MightyJohnsons

Labor Day Lofty Lake Loop Hike

For Labor Day we decided to head up into the Uinta mountains and go for a family hike. I did the hike last year with my brother Eli and his dog, Bert (short for Albert Einstein). So, I knew what to expect and where to go.

We didn’t have any plans for the holiday, so we weren’t pressed to get out the door. It was nice not to have to rush, but we did end up fighting a few kids who were stubbornly refusing to go (hi, Jake!). After we narrowly averted WWIII and signed a treaty, we all piled into the suburban and made the 90 minute drive to the trail head.

It was a perfect day for a hike. Temps were in the low 60s and the sun was out. We elected to hike the loop in a clockwise direction, mainly because I had done it the other way a year before. We enjoyed the nice hike through the meadows at the base of Reid’s Peak and Bald Mountain.

Then the trail turned up, and we had a steep climb up to Kamas lake. This was a tough section, but everyone made it just fine. We took a couple pictures and moved on.

There was another good climb up to our next stop, Lofty Lake, but the scenery overlooking the basin was beautiful. Manina couldn’t bear to watch Jake and Megan taking some pictures while jumping high in the air on this ledge. So she pressed on, sure that one of her kids was going to die (spoiler alert: everyone was just fine.)

The trail flattened out and started to head downhill just after Lofty Lake. Spirits were high and we made good time on the second half of the loop.

We passed Scout Lake and Picturesque Lake, but by that time we were too close to the end to stop and take in the scenery. Everyone was pushing for the finish.

For a family hike, we made really good time. We stopped for some well-deserved pizza on the way home, and everyone agreed it was a great way to spend our Labor Day holiday.

Claire’s field trip to Timpanogos Cave

I volunteered to go with Claire’s class to hike up to Timpanogos Cave in American Fork Canyon. I have been fortunate enough to have gone on this fifth grade field trip with Miss Louw’s class three times in the past. I always volunteer because I love it. If you’re going to go on a field trip with 35 fifth graders, it is hard to beat being outside with beautiful scenery and lots of excited kids. Plus, it provides a some good morning exercise as well.

The class was broken up into six groups. We were the lead group and Miss Louw spaced every group about five minutes apart. We had to stop at each number and read the brochure and discuss the rocks, lichen, canyon, animals, etc. Then the students document it by taking notes and pictures.

Unfortunately, because of all the stops we are unable to tour the cave at the top of the canyon. However, our group made really good time getting to the top and the ranger, Deb, really took a liking to us and let us take a sneak peak in the first two caves. The kids were so excited so see the rocks and formations.

We enjoyed walking down the trail on our way back catching views of the things we missed on the way up. It is such a great little hike. The kids were surprisingly well behaved. Plus, I got to spend some quality time with Claire, which doesn’t happen nearly enough in our big family of eight.

Lunch at the end…food never tasted so good! 🙂

Drew earned his wolf rank!

Drew went into scouts back in January. He absolutely loves scouts. He is always asking what he can work on to earn his next achievement. He is a bit of an overachiever. Well thanks to his leader, Marnie Jones, and Drew’s determination, he earned his wolf badge this week.

He was pretty excited to have to dig through the whip cream (no hands!) to get his badge. We are proud of our new wolf!

Back to School

All the kids were pretty excited about school this year. I know they really love summer and try to pretend they don’t want school to start, but I could tell in their anxious faces that they were getting excited.

Following tradition we had our annual “Back to School” feast and fashion show. I took care of dinner and dessert and the girls took care of the fashion show by decorating, making a poster with our theme and scripture and by creating ballots to vote. It is funny how a tradition we started years ago has become something we can’t do without!

I saw this theme on another blog and loved it so we adopted it as our own for this year as well:

Monday arrived all too quickly. Everyone was up and ready for school promptly. I don’t think the nerves and excitement let them sleep in too much. Each were wearing the outfit that was given the most votes during the fashion show the night before. It was all smiles around our house. Well, except for me.

By 9 am the house was silent. It was a somber moment for me. All the years of having someone to take care of and then just like that, they were all gone to school. Some find this exciting, but for me, it was a little melancholy. I am grateful to have been able to spend the past 16 years taking care of my little ones. Although it hasn’t always been perfect, I have loved it and learned so much about me and my children through the process. I hesitantly look forward to the future as it now is. I wonder what I will do? How I will fill my time? Will I be needed? All the questions one would ask as they make this transition. I have been told it will be good. I am sure it will. But for now I just need a little time to adjust. 🙂

Finishing Summer Strong…in Bear Lake

We weren’t anticipating another trip this summer. Summer was winding down. Then our good friends (and relatives), the Rowberry’s invited us to go to Bear Lake with them and Nicol family. We couldn’t turn that offer down. So we booked a cabin and went to Bear Lake for four nights the week before school started.

I was worried it would be stressful to fit in with the back-to-school shopping and preparing we would need to do, but I managed to get nearly all of it done before we left. I am so glad we decided to go because we had a great time!

I love Bear Lake. I love just about any beach. Then you add in good friends and lots of yummy food and you can’t go wrong. Just like last year, we rented kayaks and paddle boards and brought them with us. They were a big hit and everyone took turns kayaking out in the lake.

Don and Kim brought their boat and were so generous with it. They took all the kids out on the tube over and over again. I am not sure I saw much of Kim except when she was out driving, but she did tell me that is where she preferred to be…driving her boat.

When we weren’t on kayaks or out on the boat, we spent time reading, visiting and building lots of sand castles. It was such a relaxing little getaway.

Of course no trip to Bear Lake would be complete without a few trips to LaBeau’s for raspberry shakes. I am not sure what makes them taste so good, but they are delicious!

Another Johnson Family vacation was a success!

Swim Team for Ellie

I was dragging my feet when I first heard Ellie mention doing swim team with her friend. I have done swim team in the past and it is a lot of driving. Every. Day. I love summer and I love not having a schedule so swim team was anything but appealing. However, after a little convincing from my friend I decided to sign Ellie up. We agreed to only go to 3 of the 5 practices each week and to carpool to each practice. That made it a lot easier on both of us. Plus, instead of being in the afternoon they had it in the morning which worked out well other activities we might want to do during the day.

Ellie is competitive. She likes to win (wonder where she gets that?!). She was so worried that she wouldn’t be any good at swimming. She couldn’t have been more wrong. It turns out, Ellie is quite a good swimmer. She is fast and focused which I find impressive for a six year old. She ended up winning several of her events and placing in all of them. I don’t think she got anything less than 1st, 2nd or 3rd place in her events. She had three meets and kept getting better each time. She came away from swim team with trophies and many, many ribbons. She wasn’t experienced enough to do the more complicated strokes. She would do the 25 freestyle, 50 freestyle and the 25 backstroke at the meets.

Ellie was really nervous to be on swim team. I am so proud of her for trying something new and giving it her all. Not only did she find a new sport that she was good at, but she gained a lot of confidence along the way. Love you Ellie!

Grove Creek backpacking with the kids

Last year, I took Katelyn and Megan backpacking up American Fork canyon. This year, we brought Jacob and Claire along with us too. We were also joined by the Rowberry family. My Uncle Greg and I were out talking one night and he expressed some interest in exploring the trails just east of the Pleasant Grove bench.

We had been up Battle Creek canyon before, rappelling for a family home evening, but I hadn’t been backpacking up either Battle Creek or Grove Creek, nor the valley that connects those two canyons behind the “G” mountain.

We planned on camping up at Indian springs (GPS Coordinates 40.3941925, -111.704204). Since we started later than we had planned, we didn’t have time to dilly-dally, but we couldn’t pass up on some of the incredible views of Utah county.

As the lone rookie backpacker in our family, Claire did great. Just like the other girls did last year, Claire insisted on packing up her stuffed animal (“Lammy”). The trail was tough and steep, but Claire did great.

We passed a pretty good camping spot in the pines, but decided to press on another half a mile until Indian spring even though it was getting dark.

Unfortunately, when we got there someone was already occupying the spot we had targeted, so we had to try to find some semi-flat ground and set up our camp in the dark. But, when we awoke in the morning we found we were in a pretty nice spot.

We hiked back down after cooking some breakfast and filling our water bottles at the springs. The kids had an activity they had to be at by noon.

It was another successful backpacking trip with the kids, even though this one was significantly more difficult than last year.

Lessons learned:

If possible, scout the location beforehand, especially if bringing new backpackers
Leave stuffed animals at home
Leave plenty early to avoid setting up camp in the dark
Avoid the rush; allow for more unstructured time
Brian said mid-May is an ideal time for that hike

Young Women’s 5K Chalk Run

This is our second annual Young Women’s color run. They have chalk stations all along the way, each color representing the values in the young woman program in our church. As you get to the station they throw chalk.

None of my girls trained for the 5K so there was a lot of walking and running involved but we all had a great time running up to the temple (a good ending even it was uphill!).

Fourth of July fun!

We had another great Fourth of July this year. As usual, it began with the Riverton parade followed by a barbecue and fireworks afterword. This fell on the Friday before the Fourth so that gave us the whole weekend to celebrate.

Seth & I waiting for the parade to begin.

On Monday, we woke up and did our usual bike ride to breakfast.

Then we spent the afternoon at the pool. In the evening we went to the Rowberrys for a neighborhood barbecue and fireworks. It felt like a celebration all weekend long!

4th of July bike ride to breakfast

This has been one of our favorite traditions on the 4th of July. We get everyone up, pump up the tires, get everyone’s bikes ready and head off on a ride in search of breakfast.

This year, McDonald’s and Roxberry were the chosen destinations.

Since Seth bought his new bike, we had bikes for everyone this year. No roller blades or holdouts. Everyone was on two wheels.

We covered almost 6 miles on our bike ride route this year. Fun ride, and we sure live in a beautiful place.