Trek Weekend

 I never got the chance to go on Trek. I don't recall the opportunity to go when I was a youth; I don't think our Stake did it. Four years ago, Victoria and Kade went for the first time. That was when I was in charge of Girl's Camp. This time, Jason is the Stake Young Men's president and was involved in the planning process. It was also the time that Erik and Austin would be able to go. 

As it got closer, I noticed they were still looking for a cook for Trek, so I volunteered to help with that. I figured this would be a good opportunity to go. I always felt envious of the people going on Trek. It sounds so fun!  By that time, Victoria had been asked to attend as well (I figured they'd ask the service missionary), and she would be the photographer. 

Luckily, I wasn't in charge of the cooking, only on the cooking team, which was just perfect! I helped "plan" the menu (really, the lead cook had planned it, I just agreed and gave a couple of suggestions). The only prep work I did was gather things from our ward building, which is also the Stake center, to use in the unstocked kitchen at camp. I didn't have to shop for any food since I was assigned the job of picking up the 38 pizzas for lunch on the first day. 

For dinner that night, we served a taco bar, with cobbler and ice cream for dessert. Breakfast both mornings consisted of scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage links, yogurt, granola, bananas, milk, and juice. We bought everything premade, and we just had to defrost and heat, which did take some time for 80+ people. Lunch on the second day was a hot dog bar with salad, dinner was a potato bar with all the fixings, and brownies with ice cream for dessert. The last day's lunch was sandwiches with fruit and chips. Obviously, the food wasn't pioneer food, but we wanted the kids to enjoy the food. Our lead cook's viewpoint was that if the food isn't good, then no one has a good time. And I fully agree with her! We had vegetarian, gluten-free, and dairy-free options. Most of the work involved dicing the tomatoes for the taco bar and then warming up, putting out, and cleaning up. It was pretty easy and so fun to observe the Trek happenings in first person, even if I didn't get to do the hikes with them. When I had free time, I walked around to see where their hikes were. I also enjoyed watching some of their games and the square dance evening, in which I was able to participate a bit.

38 pizzas!

Dicing tomatoes

River crossing

Tuff!

Erik and some friends.

I loved Erik's group's name!

Erik's team pulling.

Austin's team in a bind.

Hair washing time!

Victoria let some girls do her hair. 

We boiled water and filled a cooler with it while the potatoes were baking. Then we dumped the water out and put the baked potatoes in. They stayed piping hot!

Huge moth

Cooperative games

All the kids seemed to have had a great time. Victoria had great opportunities with the youth and took excellent pictures! Neither Erik nor I got poison ivy, a big worry of mine now. In fact, the only problem occurred literally 5 minutes before we left. Erik missed the football, but not after it connected with his pinkie. He went home with another family, and they got him ice at McDonald's. We were exhausted when we got home (we didn't sleep well at Trek), and Jason had a really bad cough. So we unpacked some things, ate dinner, and went to bed. Erik woke with major ear pain in both ears, and Kade wasn't feeling well, so they both stayed home from church on Father's Day. Jason wore a mask, even though he was with a lot of people at Trek; we were outside most of the time. 

We celebrated Jason with a breakfast of egg sandwiches on homemade sourdough I had made just before Trek and steak fajitas (my first time making steak, ever!) for dinner. Victoria helped me with the steak, which I needed. They turned out pretty good. The kids gave Jason a couple of gifts, and we had a very low-key day. Kade ended up having to go to work during dinner, but he spent some time with Jason in the morning. 

Sourdough bread with egg, turkey bacon, and cheese melted on it. 

Erik got him socks from when he was in Canada. 

Victoria got him a belt from when she was in Mexico. 

I allowed Austin to give him the candy I bought him. (Kade was working by this time.)

We saw the baby ducks in our front yard on Mother's Day, and Benito, our pet bunny that lives there now, graced us with his presence on Father's Day!

The cats love to watch Benito!!!

I made an appointment for Erik to get an X-ray at the Urgent Care on Monday morning, where they diagnosed him with swimmer's ear in both ears (funny, he wasn't swimming at Trek, but he did get dunked one time in the river they crossed). They also declared his pinkie broken. Guess which hurt him more- the ear pain. The break was near a growth plate, and he finally got his cast on Friday. 

Unfortunately, there's a major heat wave coming up this week. This cast is going to be dreadful.  

So Trek was fantastic, Father's Day was okay, and the week after Trek was uneventful. I guess that's the way it goes.