Martin's Cove

So Brady and I had the most amazing opportunity to go to Martin's Cove as a Ma and Pa with the youth in our ward and we took it! It was extremely difficult to leave Harley behind, but once we got there we were so busy we didn't have time to think about missing our baby girl! She did come with me in picture form in my 5 gallon bucket though =) So we met at the church at 2:30am on June 8th and we loaded our fabulous ward onto a charter bus and we drove, and we drove, and we drove to middle of nowhere, Wyoming aka Martin's Cove. It was the best spiritual experience I have ever had and we had 10 awesome kiddos! We were told the first day that we would pull a handcart 3 miles...ha!! we ended up walking almost 6! Everybody was exhausted from lack of sleep, and it was warm, but our kids pressed on and got the job done! We then headed over to the Willie Handcart Site...and that's where we camped and had a good ol' time with the other Ma's and Pa's. Wednesday we headed out on another 6 mile hike but after some much needed sleep that second day didn't seem nearly as difficult as the first! We went through water which I thought our girls would be hesitant to do but they were just as eager to pull the handcart through the water as the boys, it was so cool to see them all working together. We had the women's pull that day with represents all the men being called off to war and how the women trekked together with the kiddos, my girls again were amazing and didn't complain once (I think I complained more than they did this day!) The following morning we headed out to Rock Creek Hollow which was my favorite stop it was here that 13 people died overnight after walking/pulling handcarts 14 miles in a blizzard some of them children. We were able to see the memorial they had there and then Annika and I walked over this little hill and you could see the actual trail that they had walked on 150+ years before, it was amazing to think of all the trials that they went through just to get to Zion and they remained faithful! We had an awesome time and we would volunteer to do it again in a heartbeat...Harley had fun too with her cousins (mainly Lola) and we were very grateful to the Vest family for taking her for us. That's what we have been up to in our corner of Idaho...Brady is back to work as I type this is it 10:30pm and I still have not seen him yet today..bummer deal but tis the life of a landscaper's wife!

Unfortunately something happened with my camera while we were there, and I only have the last two pictures I took on the trek which were of the memorial and the headstone...sad day. But I'll include a picture of my precious baby girl too for your enjoyment!