The Orchard Team Huddle

Mother's Day is a day of gratitude for me.  I know lots of women feel guilty for not being a good mom and I seem to do that on the other 364 days of the year.  Today, I'm grateful and appreciative of the beautiful  mom that raised me.  I'm grateful for the beautiful mom that raised my husband and I am deeply thankful I was picked to have this title.  I LOVE being a mom.  It's all I ever wanted to do.  And, I love the boys that made me a mom. The kids are always trying to get the dog in our pictures because they know I don't like it!  I tolerate the dog because the boys love her but she hasn't made the photo walls in our home.  This is the closest I think we will ever get.

I am a planner.  I rarely do things spontaneously.  I like to think things through and analyze and prepare and I usually make frugal and conservative decisions.   HOWEVER ...in the weeks leading up to Mason's 9th birthday I kept thinking about how much I wanted to take him to Disneyland, alone. We love to vacation there as a family but I wanted some special time with just him.  I told myself there were plenty of cheaper ways to have special time with a child but I couldn't shake the thought. In the weeks leading up to this crazy idea my dear friend lost her little boy to Lukemia.  It affected me in a deep way and all logic and reason went out the door.  I decided we were going! Sunday night I booked my airfare to leave the following Saturday!! Russell was already headed to California for work so I let him tag along for a few days. Day 1 This was our travel day.  By the time we got off the plane, picked up some supplies and checked into our hotel, ...

We have always been so busy with baseball that our family has not spent much time hiking.  It's something Russell has wanted to do and I was agreeable to but when?  A few years ago we hiked to Donut Falls but that is the only hike I can remember our family going on.  We talked about going to Ensign Peak since it was Pioneer Day.  We worried about the downtown crowd so Russell found a way to access the trail through North Salt Lake.  As we researched the hike the night before it seemed like it could potentially be 6 miles round trip.  We weren't sure how Mason would fare so we chose something a little shorter. We picked Cecret Lake (yep, correctly spelled!).  It was a close drive and the .9 mile hike seemed perfect. Being a holiday and all it was pretty crowded once we got to Alta.  They were shuttling people to the Albion campground where the hike begins.  The line for the shuttle was really long so we opted for the 1.6 mile hike to th...