September 6, 2014 ~ Pine Valley Cabin Trip
We had to take 2 separate cars to fit our whole family. Sam, Jordan, parents and I (Rachel couldn’t come because of school) were in one car. Carrie, Jeff and B were in the other car. On the way to Pine Valley we stopped in St. George for some dinner on Friday night. We don’t have Chick-fil-a in Las Vegas so we thought it would be fun to eat there. It was very good food, but a little pricey. Upon walking back to our car we noticed a puddle under our car. Clearly something was leaking and that isn’t good because we were about to go to the cabin which is nowhere near a car repair shop. So for about 20 minutes or so we were trying to establish what this leak was, but we were having no luck at all. Finally, I decided to call Jim, a mechanic in our ward, to see if he would know what it was. He said that it was just water leaking from condensation. That answer was good enough for us, and off we went to the cabin!
It was dark by the time that we arrived so we just played a couple games of pool with Jeff, Sam, my dad and I. the table was a little warped so we didn’t want to play too long, it kind of ruins the game. Then we just all hung out in the main room and talking and enjoyed each other’s company. I decided to sleep downstairs in the basement because I love sleeping in complete darkness. But it makes it difficult to wake up because it could be 10am in the morning but since it is pitch dark, it seems like 10pm at night.
Saturday rolled around and we did a few activities and just enjoyed the AMAZING weather of 75 degrees. We played some ping pong. Sam and I always get competitive when it comes to 2 things…basketball and ping pong. THIS time we were pretty evenly matched. All in all, I did win. We played 17 games (we go pretty quickly) I won 9 games to 8 games. We also went outside and played a really fun game. I don’t know what it is called but you use PVC pipes and golf balls tied to a rope. You try to through the rope at the PVC pipe and try to rap it around one of the pipes. Bottom pipe is worth 3 points, middle pipe 2 points and top pipe 1 point. Our family really enjoyed that game. We also went to the reservoir that was just about 10 minutes away. We brought the Frisbee along with us and through that around. We just walked around and enjoyed the great outdoors. We came across a tree that had fallen over a creek. My mom bet me $5 that I couldn’t do it. At first glance I said no way! It was a very unstable tree and it wouldn’t be worth it if I fell in the creek. But after kind of standing on it and getting a feel for it, I decided to walk across. I almost fell a couple of times but I was able to accomplish it, as well as my brother. Of course of course, my mom didn’t pay me…big shocker! But we enjoyed throwing the Frisbee around, a little hiking and just visiting with each other.
On Sunday we all wanted to go to church (there was a debate on if we should leave after sacrament or stay for the whole 3 hours). But that uncertainty quickly ended when we went to church and discovered that it was Stake Conference. It was being broadcasted from the St. George stake center. After an hour of listening to the talks, Jordan, Carrie and Jeff decided to bail and go back to the cabin. Sam, Dad and I decided to stay and listen to the rest of the speakers. (Mom was at the cabin watching B, she wasn’t feeling well). Good thing we stayed because we were able to listen to the Gerald Causse who was the First Counselor in the presiding Bishopric of the church. He gave a fantastic talk! I took some good notes of the things that he had to say. He talked about how he was called to be a seventy of the church, very interesting to me on how these men were called into the church.
Upon going back to the cabin, we had lunch and then spent the next hour cleaning the place. We wanted to leave it just the way we found it. Overall, it was a really fun and relaxing weekend. I absolutely love going up to the cabin. The outdoors, hiking and the beautiful weather just makes for a great weekend!
