Sidnee and I had the pleasure of serving as a Ma and Pa on our stake's Trek this year. We were paired up with a wonderful bunch of kids. We had never done Trek before and we aren't your traditional campers. In fact, we hate camping. I don't see the pleasure in it. You are dirty, tired, bug infested, and sleeping on the ground all the time and that just doesn't sound like fun. Not only does it not sound like fun, it isn't fun! All of that being the case we still enjoyed our three days in the Oregon wilderness with those kids. This first pic is of our "family" at the beginning of the trail.
Sidnee was a little pooped when we got to the first night's camp. She laid right down on that tarp and took a little nap.
Not sure what river this is but it's along the Barlow Trail and we crossed it several times.
This was on the afternoon of day two. The men had been drafted into the Mormon battalion and had to leave camp right after breakfast. The women were left to pack everything up and bring the cart along. This is the reunion on the middle of a huge uphill. The men where just sitting around for an hour or two waiting for the women and the women had been pulling the cart by themselves so I think there was mutual excitement to see each other again.
The aforementioned hill...still going. We pulled uphill at a pretty good incline for about two hours. It was very hard.
Our three oldest girls, Jessica, Kylie, and Victoria.
After we conquered the first huge hill there was a resting area. Warm stew, hair and foot washing stations and some activities for the kids. Sidnee was giving me her best smile.
Me, supervising the first water crossing preparation.
The first of three water crossings. The water crossings were fun. Most of the time we were hot and tired so the cool clean water was wonderful.
Breakfast in the rain on day three. Sidnee described it best as saying it was like being fully dressed, standing in the shower, and trying to scramble eggs all at the same time. Fun!
This is us and the Gillespies. Richie and Erin are good friends of ours and we were lucky enough to be in the same company with them.
Afternoon of day 3 found us at the foot of our stake presidency.
This is a good picture of our entire family. We had two kids from the Dalles Stake and the rest from our stake. We were on the home stretch here and had just had a wonderful noon break of personal scripture study and reflection.
At the first water crossing we had an issue with tying shoe laces together in a million knots so this is me giving instruction on how to do it so we don't have to cut your laces to separate the shoes this time.
Mud hole crossing
Sidnee, riding one of the boys across the mud hole.
Nice clean water crossing after the mud hole crossing.
I like this picture the most. It looks like we are actual pioneers crossing actual plains.
The last and deepest water crossing.
Helping Ma cross the creek.
At the end of day three they held all the companies up so that we were all coming into "the valley" at the same time. This was the scene for a quarter mile. There were a total of 300 kids on this Trek so it was a massive group.
It was pretty chaotic at the end so I didn't get any pictures. Everyone was hot and tired and just wanted to go home. The end.
Crossing the finish line! He did it,! Tired, injured, and humbled, but he did 26.2 miles! Way to go Daniel! We are so proud of you! 
