They have my HEART

Sunday April 7th some of my sibling, Aunt Nancy and Aunt Loralie did a conference breakfast at Loralie's house. We did our usual aebleskiver meal. It was delicious and something I always look forward to. Watching conference with kids in the room is definitely the less effective way of doing it. I definitely need to go back and re-listen to a number of Sunday talks. Audrey was very distracting because she is adorable.

In between conference I headed to the park with the boys. We flew kites and played on the play ground. The weather was perfect for kite flying

 These boys are pretty cute.

Then we watched the afternoon session of General Conference. After Audrey, Moki and I hung out in the backyard.

 I got her these shoes and she hasn't really ever worn shoes so she was hilarious with them. She got more comfortable with them the longer she had them on.

 She is the most beautiful little baby!

 Nancy was the true hero of my spring break. She watched Moki so I could go and play. I really really appreciate that she was willing to do that. Moki was pretty excited to see me. Nothing like a reunion with your own dog to make you feel loved. She was happy to hang out right by me all day.

Conference weekend with family was great. It was so hard to go back to work this week after playing hard for so long. My heels have been so sore. Finally Tuesday night I popped all the blisters because they were killing me. The bottoms of my feet are still pretty sore but I think I am back on my normal sleep schedule so that is a plus. Now if the weather would just warm up so I can play outside more.

Headed back to Avalon

We woke up early again on our last day because we wanted to have time to eat and shop in Avalon before we caught the ferry at 6:45pm. It had rained all night so it was good to get up and try to dry out our tents a little. They were soaked. So annoying to have that on the last night. Oh well. We all woke up pretty early on our own so we were not in a big hurry. We started hiking around 8am. The morning started off beautiful but wet, not raining wet just wet from all the rain so our pants from the knees down were soaked.

First picture of the day.

 A couple miles into our hike we ran into the road. At this point there were two hiking options. Hike the road to Avalon, less mileage and not as steep, or hike the trail, more miles and lots of up and down. Amber and Jacklyn both had awful blisters so they opted to take the road and Aaron and I continued on the trail. We saw each other a couple of times the first hour or so and then they really went in opposite directions. If you look close in this picture you can see Amber and Jacklyn on the road:)

Aaron and I hiked fast and hard. My feet were actually so DONE this entire day. I was pretty miserable the last couple of hours. The end of a long week and I just wanted to sit down. It makes it worse when you can see the end destination and know you still have miles of hiking left. UGH!!!

We finally made it to Avalon and met up with Amber and Jacklyn. Hopefully they hadn't been waiting too long. The final stats for the day were we hiked 11.02 miles, 4:16.26 hiking time, with an average 23'15 minute per mile pace. We lost in elevation so my watch didn't give me the elevation stat.

First order of business in Avalon was to ditch the bags and get some food.

We ate pizza and then we hung out on the main road in Avalon. We took turns shopping and watching the backpacks. It was a very low key afternoon. We also got some pictures.

Always happiest when you know you are finished:)

Group shot.

 I liked our group. The trip seemed to work out well. Most of us got out of our hiking shoes ASAP.

 Aaron and Jacklyn were nice enough to put their packs back on and take pictures on the pier with me. I could not resist the bright colors.

Hey I know those guys they are kind of cute.

 I just love the paint on the pier.

 And really we didn't have anything better to do.

And the last shot of my pack

 We got some ice cream, walked out to Lovers Cove, and then just waited for the ferry. It was a beautiful evening.

 Last group shots of the trip.

 Finally time to board.

 Overall for the week my apple watch said I hiked 50.46 miles in 5 days. That is the most I have ever hiked in one trip. It was also the longest backpacking trip I have ever done. Overall I really enjoyed it. It was nice that they had some kind of bathroom in every campsite. Most of the campsite also had out door showers. It was awesome to be able to buy food at Two Harbors and the airport so we could pack a little less. April was the perfect time to go to Catalina. I used every single thing I packed which was great. My only complaint was that it was kind of expensive. When you consider travel from Utah to LA and back, parking at the port, ferry tickets and then expensive camping fees it was not cheap, but it was worth it to do once. I am grateful I know a few crazy people who like to adventure.

We got back to the port at 8:30. Said our goodbyes to Aaron and Jacklyn and them Amber and I drove to Las Vegas. I feel like we made it to Vegas a little afer 1am. Thanks to the podcast Crime Junkies for keeping us awake! Katie and Parley waited up for me, so nice. We visited and I took an amazing shower. Finally crawled in bed and slept like a champ.

General Conference started on Saturday the 6th. I watched the first session with Katie. Then we hot tubbed one last time before I had to leave. Amber and I tried to catch the afternoon session while driving. It was hit and miss due to reception. we made it home around 7pm and I was able to do laundry and put away all my CRAP before I went to bed.

Nastiest pile of dirty clothes EVER!

What a fun adventure!

Little Harbor to Black Jack

We decided to get up and be hiking by 8am on Thursday. Mainly because we had two people with lots of blisters and we didn't know what our pace would be and because we wanted to get to the airport in time to have lunch. So we set alarms and woke up early to start hiking pretty close to 8am. The morning was cloudy and like usual we started by hiking uphill.

Found our sign as we were leaving the campground

 I didn't think Catalina Island believed in switchbacks until this day. Finally on the fourth day of hiking we had some switchbacks. It made the going uphill much more pleasant.

 We hiked in cloud cover most of the morning which was really nice. We went uphill for most of the morning but because of the switchbacks it wasn't crazy steep.

My favorite purchase of the year so far has been my backpacking chair. It weighs one pound and is my most favorite thing ever. I pulled it out whenever we took breaks on the trail.

People without a chair resting on the trail.

How my pack likes to rest on the trail:)

Hey guys wait up!

The flowers were one of my favorite things this trip!

 We made it to the airport in great time. It was amazing to be able to order real food while backpacking. It also felt great to get my pack off for a while.

 The food was sooooo YUMMY! Bison Burgers for everyone.

 The cookies also came highly recommended. They were good but nothing to brag about. The burger was amazing.

We finally got a cute group picture taken by some random person. The sun came out at lunch which was lovely.

 Most the cactus we saw looked the same. At the airport there was this one that was soooo crazy looking.

 We spent more than an hour eating, resting and charging our phones. It was great. As we left I got a picture.

 We didn't have to far to hike after lunch so that was nice.

 It is always nice to see a sign that lets you know that you are close.

 This was the only campground not on a beach. Kind of a bummer for the last night. It was also on a hill so that was obnoxious.

We had a Bison hanging out in camp with us the entire afternoon and evening. If you look close he is in the back of my selfies.

 The craziest thing happened while we were hanging out in the evening by the fire. Just as it started to get dark a bunch of Bison started to come down the hill and into camp. They were kind of hanging out up above all the campsites. We had a great fire going (thanks Aaron) and were just relaxing and watching these Bison. We watched one Bison get closer and closer to some other campers tent. Eventually it was right at their tent snorting. Snorting so LOUD! It was very nerve racking. The guy in the tent turned on his flashlight and jumped out. That seemed to scare the Bison because he came running straight towards us. YIKES! Luckily he stopped short and then just did some more grazing. We were all a little nervous after that. It was annoying that they just blended in with the dark night so we could hear them but not see them. They seemed to go back up the hill before we went to bed. It started raining which forced us to be kind of early. That was sad because it was the best fire we had all week. Then it proceeded to rain all night. BOOOOOOO!

Day four ended up being great. We hiked 8.92 mile, 2,603 ft elevation gain (the most of any day), 3:54.09 was our hiking time and we averaged 26'14 minutes a mile.