"Arise from the Dust!" Trek 2012

July 26-28, 2012

Albuquerque, NM Stake Youth Trek

Arthur and I had the privilege of going on our Stake's Youth Trek as a Ma and Pa this year.  We loved our experience four years ago, and I was, I confess, a little sad when all the Ma's and Pa's were announced and we weren't among them.  I know there are many wonderful and capable couples who should all be given an opportunity to be a trek Ma and Pa, and they wanted to get new people this year, but I was still hoping . . .

Then about a month before trek, the couple in charge of Trek asked so come meet with us, and asked us to be a Ma and Pa because there had been so many registrants and they needed to create 2 more families.  I think I squealed when they asked if we would go.

So I had 1 month to whip my butt into shape, and it still wasn't in shape when we went, despite my walking almost everyday for the month I had to prepare.  Oh well.  

Our family flag, held by our "daughter," Conner

Pa and some of the boys

It started raining right when we pulled into camp the first night.

Huddling under the tarp waiting for the rain to stop--

which it did, after not too long.

Ma and Pa Gariety

The Gariety Family

5 girls, 6 boys, plus Arthur and I
Oh, and our rice baby, Hezzakiah

The families were bigger than they were hoping, but I tell you what, it was a blessing they couldn't recruit any more Ma's and Pa's because we needed those big families to push through miles and miles of sand.  Everyone had to have a hand on the cart to get us through much of the 2012 trek.

Brother and Sister Mortality waiting to distribute death or disease.

We actually had quite a lot of REAL trials, and didn't need their intervention very much to make things hard for us.

I love this picture of the company stretched out.  The ranch where we did trek this year was BEAUTIFUL!

Trek is an amazing experience--there are so many life lessons to be learned from pulling and pushing a cart.  I wrote the lessons that had the most impact on me in my journal, so I won't elaborate here, but the two key points I took away were:  

***Teach my kids to work!  

We need doers to put the gospel in action, doers to build the kingdom, doers to build a family.  And doers who don't wait to be asked, but who recognize a need and fill it.  We have a saying in our family, "Find a need and fill it" that I have been ramming that down my kids' throats since I got home from trek.   We have been on a major work campaign lately, that might be making my kids wish I hadn't gone to trek this year.  ;)  They'll thank me when they're older.  

***The foundation makes a difference.  

I couldn't believe how much more difficult and slow and heavy it was to pull the cart through the sand as opposed to hard packed dirt.  There was a point when our whole family was pushing the cart through a flat, sandy arroyo, and on the other side, was a steep incline.  When we got to the hill, the earth was firmly packed, and we actually accelerated up the hill.  It was easier and faster, and took less people to push the cart up the firm hill than it did through a flat area of sand.  My take-home message was that we can choose to live our lives based on a firm foundation by keeping the commandments and utilizing the Atonement of Christ.  When we are built on a firm foundation, our steep inclines are not as difficult to traverse.  Our burdens become lighter and yoke easy to bear.  But when we choose to do wander from the path our Savior has shown us, our foundation becomes sandy and it is much more difficult to face the challenges and obstacles in our lives.  

{ha!  okay, I said I wouldn't elaborate, but Sean, who is patiently waiting for some computer time would beg to differ.  He keeps saying, "How many more letters are you going to type?"

I wrote more than I intended--sorry}

My sister Emma volunteered to come out and watch the kids for us while we went on trek, and we are so grateful for her willingness to take that on.  Our kids ADORE their Aunt Emma. 

This is all of them saying good-bye Monday morning before I took her to catch her plane home.

THANKS EMMA!

Visit to CA

July 20-24
Nona's House,
Stonehaven, Northstar
Lake Tahoe


Alright, ALL of my sisters have posted since the last time I have.  (including the one who just moved across the country)  And the one who hasn't posted in 4 months.  ( ;) love ya Jewels.) So I have no excuse.  I've been a pathetic blogger lately, I know.  I think I am losing my touch, to be honest.  We're still alive and busy, but I just can't think of anything to say about it.

Anyway, I have a string of posts lined-up to finish with pictures in them and nothing else.  I'm starting to think maybe I'll just post the pictures and you guys can guess what we've been doing . . .  Or maybe I'll have the kids tell me what to write . . .  Or maybe I'll just . . .  whatever.  Here it goes.

We took a trip this summer to visit family in California.  The first night we got there we had an amazing dinner with Mike and Amber, cooked by none other than the amazing Chef Mikey!  It was delicious!  And then we went on a walk down by the river where the kids ran around and Sean nearly ran into a humongous beautiful great dane named Chewy.  His head was the same height as Sean's was and his face was pretty funny when he turned around and was inches away from that giant dog's face.  Unfortunately I must not have had my camera with me, cause we have no pictures of that.  But thanks for the fun time, guys!

Then we spent a night at Nona and Papa's, where we got to see Mom's new Chicken Palace.  For her birthday, Mom asked for chickens and a chicken coop.  So Reed and Nathan got busy building her one over the summer.  Reed designed it himself and he and Nathan did a GREAT job.  It's quite luxurious, (hence the "Palace" endearment,)  and Dad said those chickens are gonna have to lay a LOT of eggs before it pays for itself.  We were lucky enough to be present when a couple of eggs were laid, and our kids were super excited about it!

The chickens

The Chicken Palace

The next day we drove up to Stonehaven where we got to hang out with Mom and Dad, Reed, Emma, Jacob and Nathan for a few days.  It was so fun to spend some time with my youngest siblings!  While up there, we played lots of games, ate delicious food, watched movies, relaxed and read books (Emma, Mom and I passed around lots of fun books between the three of us) prepared for trek (both the ABQ Stake Youth Trek and the Turlock Stake Youth Trek were the next weekend) and of course went to beautiful Lake Tahoe.  The rest of the pictures are at the lake . . .

These guys don't look related at all.

Mom and Emma with their books.  I think that might have been one of my favorite things that we did up there--just relaxing and reading.  

The studly Stone and Gariety Men

I was really surprised that Sydney liked the water so much because it is COLD!!!

Dallin jumping off some rocks

Sisters

We had an experience that day at the lake that I think my sisters would appreciate hearing.  So, we were all at the lake having a great time.  The brothers were out in a raft somewhere, Mom and Emma on the beach reading, Hayden and Sydney were playing in the sand, and the rest of us were out in the water at varying distances from the beach.  Daphne had gotten out onto a rock and was scared to get off, and since I was the closest to her, I started making my way over to help her down.  I looked back to check on Sydney, who was still playing in the sand, before wading further out into the water.  I was almost to Daphne, (just a couple of minutes later) when I looked back to check on Sydney again.  

Despite the water being dotted with other kids and adults, my eyes went directly to where she stood in the water, where just her face, head tilted back, was out of the water, her feet having lost touch with the bottom.  Amazingly enough, Mom and Arthur did the exact same thing at the exact same time--no voice, not even a concrete thought, per se, we all just looked right to where she was at the exact same time.  Arthur was very far from shore, but Mom and I both darted to her immediately and Mom got her out of the water before she went under.  

In thinking about that experience since then, I've of course felt grateful that we got to her before something scary happened.  But I've also thought a lot about how the Holy Ghost works.  As I mentioned before none of us "heard a voice" or even had a specific thought to check on Sydney, we just all looked  right to where she was at the same time.  I haven't had ever had a Holy Ghost experience quite like that.  But I am very grateful, that Heavenly Father was looking out for our Sydney and somehow let several of us know at once that she needed help.

Turkey Creek Backpacking Trip

Turkey Creek, CO

July 11-13, 2012

written by: Dallin

The Beginning:

This is where we started our adventure.  In front of my house.

Actually, the house in this picture is my neighbor's house across the street.

Me, (Dallin), and my Dad, and my friend Charles, and the Bishop (Charles' Dad) went on the adventure together.

Right here is our day hike in the . . . wilderness.

I caught my first fish!!!

Nice waterfall, don't you think?

Hey Bishop, is it cold in there?

How's it goin' Dad?

Looks like Dad went for a swim

Kings of the waterfall!

We're cleaning out the fishes, the fishes, the fishes, 

Oh we're cleaning out the fishes,

and it is disgusting!

I have a great Dad who took me on this backpacking trip.  It was so fun.  We hiked about 10 miles in three days, swam in a freezing cold river, caught around 20 fish and ate 8 of them.  I caught and cleaned two fish.  (The fish was delish, and it made quite a dish.)  This was the best backpacking trip that was ever hiked in the whole world!  

June Quotes

Uh, yes, these are a little late . . .  but, for your reading pleasure, here are our quotables from June.  I'll probably combine July and August since we've been too busy to say anything funny this month.

Hayden:  Lily, I jutht gave you a flower.  I know it didn't hurt, tho you shouldn't thay "ouch."

Hayden:  I'm the funnietht guy in our family.  I'm like 500 funny.

Hayden:  I'm tho glad God let Thydney come down from heaven to our family.  She'th the cutetht perthon in our family.

Daphne:  Can we get one of those tornado things from Sonic?  

(I think she meant a Blizzard and I'm not even sure if that's what Sonic calls theirs--let's see . . . Blizzard is Dairy Queen, McFlurry is McDonald's, and Sonic is a . . . Blast?  I think? Well, whatever, blizzard, mcflurry, tornado, hurricane--it's all the same, right?)

Sean:  Sydney's hair is really big.  How do we take the curls out of it?

Me:  Hayden, we don't throw stuff at people!

Hayden:  But I accidentally aimed at him.

Sean (during the sacrament):  Mom, this bread is SOOO delicious!  I wish I could have lots and LOTS of it!

Dallin was a prince in this year's CMT performance of The Emperor's New Clothes.  I wasn't sure what to do for his costume and was looking online for ideas.  He saw me checking out a picture of Cinderella's Prince Charming and became very alarmed.  He made it very clear that he didn't want to look like any of those Disney princes, because they were all "lame."  He wanted to look like Prince Caspian, but I didn't think anyone would recognize that as a prince.  So finally I said, "Let's look at some pictures of a real prince who is alive today, and see what he wears."  And I pulled up some wedding pictures of Prince William and Princess Kate.  "How about something like that?" I asked.  Dallin replied, "Mom.  He's bald."  "He is balding, true, but look at the beautiful girl he married . . . "  In the end, he reluctantly agreed to be a Prince-William-Style prince.  (Thanks for being so beautiful, Kate!)

Daphne:  Oh great, we're late for CMT practice!

Sean:  Daphne, we're never late for CMT because Mom is the captain.

Hayden:  Mom, I didn't pee in my bed.  

I jutht thweated a lot in my underwear during the night.

For all you Hunger Games Fans out there . . . .

Dallin:  Daphne, good job for being a Peace Keeper.

Mom:  I think you mean peace maker.

Sean at his first Swim Team practice:  What's a freestyle?

At Pack Meeting in June, the CubMaster had the boys walk a plank in order to get their awards.  Well, apparently, if nobody dies it's not very exciting because Sean sighed with disappointment:    "Everyone's gonna survive that!"

Wearing underwear on his head, Hayden said, "What?  It's my swimming cap."

While trying to do the Vulcan sign, Sean said, "I have to use a cheat code," and held his fingers open with his other hand.

{For those of you less video-game-savy than I am, (which is saying a lot, because my kids have stopped asking me to help them in their video gaming because I accidentally kill them) . . . a cheat code is a special code you type in to help you cheat.} 

Hayden:  (after leaving a friend's house in our ward)  

I wish I wath borned in their family.

(ouch)

Hayden:  Kaitlyn ith tho beautiful.  I love her.  I'm inviting her to my birthday party. (Which isn't until November, but it's never too early to start planning).  (And just for the record, Kaitlyn is 11.)

just a note

I've been catching up and backdating my posts so they correspond with the date they occurred.   So scroll down if you don't want to miss out on anything exciting like 4th of July, birthdays and 2012 CMT . . .

Independence Day!

July 4, 2012

Heritage East Neighborhood,

Rotary Park,

and Our House

We had a special treat this 4th of July to have TWO of my sisters come into town.  Jen and Brandon and their family stayed here en route to their new home in Georgia where they will be for the next three years, and Emma flew down from BYU-I to be with us for the week also!  So we had a major party.

Here are pictures of the bike parade, and festivities at the neighborhood park, and then just some hanging' out pictures of later in the day . . .

The kids LOVED this little water table.

Despite Hayden's being stung by a bee earlier in the morning, he recovered quickly enough to do the three-legged race with our friend from church, Parker.

The Reeds watching the races

Dallin with friend Christian, and Daphne with friend Alexandria in their 3-legged race

Arthur with our friend Russ (Parker's Dad)

Brandon and Eric looking pretty serious about their racing strategy

guess it paid off, because they won first!

(Russ and Arthur took 2nd, by the way, but they didn't get a ribbon.  Next time, we're bringing our own ribbons! ;)

I LOVE this picture of Dallin!

Okay, this is me holding my 1st place ribbon for the sack race.  I just have to toot my own horn for a minute and say that this is the second year in a row that I've won.  And this year, it was much less controversial.  I was DEFINITELY the winner, and you should watch the video at the bottom to see my race.  I might be the most impressive sack-jumping athlete I've ever known.

Popsicles

A Patriotic Trifle

Me and Emma made it and it was pretty delicious.

thank you pinterest.

Hayden and Sean thought they needed a brother picture by the trifle that they didn't make.

Emma and Jen up in the tree-house.  It's actually kind of scary to get up there, so these are a couple of brave ladies.

And of course, sparklers and fireworks . . .

Happy Independence Day!  

So grateful to live in this free country.

Okay, here is our Independence Day Movie.  Many of the pictures I already posted are in there, but there is also footage of some of the races we participated in at the park, and they are pretty fun to watch.  (Sorry, in advance, that the quality is so grainy.  I'm too cheap to pay for more space in my One True Media account, so I had to do the smallest version since I've almost maxed out my space this month.)

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!

www.onetruemedia.com