Boy's Camp for All of Us

Peanut and Daddy-o have been going to the camp for the Young Men at church for the past few years, but this year, I got to join them as the nature specialist for the hikes! The three of us spent the week camping near Lassen Volcanic NP, and while Daddy-o barely left the campground, Peanut and I went on adventures each day in the area around us.

There are beautiful hikes in the area and I was really glad that I got to go to McCloud Falls with the youngest group.

We hiked from the lower falls to the other 2 and had a fabulous day that ended with most of the kids jumping into the lowest pool.

The next day, I got to hike with Peanut's group and we climbed Lassen Peak. 

It was a little crazy with the snow (first time I've used crampons), but a fun adventure for the boys.

And even though the hike was pretty challenging, I was proud of all the boys. 

A couple of the leaders did a great job encouraging the ones who were struggling and got them all to the top.

This kid is such a great hiker these days. He did end up with a headache at the top, probably because of the altitude, but he did it.

One of the main things I was in charge of were the night hikes. We went to the lava tubes that were just outside our campground, learned a little about UV fluorescence, and enjoyed finding all the things in the area, like rocks, insect trails, scorpions, and moss. The kids had a lot of fun and two of the groups found so many scorpions!

My other job was doing some nature journaling with the youngest two groups. I wish we'd had time with the oldest group, too, but our hike took the whole day. But I loved how into it some of the kids got, and leaders, too. And I had a couple of the leaders tell me that they appreciated the reminder to not always just focus on getting to the destination, but to look around and slow down.

Along with hiking, Peanut did a 26-mile mountain bike ride one day, a ropes course, and had a few hours at waterfront where they cliff jumped at Bernie Falls, went knee boarding, and did tug-of-war in kayaks. 

I think they all had a pretty great week trying new things.

Peanut brought a friend along this year, and C said that it was the best week of his life. He even got up at the testimony meeting and bore his testimony about getting to learn about God and make new friends. It was pretty cool to be a part of that.

And then there's Daddy-o, who spends the whole week cooking for these boys.

And the boys are very appreciative of it. I don't think they can ever really understand how much work goes into the food part of camp, but they do love it and are very loud in their gratitude. 

He even planned for the couple of birthdays that happened up at camp this year, which included our guest. The boys loved getting cake the first night. They pretty much loved every meal, with the tri tip and mashed potato night finishing off a great week. I don't know if Daddy-o wants to do it again--4 years in the kitchen, and the last 2 at a camp without an actual kitchen, might be his limit, but he's given it his all while he's done it.

Ridge to Bridge

It wasn't exactly a race, but the Ridge to Bridge event was a blast! K and I did the 6.2 mile length and got to hike through beautiful hills with glimpses of the bridge all along the way.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

And it's a fabulous section of the Bay Area Ridge Trail.

I love living here.

I've got a lot of miles to go on this trail, but am grateful every time I get to do a hike along the ridges with views of this bay.

Spring Break, Just the Three of Us

This was the first year that we only had one kiddo home for spring break. They haven't always lined up with everyone off at the same time, but we usually have a weekend overlap with everyone. But this year, with Bug in Brazil and Bean going to Hawaii with friends, it was just Peanut and us. We let him pick what he wanted to do, and so. . . here's Spring Break 2026!

We stayed home for the first couple of days. Watched General Conference and had Easter dinner on Sunday, while packing up the van and getting ready to hit the road Sunday afternoon.

And we started off by driving to Death Valley. Had a dinner stop at Red Rock Canyon State Park,

and then spent the night at the Father Crowley Overlook lot. Got a gorgeous view in the morning!

We didn't have a lot of time in Death Valley the next day, but did stop at Dant's View for a little while. Getting to see Bad Water Basin from above was cool.

And there were quite a few wildflowers in the area.

The lower elevation superbloom was long gone, but we were happy to find more than a dozen different types of flowers.

I'm always more impressed with the desert than I think I will be.

And then, we finished the drive to Peanut's pick of destinations. He wanted to hang out with our friends in southern Utah for the a few days. 

We parked our van at their house and loved having evenings hanging out with them (and access to a hot shower after our hikes!)

Peanut and E. made a fort the first night and slept in it every night.

From all reports, it got really hot inside and the last night, they finally ripped down the walls so they could sleep, haha.

On Tuesday, we went to Zion NP to hike to Observation Point. It was really crowded driving through the entrance to the park with all the other spring break travelers, but luckily this trailhead was outside of the main part of the park and while still busy, it wasn't non-stop people.

And the view at the end was fantastic. We could look down at the end of The Narrows and see the whole canyon, which we had visited just two years ago.

Our hiking crew. Just missing the three oldest kids.

Found lots more flowers along the trail

Love that spring in the desert brings out all of these blooms, before it gets too hot for everything.

And we also found dozens of these catepillar "webs". We thought they were spider webs at first, until we looked at them a little closer.

Not pictured from our time together: hot tubbing, video games, eating lots of good food, and lots of conversations that kept circling back to the state of our nation, but also included good books and future plans and memories of our kids when they were a lot younger and all lived with us.

On Wednesday, we went to Bryce Canyon for an overnight visit. Last time we were here, Daddy-o wasn't with us, and the whole place was covered in snow, which was beautiful, but made it impossible to hike, so Peanut and I were excited to come back.

I think the hoodoos are prettier in the snow, but still amazing (and way easier to hike through this way.

We did a figure 8 loop, starting with Wall Street, 

which involved some crazy switchbacks. Glad we did this on the way down.

And glad that the whole trail wasn't as packed as the beginning (although I won't lie--this area was still packed and I did a little magic eraser to get rid of the extra people in this picture, haha.)

It was so crazy seeing where trees have managed to grow in these tight spaces that don't get a lot of light. But we found life scattered through the hoodoos,

including flowers growing right out of the rocks. There's hardly any soil here.

After coming down into the lower part of the park, we crossed a wash and did a loop on the Peekaboo trail. 

This hike was mostly up and down, over and over again, but it was so cool hiking through these rocks.

We saw lots of cool formations,

and other than Peanut drinking almost all his water in the first half of the hike, things went pretty well. Luckily it wasn't hot.

It was a full afternoon, almost 6.5 miles of gorgeous scenery. We were tired and hungry by the time we finished, and ready to go find a camping spot.

And even though we had to drive a couple of miles in to find an open spot, the area in Dixie National Forest just outside of the park was a great place! We were worried at first because you can only camp in designated spaces, and every one we came across was already taken, but luckily it's a long road into the forest. This would be great for longer term camping to explore all the parts of the park with lots of space and privacy at each campsite.

The next morning, we went back in to the park to hike along the rim and see the formations from up above.

We did a little over 2 miles and got some good views.

It's just so different from anywhere else that we have hiked.

Some of the formations that we had passed the day before, like the Alligator here, were much easier to make out from above. We stared at the rocks down below for several minutes without any idea which rock was supposed to look like an alligator, but the light colored layer at the top was a lot easier to spot this way.

By mid-morning, we were ready to say goodbye. But we'll be back!

We were starving so we stopped at Henrie's Drive-in for burgers and milkshakes, which always feel welcome after a couple days of hiking.

We had one more night in St. George with our friends and then one last camping spot in the desert--Anza Borrego this time.

This was our third free camping spot on this trip (plus the free nights on our friends' street). I've been impressed with all the options--the southwest is definitely bookdock friendly.

We pulled out the UV lights to explore once it got dark and found some great stuff, like these little blossoms on one of the shrubs around our camp spot.

And all the rocks in the area.

But the highlight was finding several scorpions. We could see them from 20 feet away, they're so bright!

We enjoyed our last evening of real camping. Peanut got to pick the first half of our trip, but we had one more stop coming up. . .