We Believe, We Endure, We Trek

In July (please bear with me while I play "catch-up") Bryce and I participated in our stake's youth conference, which was a pioneer handcart trek. We were a Ma and Pa and we had 8 youth in our little family. The trek took place up on Cedar Mt (which meant there was a lot less dust and a lot more shade compared to the other treks Bryce and I have been on). There were some difficult hills and a few strenuous areas on the trail but our family of troopers were amazing and did not give up. Thankfully, no one in our family got sick or injured (as long as you don't count the one parkour incident - lol).

Our family's theme was "We Believe, We Endure, We Trek". Our family's 'name', war cry, cheer, gathering chant and motivational yell was "Gryffindor!!!" The trek took place over the weekend that the Harry Potter #7 movie Part 2 came out - so needless to say the kids and I were feeling the pain of missing out on an opening night midnight showing while we were camping out in pioneer clothes, so... we decided that since we couldn't be there to view the show the next best way to honor and remember 'The-boy-that-lived' and how he conquered 'He-who-must-not-be-named' was to adopt "Gryffindor" as our family name, etc... It was awesome! No, it probably wasn't what the stake leaders expected and we definitely got a few strange looks, but it was great! No other family had any type of cheer so when we were pulling our handcarts or competing in pioneer games our family was always the loudest, most motivated and most unified. Maybe I am being completely biased, but we had some really great kids in our family. I definitely think that as the ma and pa we really lucked out.

Now please enjoy some pictures of our trek experience:

Here is our awesome flag - notice the sword of Gryffindor and the sorting hat wonderfully depicted.

"Gryffindor!!"

 Bryce and I watching our family competing in Pioneer games. The camera lady got lucky - this is probably the one moment we weren't yelling and cheering for our kids.

I love this picture because of what we are watching: at this moment we are cheering and laughing as one of our sons, Kelton - a real life cowboy, is trying to chase down and lasso a sheep that wandered into camp. All the other leaders were like "leave the sheep alone." Not us. We were encouraging of the sheep chasing; we participated in parkour at trail stops, and we were up playing mafia until midnight... Good Times :) 
That's right - We were the cool parents.

Family Picture Time!

On the trail again...

More House Pictures...

More pictures coming soon? I bet you didn't think I would follow through huh? Well here they are:

Welcome to a mini-tour of our house. This way is the kitchen...

Here is our awesome kitchen table we got for a steal at Blvd Home Furnishings. You can't see it but it has a bench seat on the far side and the table extends so we have 2 extra chairs too.

 The 2 doors behind the table is our 'his and her' pantries - mine is filled with cookies, home-made bread and cereal, while Bryce has his stocked with chips, salsa and queso ;)

This is the other side of our kitchen.

Here is our "entertainment" room and our awesome couch that we got from Costco that we love. Now that we have a table and a couch we can actually have people over to visit and you won't be forced to share a metal folding chair or a moving box :) So come visit so you can help us break in our new furniture. We can watch The Office or play Cashflow.

Now in here is a view of our front room/library room. Our computer (where I am sitting at this very moment - I have a lovely view of our front yard and our little circle - so basically I can watch all the comings and goings of our neighbors) is cut out of the picture to the left (and yes we finally have the internet at home!) .

Now this is the left view of our backyard (please note our handy shed).

And this the right view of our backyard (what!? a 2nd shed? yes we have 2 handy sheds - both of which came with the house - what luck!).

In our front yard we have this lovely little rose bush. I'm so happy to see it still blooming :)

And this is Bryce's motorcycle. Just thought I would add this in seeing as I forgot to post about it when we first bought it.

Well, thanks for joining me on this mini-tour of our house. If you want to see more you'll just have to come over and see us! :)