THE Narrows (all 16 miles)

We have wanted to do the Narrows for a few years and this year the weather finally cooperated. My parents were kind enough to watch the kids for the day and my dad even dropped us off at the top of the hike and picked us up at the bottom. 

At the beginning of the hike, next to the beware flash floods sign. We saw a few clouds during the day and I was always paranoid that it was going to rain, but we had perfect weather without any rain.

It was an amazingly beautiful hike and we got some great pictures thanks to my brother carrying his awesome camera the whole hike. It took us about 12 hours to hike 16 miles, which seems slow, but when you are hiking in water for 75%  of the time it really slows you down. The water was very muddy which made hiking difficult when you couldn't see which rocks were in your path. I felt like I just tripped and fell down the river the whole time. The water level was never much deeper than knee level, it would have been a lot more difficult had it been any higher. Next time I will bring a tube along and float down. The first 6 miles were beautiful and we only saw a few people along the way. Around mile 9 or 10 we hit a little bit of a wall. It was hot and pretty open in this section, without a lot of shade. The novelty of hiking down a river had worn off, but we pushed on through and made it to some better sections of the hike. 

We stopped for a little break at Big Springs. You can hike from the bottom up to this point. It was very crowded from here on out in the hike. You don't need a permit to hike from the bottom. We had about 4 or 5 miles left to hike at this point.  

These are a few pictures I took at the beginning of the hike. We were still full of adrenaline and a little photo happy. It takes a few miles before you get into the actual canyon and there are lots of trees around.

 

Photo at the end of our hike. Tired, bruised, and battered, but happy to have accomplished such a strenuous hike!

It was such a great moment at the end of the hike to take off our neoprene socks and hiking boots. Technically we weren't quite at the end of our hike at this point. At the end of the narrows you still have a 1 mile hike out on a trail to get to the shuttles in Zion and then you have to ride the shuttles out. It was a long day and my feet and knees were seriously sore the next day, but I'm glad I had the chance to hike it. Orderville Canyon hooks up with the narrows and we didn't get much time to explore it, so maybe next time we can check out Orderville Canyon. I can't wait to go on more adventures!

Duck Creek 2014

In July we went to the Olsen Family Reunion at Duck Creek. It had been about 4 years since we had been to duck creek since we did the last Olsen Reunion in California, and it was good to go back. We had a practically perfect trip with lots of fishing, four-wheeling, hiking, and just enjoying being together with family.

We didn't have a ton of success fishing, but enough that both Tucker and Halle got to reel in a fish. Of course they had more fun climbing on rocks and exploring. Sheldon found all the kids walking sticks and they had a lot of fun using their sticks to walk across a little stream.

Finn eating his fishy crackers in hopes that it would help us to catch more fish!

It's not a trip to Duck Creek without lots of ATVs. This year we rented lots of 4-seaters and a 6-seater and it was great to be able to take large groups out on rides. Tucker loved watching the speedometer and would get so excited when Sheldon would hit higher speeds. Tucker is such a crazy kid and would laugh the whole ride. Halle was a little short and had a hard time seeing, so I think she liked it less. She even ended up falling asleep one time.

We had some rain in the afternoons, but it would usually clear up pretty fast. A little bit of rain is actually nice when you are ATV-ing. I think I would rather have it a little bit muddy instead of dusty. We did come back with some clothes that I was not able to get the mud stains out. Sheldon went on the ATVs in a pair of white shorts, crazy right? I washed those shorts 5 times and tried all sorts of different stain removers. If anyone knows how to get red clay stains out, advice for the future would be much appreciated.

 We always have to do our hike through Mammoth Cave. It's an easy cave to hike through and our whole group did it this year, including kids! Trying to help little kids climb through a rocky cave does add a level difficulty.

Sheldon and I also had the chance to hike the Narrows (all 16 miles of it) while we there, but we took enough pictures on the hike that it deserves its own post. Thanks to my brother for getting some cute pictures of my kids and of course many thanks to my Grandma for making the whole trip possible!

June 2014

On the very last day of school for Tucker Halle broke her arm :( It was such a depressing start to our summer, but after the first few days Halle adapted really well to her cast and we had a really good summer. All the pictures of when she broke her arm are on Sheldon's phone so I will have to do a detailed post another time. When Tucker was home for spring break it was so crazy having all 3 kids home all day and I was worried that I would never make it through the summer, but we played with friends lots and just enjoyed being outside. I do like that all 3 kids generally enjoy playing with each other.

In June we went to a cousin's wedding at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I always love it when we have family in town.

I think it was also in June that we went to Heritage Days in Syracuse with Sheldon's family. It was a fun-filled day with a parade in the morning, air show at hill air force base in the afternoon, and carnival rides at night!

Grandma Mills has the perfect tree for climbing in her backyard.

Nothing like fresh peas from the garden! I love them and all our kids love to eat them, especially Finn and Halle.

Halle had to wear a full arm cast for 3 weeks (did you know they have waterproof casts now? so cool!) and then she just had smaller cast up to her elbow for 3 more weeks. The first time she wanted a black cast, but I convinced her that another color might be better. The second time she still wanted black and it ended up looking really cool. We drew the batman symbol on it and stars. If I ever have to get a cast I may get black, it looks kind of classy.

I had never been to an air show before and I loved it! It was so cool to see the jets do all sorts of different tricks in the sky. It was a little noisy for Halle and Finn, but by the end they were a little more used to the noise. 

This is technically part of July, but we'll throw it in here anyway. Our ward does a 4th of July breakfast and bike parade every year. I loved the way the kids bikes looked all decorated. Halle and Finn don't like loud noises so we just did some small fireworks before the kids went to bed. I think you are officially a parent when you do fireworks before it is dark so you can still get the kids to bed at a decent time. Someday our kids will stay up late and watch real fireworks, but not until they start sleeping in late in the morning.