and winter survival techniques.
One of the boys didn't let us know he was going to show up, so we were short a pair of shoes. It worked out though -- I let him use mine and I brought up the rear after the trail was packed down enough for my boots. As you can see, whenever I got off the trail I post-holed pretty deep!
One of the leaders and boys had to return early, so it wasn't a very long hike, but I think it was just perfect for some of the boys who were not used to tromping around in the fresh powder.
The week before our snowshoeing trip, we organized a community service project for which Ogden Recreation Outlet offered free rentals for the boys and leaders who participated. I was unable to attend, but our troop performed some trail clean-up and maintenance for the Ogden Nature Center. I felt pretty proud, as these have been the first outings that I've organized and successfully pulled off! Many of the boys enjoyed themselves and said they'd do it again.
This week was a blast. Dad, mom, and Jacob left on a Mexican cruise, so Dani and I had the youngest two all week. Dani spoiled them rotten while I was working and training with the EMS department, taking them on all sorts of hikes and adventures. She even baked them a giant cookie and let them decorate it (the frosting reads: No Parents!)! I didn't have work Thursday or Friday, so we took off to Capitol Reef to spend a long weekend in the Park. None of us had ever been there before, so we explored around the desert, discovering all sorts of arches, potholes, and caves. We weren't exactly roughing it in the backyard-like "campground," but Olivia certainly appreciated the flushing toilets.
The rain was off and on all weekend. Desert rain feels pretty incredible - the dampness in the air feels so refreshing, and the fresh-soaked ground smells so alive. The lichen on the red rock turns green, and the rivers turn a copper shade of chocolate milk. We stayed away from narrow canyons, as the scarcely-seen cliffside waterfalls had filled the usually dry river bottoms with flash flooding.
Matthew and Olivia playing in the "Kukoo-moodoo" holes
At the end of our longest 7 mile hike, we found a series of pools, or tanks, that cascade into one another when it rains. In one of them there were a ton of toads!
When we got back to Moab on Saturday, I took Matthew out to test fire his newly-built potato canon. I can't believe I never constructed one of these when I was his age! When we got home I told Dani that I'll probably have to make one before we have our own sons.
Today was pretty exciting for me. I was on-call for Grand County EMS, and early this morning we were paged out to a vehicle rollover on the highway. After three previous shifts without any real calls, you better believe I was the first one to the response shed.
Even running code with our lights and sirens on, our travel time to the accident was over 30 minutes. He had swerved off the road, flipped his car at least three times, and landed in the opposite direction of traffic. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt, and the airbag didn't deploy. When we arrived, our patient was up and walking around, and after a full assessment, he refused to be transported, only asking for a bandaid to cover an existing cut on his finger. What an incredible miracle! Although I was looking forward to the excitement of actually being involved in patient care and transport, I was pretty glad that he survived without any serious injuries.
I finished my day with a transport from our hospital to Grand Junction, CO where our patient could have his appendix taken out, as our surgeon is moving and his replacement hasn't arrived yet. I'm really looking forward to volunteering more as an EMT this summer.
As Tuesday rolled around we gave some big hugs, and sad "see you laters" to my family as we headed to the airport and flew back to the promised land. Upon landing in Utah we were both relieved with a feeling of "welcome home." Our plane landed around midnight and Naomi graciously let us stay at her apartment for the night so we didn't have to worry about traveling out of Salt Lake. We were grateful for the bed and Chris had a great night's rest while I spent all night bonding with Naomi's cat Simon, who felt that my face was the best place to tap with her paw and sleep on!
On Wednesday morning Naomi, who had spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Hall's house, drove our truck up so that we could spend the day running errands. We enjoyed a great breakfast with her and then headed up to Logan. After switching out all of our Alaskan winter gear for Moab summer wear at our storage unit, we headed to the Logan Temple and did a session. This was our first time back to a temple since we moved to Alaska a year ago (no road access to a temple from Juneau) and it felt wonderful to be there. We were glad that we took the time to prioritize attending the temple even though we had a million other things to do that day. After our uplifting and much needed session we picked up Chris's sister Anna and headed over to Aunt Julie's house for family dinner. It was fun getting caught up with the family and we definitely felt the nostalgia for our time living in Logan when Julie and the kids would often have us over for dinner.
We spent the night with Grandpa and Grandma Hall, and Thursday morning we continued our temple tour by going to the Timpanogos Temple! We did initiatories for some family names my dad had given us while in Wisconsin. I always feel as though the veil is extra thin when doing the work for family members, and I was once again overwhelmed with gratitude for being close to temples so that I can help those who have been waiting so long for the blessings of the temple. We then spent the day shopping for scrubs and professional business clothes for Christopher (if you haven't heard, he will be working as a medical assistant/student intern at his dad's office, and I will spend the season river guiding). Late in the afternoon we went down to BYU and met up with my younger brother Jacob and his girlfriend Jill. We had a blast hiking the Y with them, enjoyed a good dinner, and played some Yahtzee before Jacob had to take off for work. The rest of the night we spent enjoying quality time with Grandma and Grandpa Hall.
Jill, Jacob, me and beardless Chris
Friday was Chris's first day of work, and he helped his dad out in the Springville office. Since we were still in Utah Valley I lucked out and was able to catch up with a few of my favorite former roommates, and enjoyed a most needed girls day. When Chris got off work at 8pm we had another late night as we drove down to Moab.
Saturday was spent relaxing, unpacking, and being with our family. It sure is great to be back in Utah!
