General Conference Weekend

It's General Conference weekend!

General Conference is two days of listening to gospel teachings directly from the highest church leaders/prophets of our church via TV or radio.  You can hear their wonderful messages for yourself here: http://www.lds.org/

It is a tradition with my side of the family to take a long drive to the mountains while listening to General Conference in the car.  During the two hour lunch break, we have a hot dog roast and just enjoy the fall colors and fresh air.

This year we hiked one of my most favorite trails, Mink Creek.

The boys were pretty excited for our little trip.  Mountains and wilderness are a boy's paradise.

 Aubrey was still feeling sick from the surgery and allergies, so she wasn't exactly in the mood for hiking.  She'd rather be in bed sleeping but I had her come anyway.   My mom was with us as well. 

 We decided to make our own campsite by a creek since the area had everything that we needed: dry wood, lots of rocks, and water to put the fire out when we were done.  I gave the kids their assignments: Aubrey - get rocks and build a campfire pit, Connor and Ronin - go find us some wood to burn, Me - take pictures!  Rigdon, your job is to just sit there and look cute, but stay out of the creek, ok?

Rigdon decided he wanted to help out too and just copied what Aubrey was doing.

Now that we had our wood, Connor's trying to break the longer sticks into shorter pieces.

Grandma showing Connor a more effective way.

 Connor's favorite part of a cookout - starting the fire.

Aubrey helping out too. 

Now that we've got enough coals, let's get cooking!

  

The boys found a great spot by the stream to eat their lunch.

Yummy!

It wasn't long after eating, that the creek became irresistible for the boys to stay out of.  Ronin was soon rolling up his pants and jumping in.

Rigdon was next.

Mostly he just preferred throwing rocks in the water.

I thought the kids did a great job building this campfire...Jed would be very proud.

Time for some exploring.

Later, I challenged the boys to climb one of the mountainous hills.  They took off without any hesitation.  This pic is of them making their way back down.

Meanwhile, I found some glittery rocks for Aubrey which made her perk up a little bit.   Soon she was looking for more rocks on her own. 

We had a wonderful time!  Until next year!