Pioneer Trek

Clean and fresh before we started. Don't we look authentic? I sewed my pioneer outfit myself! There was so much preparation that went into our trek to Martin's Cove, and it was a wonderful experience! Here's a synopsis that is about as brief as I can make it.

We all had to learn to square dance. Devin got pretty good at it. Here he is doing a good job of doe-see-doeing (how do you spell that?!) his partner, Kayla Payne! Del and I tried, but we never did get it down. In fact, we were pretty lousy and often crashed into other people! The youth were each given a harmonica and lessons by Matt Wadsworth. They were taught Come, Come Ye Saints, and I loved hearing my boys practice at home! Devin got pretty good at some that he learned on his own, like Come Thou Fount. I love that hymn!

Here we are at 4:00 in the morning, ready to start our 7 hour drive on school buses, which actually took 9 hours because of 4 extra bathroom stops! All for one girl who had a peanut bladder and kept secretly guzzling Pepsi! Doesn't Del look excited? I just look sleepy! 4 am is not my favorite time of the day! We didn't spend much time with Devin and Chris during the trip because they were assigned to different families and we pretty much stayed with our new families. This was ours:From the left is Kyle Kener, Jarom Denton, Jovani Hoskins, Del, me, Sophie Hofman, Amber Stiffler, and Courtney Gunter. They were great kids who got along, helped each other, and didn't complain! We heard from some of their real parents later that this is not always the case, but they sure were great on our Trek!

Here is Chris' family.

His parents were our good friends, Marty and Tawny Calder, who are wonderful people. I overheard Chris ask Devin after camp if he missed his trek family and then said that he sure did! I thought it was really sweet.

Here is Devin's family:

His parents were Merrell and Mindy Quayle, who are also wonderful people. Devin really enjoyed his family, too, since he got put with girls who wanted to do most of the handcart pushing. Most of the time I saw him, he was just sauntering casually along! The scenery was beautiful, but I have never been in a windier place in my life! It constantly blows hard, and the sand gets in your teeth, eyes, and mouth if you're not careful. These are the boys of Princeton Ward: Blake Bluemell, Patrick Riley, Tanner Teichert, Andrew Bringhurst, Pioneer Ofisa, Devin Symons, Aaron Geurts, Chris Symons, and Colin Jorgenson.

Below is the entire Princeton Ward group. I love them all, but there are too many to mention. The one in all black is Heather Winward, the one who did my handwriting analysis.

Here's a picture of me and my 3 girls doing the women's pull---definitely the hardest part of the whole week! It represents the time that the men and teenage boys were called to join the Mormon Battalion, and the women were left to do all of the work alone. Notice our family name---McPhail! What an ominous name! We wrote on our flag "We're not McPhailures!" because we did great! The hill was incredibly steep, rocky and sandy, but we did it! When we got to the top my legs were jelly! I looked around and saw all of the men and boys with their hats off in a show of respect to the women. It was really touching.

Another highlight of the week was the Sweetwater Crossing, representing the time the 3 young men from the rescue party carried the weakened pioneers across the frozen river. I love that story! Those young men had terrific mothers waiting for them back in Salt Lake who had raised them right! Here is a picture of my terrific young men crossing the Sweetwater. Not quite as dramatic, but they enjoyed it!

This is a sight I wasn't planning to see but I'm so glad I did! I don't like heights, and so I was just going to stay at the bottom and take pictures. Kayla was disgusted that I would settle for that, and so she basically pulled me up Independence Rock! I thought it would be scary coming down, but the granite rock is really grippy, so as long as you're careful, you can't fall.

Thanks Kayla!

The wind was so strong up there that it felt like we'd fly away!

Here is Del doing an incredibly impressive jump over a crack!

Chris and Devin kept climbing around like monkeys and jumping over big gaps! I couldn't watch!

One of the highlights of the trek (strangely enough) was when one of the elderly missionaries (in the picture here he was playing the part of Ephraim Hanks) had a heart attack. Fortunately, our Trek Master, Ben Call, is a cardiologist and was able to help him immediately. It was quite exciting to see a helicopter land right next to our picnic tables to take him to the hospital.

While we waited, we sang hymns, and then when they had taken him away, our whole stake knelt and prayed for his health. We heard later that he had come back to work 2 days later with a pacemaker. He sent our stake a letter the next week and expressed his appreciation and how powerfully he had felt our prayers for him. It was a wonderful lesson for us all about the power of prayer.

This tiny bag holds 8 oz. of flour, which was a full days ration in the beginning of the trail but enough for a mother and 2 children by the end. It is an absolute miracle that any of the pioneers survived. Although they went through incredible trials, the Lord truly blessed them for their sacrifices.

We had a wonderful time being pioneers for four days, and I definitely have an even greater appreciation for them and what they experienced. We walked 31 miles. They walked around 1300 miles. It was beautiful weather for us (other than an amazing thunderstorm!), while they experienced the harshest of winter weather. Our stake will be doing it again in 2013, and I'm excited that Maren will get to go next time. Maybe we will, too. Who knows?

June16th-19th

My Favorite "New" Movie!

I can't believe this movie has been out for 2 years and I just heard about it a couple of months ago (Thank You, Holly! And BBC!). I love it! I just watched it with my parents last night and they loved it, too! It wasn't as much fun watching it with them, though, because I couldn't skip back and watch the closing scene 3 times like I did before! Wow, that is a wonderful, romantic scene! The acting is great, and the plot is like Jane Austen meets Charles Dickens.

I just finished the book (it's by Elizabeth Gaskell) and I thought it was great, but the movie definitely makes it more romantic! We're reading it for Book Club in September, so I downloaded it to an mp3 player so I could listen to it while I did housework. It was so good that I didn't want to stop listening to it, so a couple of times, I tucked all of the cords into my shirt and took it grocery shopping with me! Ugh! I've always thought it was pathetic and antisocial when I've seen teenagers in public with earphones stuck in their ears, ignoring everyone around them. I guess I'm one of them now!

My Stars!

Maren and Emma just finished up a two week run of Disney's Jungle Book! This is the third musical they've been in with Sarah and Priscilla Hibbert, who love performing and keep talking them into joining them! I love it, though, because it's so fun to watch them, and I think it's really good for their confidence. Emma has decided that she wants to be in Broadway shows ever since she saw Wicked and realized that some people get paid to perform! Of course, they got nothing but satisfaction in a job well done for this show, as well as when they were in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Power in His Touch. Sorry girls!

Maren played the tail-end of Kaa the Snake. It was so fun how they slithered in on skateboards, head to foot! Very clever! She was a great snake tail and got to sing "Trust In Me" as well as lots of other songs.

Emma was a boppin' little Bumblebee! Those bees were so cute dancing around and singing! She had fun with that role, bobbing her antennae to the beat!

It was a fun group of kids and a fabulous director. They really had a good time! Now if they would only offer to pay them! Good luck with that, Emma!

Happy Anniversary, Baby!

It is incredibly hard to take a picture of yourself kissing someone! Whew! It took us a lot of tries! It was exhausting! :) Wow! I cannot believe that 20 years have flown by! It doesn't seem possible that we've already been married for 2 decades! How did that happen? When did we get so old?

So what big thing did we do to celebrate this momentous occasion? Well, when I bought tickets to Wicked almost a year ago, the plan was that we would spend the weekend in Salt Lake without the kids and have a fun weekend. Instead, we ended up taking the girls with us, so that kind of put a damper on a romantic celebration! We couldn't think of anything else we wanted to do that wouldn't cost a few hundred dollars more, so finally we settled on....

The World Famous Lava Hot Springs! We had a lot of fun! First, we ate at a Thai restaurant that some friends of ours have been bragging about. It was yummy! I couldn't pronounce anything we ate, (and the waiter/owner could barely pronounce it in English!), but it was delicious! After that, we went on a tour through Lava. Del's grandparents lived there, and he used to spend every summer there, so we had a lot to see and stories to tell. We also visited the cemetary so Del could "say hi" to his grandparents and great-grandparents. Funny thing to do on a date, huh! It is beautiful countryside, though.

Later, we soaked in the hot pools with a cute, wrinkly old couple, two large men in speedos with WAY too much hanging over the top and sides, and a tatooed mother and daughter finishing up a cross-country trip on their Harleys. Too bad I didn't have my camera in the pool! Obviously, we were sitting in the coolest pool where the old people are. The other ones were filled with beautiful young people in bikinis, and at age 39, I prefer not to sit anywhere near them!

And finally (don't I look surprised?) Del shocked and amazed me by being romantic! Two dozen perfectly beautiful red roses! 1 for each year plus 1 for each child! Isn't he sweet?

Here's to another 50 anniversaries!

Hurray for Maren!

Maren is the Hope of America! I knew she was sweet and brilliant, but now I have proof!

The Hope of America award is sponsored by the Kiwanas Club in Pocatello and honors 6th graders they feel are leaders in their schools. Each 6th grade teacher gets to choose 1 boy and 1 girl from their classroom. They have to have high grades, show integrity, and demonstrate teamwork with their classmates. Maren is definitely a good student (straight A's for 3 years!), and I'm always impressed that my shy little daughter will stand up for other students even though it scares her to death! She is a peacemaker and an all-around good kid! Congratulations, Maren! We're so proud of you!

Fun at Lagoon!

We had a really fun vacation a couple of weeks ago and school wasn't even out yet! Maren and Emma are in the Idaho State University Children's Chorus, and every year, they take a trip to Lagoon. This year we decided to take the whole family and make it a vacation! We also talked some friends who also have kids in the chorus into bringing their families, so our boys would have someone to hang out with (other than their boring parents!). It was a lot of fun!

Emma and Priscilla Hibbert were the perfect pals for going on rides together, and so were Maren and Sarah Hibbert, since they were a little braver! Much braver than I was! My kids keep teasing me because I only went on 5 rides, but I was perfectly content to watch them have a great time while I sat with the jackets and water bottles and talked to other chicken friends. I did try a few, though, and I LOVED Rattlesnake Rapids! That was great, even though we got soaked!

Del was NOT happy about getting all wet, and I was laughing so hard at his sopping wet face that I couldn't stop! Unlike what you may think, this picture shows me laughing and pointing at Del, NOT picking Sarah Hibbert's nose!

I got soaked, too, but just as we went under the waterfall, I bent over, so my back was sopping wet, but my front was pretty dry. Smart, huh, Del! Bet you wish you'd thought of that!

We never did get a picture of all of us together at the park, but here we are with the girls as we waited in the long line to get wet! It was worth it!
Devin and Chris spent the day with Tyler and Trent Winder and had lots of fun without us! We managed to get a picture of Devin, but there is no proof that Chris even came with us! The boys avoid cameras like all good Nielsons do, so you'll just have to imagine Chris' cute little face peering over Trent. Really, we brought him with us!

Devin had just been to Lagoon the day before with his class for an Engineering competition. Their school, Century, did really well! Their teams took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, and it was a regional competition! Devin rode the big roller coaster--Colossus--5 times that day and they all rode it 6 more times on Saturday! It was their favorite ride!


Michelle and Joe Winder are much braver than I am, so I didn't see them much except at lunch. They were off on the scary rides from the minute we got there! I spent most of the day with Farhana Hibbert, who is always great fun (and remembered to bring her camera! Thanks, Farhana!). What a fun day!

May 16th

Wicked!

After buying tickets 10 months earlier, seeing this screen directing us to our "One short day in the Emerald City" was sooooo exciting! We found out a couple of days before the show that a friend had two extra tickets, so we bought them and took the girls with us! They had really wanted to go ever since they found out that Becky and Dave were taking Katherine and Megan, so it worked out perfectly. Except for one tiny point: we had to let the girls sit down in our expensive seats so they could be by their cousins while Del and I took the cheaper balcony seats by our friends. Aren't we good parents?!




Here is a picture of the girls enjoying the nice seats right before the show. Del and I used little binoculars up in the balcony. The sacrifices we make for our kids! It was worth it, though. We could see fine, and it's an experience they'll never forget! The show was wonderful! Even better than I imagined! My only regret is that when I bought the tickets in August I didn't splurge and buy 6 tickets so the boys could have gone, too! They assured me that it would have been a waste of my money, but I know they would have secretly loved it!

Here we are after 3
hours of spectacular entertainment! You can't see it, but my toes are tapping, and I'm ready to break into singing and dancing around on the sidewalk. Luckily, Del was there to hold me back! There's something about hearing incredibly talented people sing that gives you the mistaken idea that you might be able to, too! Now that I'm home, of course, I do it all the time! Mostly in the shower, but my family occasionally gets to attend my concerts in the car, too! Lucky!

Becky and I both decided to wear ruby red slippers in honor of Oz, so here she is clicking her fashionable heels together. "There's no place like home..." Really, we were NOT ready to go home, yet! It was a great day, but way too short!

May 2nd