Climbing and Falling

Yesterday I got to go repelling and rockclimbing with some friends (the pictures are coming). We went to this rock that has an easy walk up to the top. From there you can repel down to the bottom. Or, from the bottom you can climb up to the top. It was TONS of fun. There was Vance and Sue Whitbeck, their son Chad, his girlfriend Kylie, Vance's mom, my mom and dad, and me. First off we went repelling down this crevis in the rock where you "walk" the whole way down. That was tons of fun. I got to go 2 times before we moved to this other spot where you walk off the cliff and then it is a freefall. The freefall is fun in that you can do tricks. Vance had us hanging upside down! It was pretty fun. He even taught me how to repel upside down. :) After that we went to climb up the rock. I was in luck that Kylie and I are the same shoe size so I was able to use the rock climbing shoes she had rented. The rock started off easy and then there was this one stupid spot that both Kylie and I got stuck at everytime. What made it difficult is that there is no good places to grip with you hands so you have to use more of your legs. Chad was able to do it fine but he has gone a lot more times than us and also has a larger hand span. But even though I was never able to make it up to the top, I had a blast!

Camping with the Family

After JC came home from his mission me and my family went camping together. It was a lot of fun spending all of that time together after 2 years of being apart. We went up to Whitney Reservoir which is only about 15 mins from my cabin. In fact the turn off for the reservoir is only 5 miles from my cabin. We were there from Monday to Thursday. We were thinking of staying 1 more day but it decided to hail and then rain on us. That made the temperature drop to the 40s and low 50s. No fun while camping.
While camping we sat around a bit, went on walks and hikes, played games, went 4 wheeling, fished, and played at the Reservoir. None of us actually got in the water besides the dog. We were to scared of the cold water. :)
I love going camping with my family. Each time we go I get some very fun, fond memories. Some of the ones from this trip was the hike with my dad and then the rain. The hike I went with my dad was crazy! I wasn't really expecting to go on a hard hike so I didn't bring my hiking boots. Big mistake! My dad picked a hill that has no trail so we made our own trail climbing through the brush, over fallen trees, and around other obstacles. We wanted to go up more on the right side where it wouldn't be as steep. We didn't make it over far enough and ended up going up where it was so steep I almost felt like I was rock climbing on dirt! The view from the top was really gorgeous and on the way down me and my dad found a different root that took us by this natural lake that was almost a perfect square.
The rain was fun in the adventure of it. When it started hailing on us, me and mom were at the van so we quickly moved some of the food and jumped in. Everyone else laughed at us for "hiding." Later that night we all gathered in one of the tents and played hand and foot. My family is weird in that instead of playing in 4 teams of 2, we played in 2 teams of 4. We changed a couple of the rules to make it harder to go down and out (it would have been to easy with so many on 1 team). It truly was a lot of fun.

Back at it

After over 18 months I am back to blogging. I am actually amazed this is still up and running after not being used for so long. The mission was amazing, great, and one of the greatest experiences of my life. Slowly over time I hope to post some of my memories. And of course I'll be adding the adventures I am going through at the time.