June Recap (Warning: Long Post Ahead)

Antonia: "Wait...it's October already? No way!"
Charlie: "No, it was October yesterday."

Well, it IS October already, but here's what we did in June!--


This picture here below might have actually been May, when Antonia and I took a little jaunt up to Idaho for the weekend. You can see how Antonia worked Baca (my mom, in the background) into exhaustion keeping her entertained. Either that, or she all but squealed my poor mother into unconsciousness. I know exactly how that feels.

All this time we have lived in Nevada (5 years) we had never been down to the wharf area of Lake Mead until my friend Tisha told me how great it is to feed popcorn to the fish. So we planned a little excursion down to the lake, you know, for the kids. I had a vague notion of what the experience would entail, but never did I imagine the excitement that can be generated with a bag of popcorn and about 300 HUGE catfish. Excitement for the fish, that is; Charlie and Antonia were surprisingly nonplussed by the feeding frenzy (I finally understand what that phrase is all about!)

At first I was a little nervous about the proximity of the kids to the water, only because if Charlie fell in I did NOT want to have to go in there after him, that water looked cold. Then I realized that if he did fall, he would only land gently on the backs of a solid mass of catfish, and I could just reach down and pluck him off. In the end, Charlie and his buddy Max had a great time and no one fell in, although I'm pretty sure some of those catfish might have been harmed in the filming of that video, with all the tail slappin' that was goin' on. You would have thought those fish were fighting for their lives, or something. Come on, guys, it's just food.


Antonia did not get to participate in the actual throwing of the popcorn, mainly because she would have tried to eat it. She did think it was mildly entertaining when she would occasionally get splashed by a catfish.



Hmmm...what else did we do in June? Well, I guess we did THIS at least once: (maybe twice)


On another fun outing with my friend Tisha and her kids, we went to the Silverton Casino where they have all kinds of free fun, like an aquarium! and an indoor waterfall! and guns! and many, many fine examples of taxidermy! There is a Bass Pro Shops at the Silverton Casino, which explains the guns and taxidermy. This Bass Pro Shops is bigger than many college campuses, and it is a wonderland of all things outdoors for the outdoorsy types, but also features many things that are fun and exciting to 3- and 4-year-old boys like Max and Charlie.
Oh, good. It looks like Max and Charlie both have that cheesy grin down pat.

You can't really see, but there is a motorcycle behind them that is the stuff little boys' dreams are made of.


I was surprised, but Antonia was actually very, very interested in the fish at the aquarium. She might have been more amenable with these fish because they couldn't splash her, but she certainly did enjoy watching them swim around.
Charlie's favorite part of the day was probably sitting on this little ATV. Tell me this, is it small because it's for kids, or is it small for small grown-ups? Because I really don't think anyone should be buying ATVs for kids. And that is what I told Charlie when he asked if he could get one.
I think my favorite part of that day was eating french fries. But one part that felt a little funny was watching Charlie shoot a realistic-looking rifle in the shooting-gallery game at the Bass Pro Shops. I guess seeing her 3-year-old boy shoot a firearm is just something every mother has to get used to. Sigh.


The main event of June was the Stake Pioneer Trek, which the Young Men's President had asked me to attend as his pioneer wife. Which wasn't really that weird, because I am already his wife in real life; the weird part was probably that I jumped at the chance to participate in something involving five days of no showers, miles of handcart pulling, lots of mosquitos and sleeping in a tent. So Will and I took a very, VERY long bus ride, with 350 other youth and leaders from the stake, to Wyoming. We camped and pulled handcarts in the area around Martin's Cove where the Martin and Willie Handcart companies were stranded on their trek to Utah. Will's mom and sister Clara came from Virginia and Arizona, respectively, to watch our kids while we were gone, because we decided that having our children come with us would be a pioneer experience that might be a little TOO real.

As you can from the picture above, excitement was mounting each and every hour of the 27-hour bus ride... Right up to the moment when the bus broke down 40 miles from our destination. That was a little anticlimactic. Will was able to put his vast knowledge of bus mechanics to good use in helping to diagnose the problem, and we'd probably still be there on the side of that highway today, if not for his ability to agree with the bus driver's assessment that the bus had overheated.
This was my first experience with the Wyoming countryside, up close and personal, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Wyoming is beautiful! I know, Wyoming, right? Parts of the country, like where we spent two hours broken down on the highway, were very bucolic, in almost a European sort of way--green, green grass, rolling hills, quaint little farms--I felt like I was in Switzerland again. See how it's written all over my face? "Wheeee!! I'm in Europe again!"
Once we arrived at our campsite, the "trekking" actually began, which went something along the lines of: dress up like pioneers, eat awesome non-pioneer food, pull handcarts, visit wonderfully rich historic sites along the pioneer trail, participate in pioneer-type activities like square dancing, and much, much more. I could write pages about the wonderful things we did, and never fully portray how enriching and enlightening the experience was. I'll try to hit on some of the highlights.

Pioneer Trek Highlights

1. Will sported an awesome "5-gallon" hat, which incidentally fulfilled a lifelong dream of his to be six feet tall. And also, he was able to hide ice cold diet Dr. Pepper up there for those sweaty afternoon handcart pulls. PS. The part about the Dr. Pepper is not true.

2. The youth of our ward were helpful, courteous, mature, generally behaved with decorum and were, for the most part, all-around good sports. Will and I both really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know them better.


3. This scene of handcarts stretched out before us and behind us, under the huge Wyoming sky repeated itself many times over several days, but I always appreciated the way it made me feel a little closer to my pioneer ancestors, seeing --in a way--what they saw. I hope everyone who participated in this trek felt that sense of real-ness (my word) that comes from being in the exact place where an historic event occurred. It could be that the history major in me is more in tune with that feeling; I hope it made as much of an impression on the youth as it did on me.

4. Everyone who wanted to had the opportunity to experience the "crossing of the Platte," and why wouldn't anyone want to jump into the icy waters of this swiftly-moving river, to get a small sense of what the handcart companies experienced when they crossed much higher water, without a rope, in the snow, carrying all their worldly possessions. A lot of the youth took turns carrying each other across in honor of the four young men who came to the rescue of the stranded handcart companies and carried the young, old, sick and weary across the river all day long, as chunks of ice slammed into their legs and bodies. No chunks of ice in this case, but it was neat to see anyway. I of course grew up swimming the ice-cold Boise River, so I was right at home in the frigid waters of the Platte...I think it probably felt like warm bathwater to me. I'm so hard core!

5. One of the leaders wore very authentic 1800s attire that I think might have been made by a professional costume designer, or maybe his wife. His shirt was very European-immigrant-ish, but you might recognize it as the Puffy Shirt from an episode of Seinfeld. I know I did. There was also a vest, and the entire outfit was "topped off", if you will, by a jaunty cap. I wish, WISH I had a picture of it. Fortunately for him, with his gentlemanly demeanor and dignified masculinity, he actually pulled it off. And I never heard him say, "But I don't wanna be a pir-ate!"


6. I know sleeping in a tent and hiking several miles a day in a long skirt doesn't sound like much of a vacation, but I didn't have to change any diapers for FIVE DAYS. And that, my friends, is a vacation to me. I also got to spend a great deal more time with my husband than I normally do in everyday life, and that also spells vacation. I can't remember when we've had more time to talk about thoughts, feelings, memories, spiritual matters... There was one time when I got mad at him because he wouldn't do the square dancing. Puh-leeze, it's just dancing.


7. Several areas of the trail had become vast muddy swamps from recent rain, so all trekkers had to remove shoes and socks and wade through each muddy stretch, pushing and pulling handcarts as well. Everyone except for ME. I made Will give me a piggy back, because I thought it would be a good way to show the young women that they should be looking for a husband like mine, who would carry them, uncomplaining, through all the muddy patches of life. And if you don't believe that, then here is the real reason: I did not want to take off my shoes. And it's a good thing, because look at Will's clothes. They're RUINED. Ruined, I say. One of his $2 crocs was also a casualty of the mud, which is a crazy story I like to tell in live company, so ask me about it sometime.
I stayed perfectly clean through the whole ordeal, until I leaned up against the muddy wheel of the handcart. Grrrrrrrrr.

8. Well, we tried stick pulling as sport, and it was good fun, but then our young men and young women found something MUCH more dangerous, and therefore much more fun: firepit wrestling. The rules are pretty simple, whomever steps down into the pit or onto the ground first, loses. It's pretty amazing how many hours were spent in this way. And why did the adult leaders allow this dangerous pastime to be pursued? Maybe we'll never know. In any event, no one was hurt, and it was pretty entertaining...

As I said, there is much more I could write about the trek, but this post is probably already long enough to have scared away even my most devout readers (mom?) so I'll sign off with this representation of how Will and I might have appeared had we lived 150 years ago. Although, really, Will would have probably been wearing his native garb of sealskins or something, and my sunglasses would have been made out of wood.


Coming up next: July! At this rate, we'll be all caught up by Summer, 2010