Wood Badge: July 26-31

Wood Badge was one of the best leadership training experiences I have ever had. I am glad I took six days out of my summer to participate in the camp. I was a member of the Antelope Patrol with, from left to right, Clark, Richard, Dennis, and Celeste. We had a great time together and we learned a great deal about helping boys become leaders and men of character.

While most Wood Badge courses are held over two consecutive weeks (Thursday-Saturday), I participated in the week-long course at East Fork of the Bear in the Uintas. The facilities were great--we even had warm showers! And it was nice to have our classes outdoors in a giant tent.

On Friday night, our last night, Andrea and Olivia came to visit me. They were camping with Andrea's parents just down the road that night and they decided to surprise me. Unfortunately, Friday night was the night that the patrols went camping out into the woods on our own, so I wasn't in camp when they came. But the Wood Badge staff, who stayed behind in camp, sure enjoyed meeting my girls. I wish I could have been there to see them, especially since I hadn't been able to speak with them all week. I am pretty sure that this six-day stretch without cell phone service was longest amount of time I have ever gone without talking to Andrea since we began dating nearly six years ago. By Friday night, I was really starting to get homesick!

I would recommend that all Latter-day Saint adults participate in Wood Badge training. It is more than just learning how to run a boy scout program; it is about becoming a better leader at home, at work, in the community, and in the church. Plus, it is fun to spend a week in an adult-only camp acting like a bunch of 12-year-olds. :)

Former Young Men General President, Charles Dahlquist, said this about Wood Badge: "It is vital that we, as Priesthood and Aaronic Priesthood/Young Men leaders take training seriously. We are part of this great partnership with Boy Scouts of America for very specific reasons: If we fully participate, our young men will be blessed and better prepared for missions and for the blessings of the temple. Part of the participation is training–especially Wood Badge training." Click here for the remainder of his message about why you should go to Wood Badge.

"Back to Gilwell, happy land,

I'm going to work my ticket if I can!"

Pioneer Day

On July 24, we celebrated Pioneer Day with my family. In the morning, we ran in the Deseret News races in Salt Lake. Some of us ran the 10K and some of us ran the 5K. Since every single member of the Ricks family (except Adam and Kristina, who would have run if they'd been in Utah) participated in one of the races--either as a runner, walker, or stroller passenger--there was no one to take pictures of us as we finished. I think it's a much better memory without pictures, since we all ran. And without an actual photo of the "photo finish" between Platte and me, I can have a happy memory of having beaten him in our 0.2 mile sprint at the end. (When the official times came out, he apparently came across the finish line one second faster than I did.)

In the afternoon, we enjoyed a nice Dutch oven meal up at the cabin. Since there is no fire pit up there, we brought our homemade port-a-pit. In one oven, I cooked some BBQ chicken and in the other, I cooked some cheesy potatoes. We also had a quinoa salad (a recipe I found on the New York Times website), corn on the cob, and homemade Oreo ice cream. The food was great. 

It was nice to relax up in the cool canyon air. The "little girls" had fun playing Skip-Bo, and the "littler girls" loved chasing each other around the cabin.

Lake Powell Trip #2: July 15-20

As luck would have it, I got to spend a second week in Lake Powell this summer. Andrea's parents' neighbors, the Hoffmanns, have a houseboat in Bullfrog, and they invited us to come down for five days. Loading the boat was pretty easy--Andrea's dad just backed his utility trailer right down into the water and we handed things from the trailer over into the houseboat.

We were a little nervous about taking Olivia, but she had a great time hanging out with her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. And she probably didn't mind having her parents there.

She wasn't thrilled about staying in her life jacket all day long, but she enjoyed spending lots of time in the water, in the ski boats, and driving the houseboat.

Whenever we let Olivia out of her life jacket, we had to keep a close watch on her. But even on the houseboat, she wanted to spend all of her time playing with water toys.

Each night, we slept under the stars on the top deck of the houseboat. But since it was so hot up there during the day, we found lots of interesting places to lay Olivia down for her naps. She fell asleep several times while floating in the water and while riding in the boat. She even almost fell asleep when she was riding with me in the tube behind the boat.

I had a great time waterskiing, although I still can't get up on the slalom ski for more than a couple seconds.

I also enjoyed sliding and jumping off the back of the houseboat with our nieces and nephews.

I spent three mornings and three evenings fishing for stripers. Unfortunately, none of us ever caught a thing on any of these trips, even though we were following best practices by casting our hooks (with anchovies as bait) directly into the middle of several boils. What a frustrating fishing trip! (I did catch a catfish when I left my line in the water overnight, but that doesn't really count for much.)

Even though it killed Andrea that she couldn't wakeboard or jump off the boat, she found some fun things to do, including practicing her open-water swimming (with a buoy tied around her waist, just in case). She also taught Olivia a new word, "noodle," which Olivia pronounced "noo noo."

On Monday, July 19, we took a trip to Davis Gulch in Escalante Canyon. On the way there, we stopped for ice cream at Hall's Crossing. At Davis Gulch, we did some cliff jumping. The scenery was beautiful, especially the arch in the rock.

The trip became even more eventful when we ran out of gas about three miles away from the campsite. So we had to paddle our boat back to the Hall's Crossing fuel station. We were grateful for the friendly boat that hauled us the last 100 yards. We would have been even more grateful if they'd found us 30 minutes earlier. :)

Another adventure was the big rainstorm on Monday afternoon. The boat looked like a flea market after we had hung up all our sheets and mattresses.

Following Larson family tradition, we stopped at the Burger Shak in Hanksville on the way home. What amazing shakes!

We're glad that the Hoffmanns invited us. We had a great time with Andrea's family and getting to know the Hoffmanns and their friends!