No more Braces for Loa!

Loa FINALLY got her braces off...and mostly because I wasn't willing to transfer her to ANOTHER orthodontist.  She has been wearing them waaaay toooo long in my opinion BUT I just couldn't get her to wear her dang bands!  Yay for being braceless!

 

Trip to Utah/Idaho

 We decided on a whim to make a trip to Vernal, knowing that we had a move likely on the horizon and who knows when that will happen again.  So Loa got home from Trek on Saturday and early Sunday morning we headed on the road.  She WAS NOT thrilled with us for planning this and springing it on her.

After a looooong day of driving we arrived at Grammie and Papas house.  We hung out there for 4 days.  The kids got spoiled and everyone had a great time!  Avi is in Vernal working at the 7-11 Cafe for the summer so we stopped by to have breakfast and see her.

We were then headed to spend a night with Brad and Candace in SLC...but, I decided if we were that close I REALLY wanted to see some Grace friends so we took the long way and went to Grace first.  I was able to have lunch with my closest friends at Gonzales (and it just happened to be my Birthday, so it was perfect!) and then we made a few more quick stops to see others that the kids wanted to visit and we were on the road to Brad and Candaces!

I love these ladies and Mya SO DANG MUCH!!

Our stay was short and sweet, just one night.  We had brunch together, then we stopped by to see Jen for a minute and we were back on the road!

We made it to Gallop NM for the night and Saturday stopped for lunch and a little shopping in Albuquerque before making it back to Lubbock Saturday evening --I had a RS lesson to help with on Sunday.

TREK

 Loa had the awesome experience of going to Trek the first week in June--I don't think she was super thrilled about it but so glad she had a good experience. 

 Loa got asked to join the 'advance party' with her friends Jordyn and Annie and got to go up a day early and help prepare and set up everything before everyone arrived the next day.

The next day everyone arrived and they got the party started!

Our stake did Trek in Cloudcroft NM.  They got to do some really hard things and have some awesome experiences and best of all feel the spirit and bond with other youth and adults from the stake.

One of Loa's favorite experiences to tell was of the Women's pull during Trek where they have all the girls an women pull the handcarts up a steep hill.  They has a short devotional before it and as soon as they started pulling it started raining.  They were only able to get 3 of the 6 handcarts up the hill before they were just in a river of mud.  The boys joined and tried to help with the last 3 but it was just slippery and they weren't making progress.  They decided to clear a path beside the actualy trail and then were able to finally, with the help of basically everyone, get the last three handcarts up.  She said everyone was SO excited!  Lots of cheers!!!  And then....it stopped raining, just as they all got to the top!  So many great lessons from the example but also she was so impressed that not one person was complaining or mad, they all just helped out and were so excited to get the last of the carts to the top!

I'm grateful she was able to have this experience, make new friends, and feel the spirit through doing hard things!