Brigham City

 We stayed overnight to go to the Brigham City Temple Open House. We are glad that we made it up there. I really enjoyed the paintings in the temple and the ceilings were outstanding. It is always funny the questions that the kids ask. Porter wanted to make sure you don't have to wear those plastic booties every time you go to the temple. Had Maddox for lunch. Thanks Ben for getting us tickets. And our friends from California got to come too!

Lake Mary Backpacking Trip

We had a grand adventure this weekend. We were planning to go backpacking over Labor Day weekend, but decided that we didn't want to deal with the thunderstorms all weekend. So we delayed it a week and the weather was perfect. It was actually a little chilly when we started hiking up the mountain after school/work. And we caught a little bit of the Wasatch 100 which was along the trail. All the boys hiked. We had intended to carry Neal (luckily he is not too heavy) but he wanted nothing to do with that. So we went very SLOW. Jackson is a dream to hike with he just plows right along. Porter did great but he takes tiny slow steps and needs a lot of encouragement. Luckily we did not have too far to go and ended up sleeping at Dog Lake so that we wouldn't be in the path of the runners all night long.

Dog Lake

 Definitely not the best night sleep ever (sleeping with Neal next to you never is) but our tent was cozy and fit us all quite well. We decided to buy our own backpacking stove and it was awesome. We had oatmeal, hot chocolate, and eggs with bacon for breakfast. And for lunch we had lasagna, chicken teriyaki, and neopolitan ice cream. It was mostly freeze dried food but it was actually quite good... Or we were really hungry. Either way we gobbled it all right up.

 Lake Mary

Neal was thrilled that this chipmunk came so close to him

boys  playing hawkeye and hulk

this boy is not afraid to climb

purifying water

 The boys spent the entire day playing and exploring and having a blast. It was definitely worth the effort we put into making it happen. They were in heaven. We have decided that we definitely need to do it at least every year.