Bryce Canyon National Park - Early June

Here are some highlights of our trip. After the pictures I detailed our trip if you are interested.

Our first night in Colorado, camping on public lands

Battling a very windy ridge

Some cool views from this trail

Our hiking lovers

Notice the hiking trail below. We hiked that later in week.
A Rim Trail view


Jay with his birthday brownies

The trails were pretty nice to hike on

A great spot for a lunch break Fairyland Trail

Jonathan on the Fairyland Trail

This Navajo trail is very populated and has many switchbacks. It was fun to hike. Jesse kept switching sides of my hands to stay safe on the inside lane. That was his idea.

People marveled at Jay with Jedaiah on his back, especially the foreigners. Many asked to take his picture.

One of my favorite parts of the hike. This tree was deep in the canyon. It is amazing it was able to grow.

Here James is fixing Josiah's blistered feet up with moleskin. Notice Rachel's swollen face. We never did figure out why that happened. She just woke up with it that morning and it went away a couple days later.

The "queen" at Queen's Garden

James and Jonathan got up early for sunrise on Thursday morning. Here's the sight they saw.

This was at Bryce Point

We had to take a tour bus to get to our hiking starting point for our backpacking overnight down in the canyon. This is one of the things we saw. The tour was educational and the kids enjoyed riding the bus.

Most of the time Jonathan carried this pack, but here Josh was giving it a try. Josh carried Jesse some, but most of the time he didn't have to.

We were so happy to finally make it to camp after seven and a half miles of hiking. Here we are setting up the tents. The campsite was right beside a creek and the kids enjoyed playing in that a lot of the evening while we cooked dinner and cleaned up. James hung up our food in a tree to keep it away from any bears.

The hike out of the canyon was four miles with a lot of elevation gain. There was the threat of rattlesnakes and we had to keep alert. We never did see any, which was just fine with us.

I took this picture near the end of our hike. Josiah had a hard time hiking up the long hills in the hot sun, but he made it. Josh even carried his pack some while Jesse was on his back. That was uncharacteristic of him, but so nice to help his brother out.

Rachel at a waterfall at Singletree campground in Utah.

A cool sight among many on the drive homeward.

Now for the long version of our trip:

Day One: We left before 3:00 a.m. early Sat. morning. We had an uneventful drive to Rifle Gap State Park. We arrived at around 7:00 p.m. and the campgrounds were full. We started to come up with alternate plans when the ranger said we could camp on some public lands close to the park. That worked out splendid and it was free! We had a nice place for the tent - once we pushed the cows away. We roasted hot dogs and marshmellows for dinner. It was a cold night, but not too bad; we stayed warm.

Day Two: In the morning we packed up and headed to Walmart for a few items, including a digital camera surprise for Jay's birthday. He was very happy about that. We made it to Bryce Canyon and the campground by 4:00 p.m. The campground we were staying at had a sign that said, "no tents". It ended up being okay to have a tent - we were so glad about that. After setting camp and eating dinner, we went to sneak a peek at the canyon. We walked a small distance on the Rim Trail. It was quite lovely.

Day Three: We ate breakfast and then prepared for our day hike. We hiked the Rim Trail for about four miles. Jesse hiked it all himself - without any complaints (can't say the same about Josh. Hiking is just not his thing. Maybe Jesse likes hiking so much because he was created at the Grand Canyon, where our love for hiking began.) Our hike was so windy, we had to hold the little kids' hands because we were concerned they might blow down into the canyon. We were done hiking by 3:00 and ventured to the visitor's center. After dinner we enjoyed brownies for Jay's birthday, which we made over the campfire. They were scrumptous.

Day Four: Today we hiked the Fairyland Loop for 5.5 miles. James and the older boys went to a ranger program for a second night in a row.

Day Five: This day we hiked the Navajo / Queen's Garden hike for 2.5 miles. This was a really cool hike, especially the Navajo part. Josiah got blisters on his feet from no socks. We took time to relax in the afternoon and prepared for our departure the next day to our backpacking trip. The kids got their junior ranger badges on this day also.

Day Six: James got up early with Jonathan to see the sunrise at Bryce Point. Then we got packed up after breakfast and boarded the tour bus with all our gear. We did the tour which was educational, and got off at our starting point at Swamp Creek. We hiked 7.5 miles to our campsite. Jay carried Jedaiah. Josh carried Jesse a little, but Jesse hiked a lot of it. We climbed about 1200 feet throughout the day. We were happy to get to the creek, which was close to camp, as we were out of water. We made it to our site at 6:30; just under 7 hours after we started. We enjoyed the evening and the kids had a great time playing in the creek. James hung our food in a tree to keep it from bears.

Day Seven: We got going on Friday morning about 10:00 and hiked 4 miles out and uphill mostly. It was slow. James' camelbak bladder leaked all over him and his pack. Josiah's feet needed more aid and no rattlesnakes were spotted. We made it to the top about 2:45. While we waited for the shuttle we chatted with a couple older ladies who were real interested in our family and our trip. One lady had seven children herself. The other lady thought we were as much a "marvel" as Bryce Canyon itself. That's a compliment.

We drove the scenic route to head home through the Grand Staircase Escalante. That was a pretty cool drive. James said it was the scariest road he's ever driven on. We camped at a little campground called Singletree CAmpground. It was right off the road and worked great for us. James took the older kids on a small hike in the a.m. to a waterfall. His insulin wasn't working well, so they didn't do the whole one mile hike.

Day Eight: We continued the scenic drive through Capital Reef National Park. The drive was beautiful. We just stopped by the visitor's center, but we hope to return to the park for some hiking someday. For dinner we stopped north of Denver at Crackerbarrel. This is always a highlight for our kids whenever we vacation. It has become quite a tradition. Crackerbarrels are hard to find out West so careful planning is important with that. We drove through the night and made it safely home about midmorning on Sunday.

We are Excited to Announce...

There is another little Bockhorst being made by our wonderful Creator. The heartbeat is strong and everything is going good so far. I'm fourteen weeks along and am due December 15 as is my niece, Heather. How cool is that!!

I have been far too busy to post lately. We just got back from a great vacation to Utah last week. I am going to write about that in the next week or so, if I can find the time between opening the pool, working in the garden and keeping the house relatively clean. Today I harvested garlic that I planted last Fall. I also dug up a few potatoes and had one for lunch with some fresh peas (also from my garden) on it and some milk. I would have used cream, the way my grandma used to serve, but I didn't have any. It was tasty. I've also harvested beets, spinach, lettuce, broccoli and raddishes so far. I will be glad to get the weeds under control. They got out of hand in last weeks heat and my absense.

Hopefully I'll post again soon.

Rachel Cried Amost all the Way Home From the Game

"Rachel?" "Rachel?" "Rachel?" "Rachel?" "Rachel?" says Jesse. "What?" Rachel says. "When you get home you can have some ice cream," Jesse announces. I say, "No, Jesse, Rachel can't have ice cream because we already had ice cream today." "Rachel, I'll share MY ice cream with you."

What a sweet boy, trying to comfort his tired, unhappy sister. I just love the things that come out of that boy's mouth. I had to tell him he wasn't getting any ice cream either to which he said nothing. It was the end of that conversation, but it was a moment of joy I wanted to remember. Rachel was comforted and asleep by the time we arrived home (the drive is only about seven minutes).

Ozark Trail

This past weekend we went away on a backpacking trip to celebrate 17 years of marriage (which is coming up June 11th). We got down to Leasburg, MO about 10:30 and took a shuttle (pickup truck ride) to our starting point. Once we finally figured out the way to go (the signs weren't the best), we started out. It was a beautiful day for a hike and we walked about seven miles until we found a good place to camp. It started raining about the time we got camp all set up. We had a tarp to cook dinner under, so it worked out. The tent we have is tiny, so it was cramped. We intentionally took the smaller tent because our packs were already heavy enough. Anyways, it rained most of the night, but the sun came out in the morning. Friday was a great hiking day. We hiked about 11 miles. We were both pretty sore. We had to cross this river, which was quite an adventure. James made three trips across and carried the packs. I was good to get myself across and I barely did that. We set up camp and had a nice campfire. It started storming early the next morning and we had to pack up and hike out four miles in the rain. It was okay. Overall we had a nice time away and enjoyed the time together. We hiked 22 miles total and my muscles are just starting to feel better. It was the longest backpacking trip for me to date.

Here's the fast flowing Courtois (Code-a-way) River where we crossed
Drying off from the river crossing. James made it across with out getting the packs wet, except for the bottoms. The river was waist high on James and was flowing fast.

Our camp the second night. See how small that tent is?

On the trail we didn't see any other hikers. The only wildlife we saw was some frogs, a turtle and some cows that we spooked into a stampeed. That was interesting!

Awana Finishes Up

Here are the kids with their Awana awards. They had a great year and memorized lots of verses. This was Jonathan's last year and next year he will probably be a youth helper. As a family we have been memorizing Colossians chapter three. We are almost finished. Last year we memorized Romans twelve and we'll probably go back and review that one. After that, we'll start on another chapter, I'm just not sure which one yet.

Happy Easter

Easter Sunday after church

This year for the Easter Scavenger Hunt I had Jonathan put the eggs together, come up with the clues and then hide the eggs. It was a challenge for him and it sure helped me out, since I was busy with other Easter preparations. Here they are ready to go.

Josiah jammed his finger, playing baseball, so he wasn't up to participating.

Enjoying the candy at the end and celebrating the true treasure of Jesus Christ.

Sickness, Gardening, School and Busyness...

We had a rough week last week with a stomach bug. Jedaiah and Jesse got it the worst. They both had it for five days, but Jesse was two days behind Jedaiah. Neither of them are good at throwing up in the bowl or toilet. It was a long seven days, but praise God, I never got it myself. We are so glad to be done with that.

My tiller broke and has been in the shop for over a week now. I got everything in the garden that I wanted to for now. The next big planting is in May. Hopefully I'll have the tiller back by then.

We had a scare last Friday when we lost Jedaiah for a time. I noticed I hadn't seen Jedaiah in a while and started to look for him. We couldn't find him anywhere, inside or out. Oh, it was so scary. He is not one to wonder off, but the boys headed on their bikes down the road. I was praying and crying and I thought to check the van. Sure enough he was in the van. No one know how he got in the van. He can't open or close the doors to the house or the van. Someone was involved.

I made the decision recently to change curriculum for our school. I'm doing it mainly for Josh and Jay, who I think will thrive and enjoy doing school with this new curriculum called "My Father's W0rld". I used to think I didn't have time to do a curriculum that required more of my time, but now I spend so much time grading and reteaching, that I think this will free me up some and I think the kids will learn better. We're starting soon and will ease into it over the summer. We'll start using it full-time in September. That is the plan anyways.

We're heading into a busy social season with Easter, Graduations, Mother's Day, Birthdays, Father's Day and then there is our anniversary trip in May and our vacation to Utah in June. That doesn't leave much time for our projects we have going at home. I haven't done much lately in the basement and my garden fence is about half built. Baseball practice consumes a lot of James' time and the games haven't even started yet. I'm learning to be at peace with things undone. Some things are more important.