Sunday August 2, 2015
Cassidy -

Can you believe it's August???

So - about your letter last week...I'm so glad you got to go to Buchenwald. That's definitely an experience that you should have while you're there! The pictures were so sad. I can only imagine the feeling there and I'm impressed and understand how that could make you feel a pure love. I can understand how it is still hard for the people there to understand too. So glad you got to go!

Questions for this week:

*The Gemeinde Abend (thanks for the translation) sounds like a ward FHE, but you said only with the Gera members? So there's part of the ward that's not invited?

*How old is Lucy? And we can't figure out if she's a member you're working with or if she's being taught from the beginning?

*How many people are in the Meckel family and can you take a picture?

I think that's all.

I'm thinking you'll find out here really soon if not already about transfers coming up. I know it'll be hard to leave Sister Medley. Stay positive.

So about our week here...

Monday/Tuesday we went camping. We left Monday around 10am. We were going just a couple hours away to the Mirror Lake area in the Uintas. It's above a town called Kamas (by Park City kind of). We rented a bike rack and took 3 bikes with us. Later we found out that the rack dented the back of the van because the bikes were so heavy. We got all the way to Kamas and stopped for a potty break. While there I thought to ask River if she had remembered her tennis shoes because she just had sandals on. She had put them in a bag but left them in her room. Soooo, we had to look around Kamas (very small town) for shoes. We found some at a discount outdoors store. They're really nice, but boys shoes so of course she won't wear them now that we're home. I think Hadlie will use them for PE. When we found the outdoors store it happened to be right next to Volkers bakery! The bakery from our farmers market. The kids all wanted to go in and get bread but we told them we'd get it on the way home so it'd be good when we went home. It was of course closed on Tuesday when we went home. St. John luck.

The drive to the campsite was really pretty. There are a bunch of lakes up there. As we were driving I was noticing the temperature dropping and dropping and dropping. When we got settled at what campsite we were going to stay at (Butterfly Lake, with no butterflies) it was only about 62 degrees right in the middle of the day. Which of course means that the night was very cold. The weather was good still though. We got everything set up and settled and then drove down the road to Mirror Lake. We did a little walk around the lake (about a mile) and took some pictures. Then we headed back to our campsite. We got our dinner started and then went for a little walk to Butterfly Lake. We ate dinner which turned out awesome. BBQ chicken, dutch oven potatoes and rolls cooked in the dutch oven (they turned out perfect this time)! After dinner we had a fire, made smores and Hadlie and River kept busy on the bikes. Sidenote - River had been complaining for days that she didn't want us to take the bikes, that she couldn't ride the bigger bikes we have because of shifting the gears. Wouldn't you know that once there she made up her mind differently and that was her favorite thing. Riding around the campgrounds on the bikes!

We actually went to our tent before it was even all the way dark. We were all cold. We played Phase 10 in the tent and did 5 rounds and Colten never made it past Phase 1. You can imagine how happy that was. The night was very cold. There were some really funny moments though. I got the giggles before bed because Dad and I were trying to sleep with River on an air mattress and we decided to zip 2 sleeping bags together. After we made River get in with us she said, "This is not how I thought it was going to be." Meaning the sleeping. She had kept saying she was excited to go to sleep in the tent. Ha! It made me laugh so hard. Then there was of course the farting of the boys who claim, "anything goes while camping." Hadlie had to go to the bathroom at 3am and it felt like we'd been trying to sleep for many more hours than that. She wouldn't go just outside, so dad took her over to the bathroom. The bathrooms were really not so great. Nothing like last year's experience. We made it through the night and had a good breakfast before packing up to go home. When we went to leave Hadlie wouldn't sit in the back like we were asking her to. Dad ended up having to physically put her in the car and then we were on our way. And the car battery was dead! We had to have the campers next to us jump our car.

After coming home we re-set everything up and cleaned tarps and the tent, etc. Camping is a lot of work. We put everything away and then Dad and I (we couldn't get anyone else to come) went for a bike ride on the River trail. It was fun! We even wore helmets.

The rest of the week's highlights were...

Ricky and Natalie's baby Violet was born! She's cute!

We hiked on Friday as a family plus Papa to Timp Caves. I'm sorry the last time we did this was with you in a stroller. I promise to go with you next summer! I'm trying my best to be more active this summer and I think I've done a pretty good job. But it makes me feel a little bad that you're not here. We'll have to do a few things next summer!

AND lastly...because we've been to the high school a time or two in the last few weeks for Colten's schedule/senior appointment I thought to ask about your DIPLOMA! And tell Colten thank you because he went this week and picked it up after they found it for you!

I'll send pictures now.

Love - Mom

PS - I got your garments and am sending them tomorrow which is probably bad timing and you'll have to wait another month to get them! Sorry. I also wanted to know if you'd like us to send any of your notebooks/journals from your room to write in? Are you in need of anything else???