"You'll Never Get Rich By Digging a Ditch"

So this week is just going to be a long walk down memory lane accompanied with shout outs. Today's shout out is to my White House Girls, but especially to Sarah Beasley Graham, Becky Field, Sarah Jones and Christina Ellerman. To the girls who hiked the Grand Canyon exactly a year ago for our senior Spring Break.

White House Ladies- I absolutely love you all with my whole heart. Thank you for your friendships over the 4 years at Wheaton. Thank you challenging me, growing me, laughing and crying with me and letting me do the same for each and every one of you girls. You have seen me at my lowest and love me still. You girls and our friendships seriously are a picture of Christ-centered community. A community founded in love and grace that pushes one another towards Christ. Even as we have moved across the states/world we have remained close and in community and prayer for each other. I cherish all of you and as Paul says in Philippians- whenever I think of you all I give thanks to God :)

Ok enough of the cheesiness- let's review Spring Break 2010:

Day 0: When we camped on the rim of the Grand Canyon- it snowed!! I called Jones, Judas (sorry love!), Jones' left Beasley and I in the tent to sleep in the SUV, there were coyotes tracks 2 feet from our tents and it started to snow/sleet as we descended in to the Canyon, we got lost and bouldered for 3 hrs along with 2 other groups, when we finally got to our goal after dark we couldn't find our campsite so we stayed in an old mule barn

Lord of the Rings anyone??

Cross bedding= this rock used be part of a river bed

Hermit Trail... enough said

A little sanctuary before we got lost fro 3 hours. 

Beautiful until you realized you are lost and don't know how to get out then it is incredibly scary & foreboding 

Still happy before the bouldering happened

I'm pretty sure we were all on the verge of tears from exhaustion, but we held it together... barely

Day 1: Freezing cold weather, it rained all day, all day long, therefore we stayed in our 2 person tents all day, all day long with an expection of 30 min to eat when the rained stopped for a bit; I was completely sore could barely move, and Christina & Beas went on a run in the rain in the Grand Canyon!

yummy- camping food...

yay for the mule barn- our home for 3 days

Beas loving on Jones by warming up her toes that were numb for the whole trip!

Day 2: Completely overcast and still freezing, day hike to the CO river and had some fun at the river, extremely slap happy dinner circle, decided to come home a day early

                     

                     

Relaxing on "Pride Rock"

Christina and some really cool geological formation/mystery that I can't remember the name... sorry Christina!

*Correction- This is the Great Unconformity- thanks Tina :)*

The Colorado River!

We finally made it all the way to the bottom!

This is how we rested while we hiked :)

Stupid kearns that made us get lost!

Brushing our teeth in the old mule trough 

One of the better highlights of the whole trip :)

Day 3: Not a cloud in the sky- beautiful sunny day, hiked out of the Grand Canyon, made it out alive, drove to beautiful Flagstaff, AZ

"Barely Getting Out Alive"

Happy/Exhausted reaction to finally reaching our car

I think Jones and I were the happiest to get to the car.

Really?! A Husky riding in the back on the CO highway at 85mph??

:)

Overall: craziness, pain, laughter, tears, too much food, bonding, friendship & memories forever!

I hope you all enjoyed Spring Break '10 in review and I hope you all laughed out loud at some points- cause like we said a year ago- even if we weren't able to laugh then, we will be able to laugh about this trip later!