Betsy's Birthday and My Mt. Whitney Climb

Austin Before hair cut

Austin After hair cut ( I realize now that I look at this picture, she went back in and got another inch cut off, so it is a little shorter than this.

While preparing for my mountain climb, I would do my housework wearing my hiking shoes and carrying Malachi in the hiking backpack, he would fall asleep a lot in this

For one of the games at Betsy's party, One of the guest would stand in the middle of the bulls-eye (made with sidewalk chalk) and each person would get a chance to hit the person standing in the bulls-eye with 3 wet sponges 

Austin throwing the wet sponges

Betsy opening up her presents

Betsy blowing out her candles

Malachi enjoying Betsy's birthday cake

Daddy copying Malachi

Beautiful Betsy wearing the sweater her Grandma Hardy made for her, Austin likes it too

At Texas Roadhouse, for Betsy's Birthday dinner, Malachi loves the butter!

Betsy loves her birthday dinner

Malachi loves the butter so much!

Austin with a straw mustache

Caleb talking to the people at the table behind us

Malachi's face covered in butter

Drive up to Mt. Whitney with Josh

Took this picture of the cliff, thinking it looked cool.  At the time I had no idea we were actually going to climb up it!

Looking down from the top of the cliff

Climbed up the big rock in the middle to get to our base camp

Made it to the base camp, at over 11,000 ft

At the summit, at over 14,400 ft tallest mountain in the contiguous United States.  

View from the summit

View from the summit

All of us at the summit!! (from left to right) Kyle, Misha, Dad, Me, Josh

Misha at the summit

This is a picture of the halfway point of the "chute", it was crazy, but we all made it.  

Sunrise on summit day

This is at iceberg lake, right before the "chute" 

Our entire group, after we made it back down to the trailhead. from left to right: our guide Matt, Josh, Dad, Me, Misha, Kyle, and our guide Neil.

Josh and I driving through Death Valley on our way to Las Vegas

Gas prices in death valley, $5.98 per gallon for unleaded gas....crazy....they really take advantage of you being in the middle of nowhere

Sand dunes in death valley

At the park, a little girl found Caleb and wants to hold his hand all the time

She really likes Caleb

They were so cute together

"Baby's" (chicken) hiding place for her eggs, we found after almost two weeks

Malachi loves the downward facing dog

Austin with her first self portrait she drew for art class 

Malachi hurt his hand

My stomach was hurting so I was laying down on the bed, so Malachi thought it would be fun to sit on my back, and of course, bounce.  

Malachi loves riding his little horse

While waiting in the car for the kids to come out from church activities, Samuel colored on both Caleb and Malachi with green dry erase marker with a bunch of green dots.  Caleb was not happy

Malachi's green dots

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The past month has been busy.  Betsy is 10 years old now!  She had a birthday party with a couple of friends from school, and had a blast playing lots of different games and eating yummy food.  I can't believe I now have three children in the double-digits!  After Betsy's birthday it was a whirlwind of activity trying to get ready to leave for California.  I was shopping, and packing, and planning, and preparing the kids and Travis for five days without me.  I made videos on the computer for Caleb and Malachi, and made a book for Caleb explaining where I was, and what he could do while I was gone.  Finally the day arrived.  The kids dropped me off at the airport on the 27th right before school.  Samuel did not want me to leave, he told me he was going to hide in my suitcase (hiking backpack) and come with me.  It was so weird traveling without all my children.  Okay, maybe peaceful is the better word.  I actually got to relax, and read.  In my first flight I ended up sitting next to a young man on his to the MTC in the Philippians.  We had some good conversation, and afterward he told me, that he had been really worried about that first flight alone, and that I was heaven sent.  I walked with him until he had met up with the rest of the missionaries he was traveling with in the Salt Lake City airport, and we said goodbye.  Josh picked me up from the Las Vegas airport after my second flight, and we drove another 4 1/2 hours to lone pine, CA.  It was fun to travel with my brother, and get to know a little more about his life.  We arrived at the campground, near the trail head, and right away, were told by my dad, Misha, and Kyle, that the bears were a big problem, and we had to be really careful to keep food, and anything scented in the bear proof containers, and to not even lay our packs down for a second, or the bears would snatch them up.  We had dinner, smores, and played cribbage (I'm pretty sure my Dad creamed us).  We got up early the next morning, and took down our campsite and drove down to Lone Pine for a pack check, and to meet our guides.  They had us take everything out of our packs, and separate our things into "go" and "no go" piles.  We had to get rid of any changes of clothing, deodorant, personal items, and extra snacks. (we realized we were going to get very stinky, wearing the same clothes for three days with no deodorant).  We headed back up to the trail head and "bear proofed" the cars,  Then we started our hike.  The first mile of so was pretty normal hiking, but then the guides stopped us for a moment, and told us that was just the "highway" and the real trail was about to begin.  There was lots of steep hiking, climbing, bouldering, and stream crossing.  We climbed one area called the "ledges" that was like climbing up a cliff.  We would stop for a break about every hour, and eat and drink, and have a potty break if need be.  The guides told us, if we weren't hiking we needed to be eating.  Everybody seemed to be able to keep a good pace, except for my Dad, he struggled to keep up, and would frequently fall behind, so we would stop and wait for him.  We still made good time and made to our base camp at 11,000 ft in the early afternoon, so we were able to enjoy the lake nearby, and relaxing in our campsite.  Our guides made a dinner, that was a little on the spicy side for me, but we had to keep eating it, because we couldn't waste any food, and we couldn't have any leftovers.  We went to bed early, and woke up at 3am to continue our climb up to the summit.  We had to eat as much oatmeal as we could for breakfast before heading out, I really didn't want any oatmeal that early in the morning, and it made me feel a little sick to eat it all.  We had my Dad go first once we started hiking, so that he wouldn't fall behind again.  We started out hiking with our headlamps since it was still dark.  My headlamp wasn't very bright, so I hiked right behind Kyle, since he had the brightest headlamp.  The sunrise was beautiful!!  We made it to an area with another lake, and had to put on our harnesses and helmets, to go up the "chute", and left our trekking poles behind, to get on the way back.  You can see a picture of the "chute" above, it was pretty crazy.  We were climbing up, using our hands most of the way, and trying not to knock loose rock onto everyone.  We made it up that area and then had to tie together to our guide with a rope for the next part.  I tied together with Kyle and Josh, and we rock climbed up to the very top of the summit.  It was awesome!!  We all made it!! We took some time to sign the register and take pictures, We climbed to the top of the highest mountain in the 48 contiguous United States!!  Now the part that made me really nervous, going down!!  I'm used to rappelling down, once I have climbed up something, so this part was a little tricky, but once again we all made it safely down.  Once we got down the "chute" I had to pee so bad, I thought I would burst, I practically ran to the closet rock to pee behind, once I got my pack and harness off.  It made my stomach hurt for a while, but then I was fine.  We made it back down to our base camp in the late afternoon, so we had been hiking/climbing for about 12 hours.  That was a tiring day, but was also awesome!  I was having a little trouble, because for some reason, even though I had weaned Malachi from breastfeeding completely before I left, my milk decided to come back in once I got up to the base camp, and made me very uncomfortable.  That night, it got a little windy, and I kept thinking a bear or critter was getting into my pack near the tent, so between that and my discomfort I didn't sleep well.  But we got up the next morning, forced down our oatmeal, and packed up the camp.  We hiked/climbed down the rest of the mountain, when we got to the ledges area again, it made me really nervous, I almost slipped once, because my pack kept throwing my balance off, but I was able to catch myself.  I was praying a lot! Towards the end of our hike my legs were getting so tired, that whenever we stopped for a break, my legs would start shaking.  We made it all the way down, took a picture by the sign at the beginning of the trail, stating how difficult the trail is, and then weighed our packs to see how much we had been carrying.  Mine was 27 lbs at the bottom, which is of course after having drunk all the water, and eaten the food.  Dad, Misha, Kyle, and Josh and I went to a souvenir shop and my Dad bought us all T-shirts that say we climbed Mt. Whitney.  Then we drove back to Lone Pine and ate at a diner, some real food, it was delicious.  Josh and I drove back to Las Vegas, going through Death Valley, which was kind of fun, going from the highest point in the U.S. to the lowest point.  We checked into a hotel in Las Vegas, and got to take a wonderfully, blissful hot shower.  It felt so good to be clean.  We were both so sore and tired, we just ordered pizza, and watched a movie in our hotel room.  It was awesome to sleep in a real bed again.  The next morning, we ate a real breakfast, at the hotel, and then Josh left to drive home.  I took a shuttle to the airport a while later, and flew home.  Travis had texted me before I left for the airport that he was at the hospital with Malachi, he had split his chin open while taking a bath.  I was so worried about my little baby, I couldn't get home soon enough.  It was nice to come home, and be with my family again.  I think they all missed me, Malachi and Caleb in particular wanted me to hold them a lot.   Travis did a great job taking care of the kids while I was gone, and I had such a wonderful time with my Dad and siblings.
Austin started her online school right after I got back, and it has taken us a while to get used to it.  It has taken a lot more time then I thought it would, but she has been a really good about doing her school work even into the evening to get it all done.  She really enjoys her art, and french classes.  Malachi gets into all sorts of trouble.  He walks all over the place, and climbs up everything.  A lot of the time I have to put him in my hiking backpack, just so I can get some cleaning done.
Samuel has started violin club, and Betsy has started yearbook club.
I started watching a little girl in our ward, whose Mom is a single solider in the morning starting at 5 am, and then I take her to school and drop her off with Betsy and Samuel.  It has made me more productive in the mornings, but I am much more tired at night.  But she gets along well with our family, and in return she watches our kids once a month on a Saturday so that Travis and I can go to the temple.  We went yesterday to the temple and it was really nice.  We also had a day retreat on Friday at a resort here in town, and had a good time at that, and picked up the kids after school was out, and came back to the resort and swam in their pool for about 3 hours, it was a lot of fun.