Labor Day

Even though I'm a month behind on blogging, for September I'm going to break my posts up by the event versus trying to do the entire month in one big post. There was just too much in September and it's a tad bit overwhelming! 

We kicked off the month of September celebrating Labor Day. Not only did Dave get the day off from teaching, he also wasn't scheduled to work at Target so we took full advantage of it. We wanted to take the boys on a hike so we did a little internet research and decided to go up Provo Canyon and hike to Stewart Falls. We had read that if you were hiking with young kids that it was easiest to take the ski lift at Sundance up and then hike over to the falls. We love riding the lift and figured that Miles was probably old enough now to understand the importance of sitting still on the lift, etc. and that Oliver was young enough to sit in one of our laps. So...off we went.

The ski lift part of the adventure was perfect. Miles was a little scared to be so high, but he did really well and really enjoyed it. He kept saying he liked hang gliding! I was nervous the entire time because Oliver was a little wiggle worm on Dave's lap, but Dave was able to keep a good hold of him.

My boys

Family selfie

The leaves were starting to turn & it was absolutely beautiful!

Once at the top we started our trek over to the falls. We were under the impression that round trip the hike was about two hours (especially with young children). It seemed MUCH longer than a two hour hike to us. We stopped several people along the way and asked them how much further we had to go, etc. People were either completely delirious or my definition of "it's not that much further" is way different than their definition!

The beginning of our hiking journey

A nice elderly couple offered to take a family pic for us

I had lost hope that we'd ever find the falls until we hit this valley and my hope was renewed a bit - only to be destroyed again soon!

Shortly after we took the above picture we passed a family that was stopped along side the trail. They had two young children with them and one of them had a bandage on her head and looked like she wasn't doing very well. That should've been the only sign we needed that we should stop and turn back around, but we ignored the sign and started our descent. It was a pretty steep and never-ending descent down to see the waterfall. Again, we stopped a guy along the way and asked him how much further and he said we were almost there (not quite!). By then the three of us hikers were completely exhausted and were so ready to see the dang waterfall! Dave ended up slipping on some rocks and landed pretty hard. He immediately complained of ankle pain but was determined to continue on. He thought it probably was better to keep moving for his ankle's sake. Oliver was on his back and was pretty shook up by the fall as well. It took some work to get him calmed down. After everyone was calm again, we continued on our adventure.

When we finally made it to the waterfall, Dave was in so much pain and I was so tired that we had little to no interest in hanging out. Poor Miles loves playing in water and he wanted to stay for several hours. We let him play a little bit, but then forced the issue and made him leave. There were even paramedics up there taking care of a lady.

Another family selfie

Stewart Falls

He's never very excited about mom taking pictures of him

His happy place!

I knew there was no way physically that I could go back the way we came with that huge climb so we decided to go back another popular way that would take us to the base of Sundance (so no ski lift down). I figured since it was all downhill that it shouldn't be too bad. Little did I know what was ahead! By this point Oliver was crying again and was pretty much done with being in the backpack. We just plugged ahead. Miles also was starting to complain, but overall he was a huge trooper and hiked the whole thing.

The trail down was pretty steep and seemed never-ending. We were all super cranky and kept saying that we felt deceived and lied to! It was the most difficult hike I've ever done (granted I'm not much of a hiker though) and definitely not a hike I would recommend with young children. It's probably a hike that I'll never do again as well...unless the boys are much older and I'm in much better shape. We were almost to Sundance (although at the time we didn't know it) when I lost my footing and slipped and fell landing hard on my tailbone. The impact knocked my breath away for a second or two. The first thought I had was that Dave was going to have to leave me there and go find help. I wasn't sure that I'd be able to walk any further. Then adrenaline kicked in and I was back on my feet again. Thankfully we didn't have much further. I have never been so happy in my life to see my car and be heading home. What an adventure!

That evening Dave and I were limping around the house. We both were in pain for a couple of weeks following as well. I almost made a doctor's appointment because of a shooting pain I kept getting down my sciatica (thankfully it eventually went away). Dave spoke to the athletic trainer at Provo High to get some advice on his foot. It was definitely a rough few weeks for us!

Dave's foot a couple of days after