Moose Encounter

Last weekend we went on a church camp-out. This was our first, and our last camping trip of the season.  I am just not a camper and thankfully my husband isn't either.  But as far as camping goes, this weekend was just as nice as could be expected. We had a very beautiful camp ground with covered eating areas and a small lake, canoes provided.  We paddled the lake and had some fun fireside time with other families from our church.  A group of young adults were sharing the campground with us which was fine until it was past midnight and the young adults were still in full swing and all of our camp were trying to sleep.  Anyway...   The next day we had a big breakfast with the church and then headed off, map in hand, on a two mile hiking trail.  We should have known by how unused the trail was that an adventure was in store.  The first part of the trail was a steep incline that leveled out in a highland. The meadow was full of wild flowers and bees, millions and millions of them. Jared hates bees so that set him on edge, then we had to stop several times to get june grass out of his socks. He was not happy at all and let us all know how much he hatted this trail as we went.  As we came around a bend, almost to our lookout point, a big female moose was standing directly in our path ahead.  We regarded the moose, the moose regarded us.  *Cue High Noon Music* We were over half way on our trail, do we turn back?  What if the moose has a baby? This might be a very dangerous situation, so we decided to  do a test to see how the moose would react. We would walk a few steps forward, if she stood her ground we'd know to back off. So tentatively we shuffle forward a few steps.  As we did, the moose stepped back a few steps.  Yay!  We shuffled forward again, and again the moose retreated off the path.  We kept going back and forth this way, never taking our eyes off each other, until the moose was far enough off the path that we quickly skirted safely by.

This was after the moose had backed off our trail into the trees.

After leaving the moose behind and enjoying a fantastic lookout, we headed down the last part of our trail through some wetlands. We came to a muddy section (it said "spring" on the map) that looked like a real shoe eater.  After some experimentation we decided that quickly sprinting across was the best course of action. That went okay, but Jared some how got splattered all over shirt and arms. After overcoming the mud obstacle we found ourselves in a jungle. Yes, a real live jungle through the wetland with tall overgrown plants and a barely decipherable trail.  It wouldn't have been so back but I noticed a sudden intense itching and burning on my arms and legs where I had brushed against some of the plants. I was breaking out in hives, and so was Ruth. We pushed on, (what can you do?) and Chuck, who was in the front, called out a warning that he heard something in the trees ahead, as we rounded another the next corner we were startled sudden loud crashing and thumping that seemed to shake the ground and scared us all half to death.  This was enough for Ruth, who had been trying to have a good attitude, she was done! Done with hiking forever! She hated hiking!  So it was a muddy, itchy, grumpy family that headed down the last part of the trail and back to our camp site. As we passed the lake we saw a large bull moose along the shore. We wondered if we had startled a similar animal on our adventure. Luckily, a good wash in the cold spigot with soap and water and some hydrocortizone took care of the worst of our hives, and a thorough picking got rid of Jared's june grass and beggars lice. No lasting harm done. As we packed up our tent and headed come, we were confident that the best part of our hike would be our memories.

High School Here She Comes!

Kaitlin was so excited for school to start she could barely sit still. I woke up with her early (like 5am early, yikes!) on the first day to make sure she was all ready and everything was perfect. I sent Kaitlin out the door to the bus stop (it was still dark outside) and then went back to bed. She likes most of her classes and her new teachers. She was excited that her Spanish teacher actually cared about accent, and that she got 100% on her first Geometry assignment. She has a few friends in some of her classes but there are a lot of new faces and it will take awhile for her to find out where she belongs in this sea of 2000 students. She will start by auditioning for the musical in a couple of weeks



Happy Birthday Chuck

There was some debate and confusion about how old he turned, but regardless of the years, Chuck celebrated a birthday this past week. We had zucchini brownies and giant balloons.  Chuck got a new camera and a tie and between piano lessons (Ruth and Jared) and gymnastics (Jared), we spent the evening playing Disney Trivia - which Chuck lost. Happy Birthday, Honey!


New Church Assignment for Becky

I few weeks ago I was talking with a leader in our church and I mentioned to him that I'd been serving with the children in the primary for 5 1/2 years and I was feeling pretty burnt out. I'd just been working with children for so long, it really can be exhausting. So this week I was released from doing the music in Primary and got a new assignment.... as a Wolf Leader in Cub Scouts. Now I know what some of you are thinking and I told my Bishop just that: I don't like scouting (I then proceeded to list off all the reasons why I didn't like it. My Bishop just smiled and told me that I could commiserate with his wife (who also doesn't like scouting, who by the way, is the other Wolf leader)) but being the committed lady that I am, I told them I'd give it my best try. And you know, working with 17 8 year olds will be a nice break from working with children; I was pretty burnt out on working with children.