Bye Bye Boy Part One

So, Kevin is leaving on his mission. I'm really happy for him and really sad because I'm going to miss him A LOT. This past weekend we wanted to be with Kev as much as possible doing fun things. So, we arrived in Rupert Friday afternoon/evening and left to go jump off large rocks into the Snake River at a place called "the vineyard". It was quite an adventure getting there and we almost didn't go since by the time everyone got to Rupert it was getting late-ish and it was raining. But we decided to go anyway! Getting there was a little tough since Kevin and I have only been there once before and no one else had ever been. Basically, all I remembered was that you get off a certain exit in Twin Falls, drive around until you get to a farmer's field, park, climb the fence, head towards the canyon and find a way down to the water. Kevin at least knew how to get to the farmer's field and then we all just got out and wandered around until we found a way down dodging cow patties and sagebrush as we went.

Once we got down there it was beautiful! Everyone had tons of fun jumping off rocks and watching others do it.

We even had a little audience... they brought wine and cheese...

The next morning we woke up and went rock climbing and rappelling at the City of Rocks. It was fun and really scary and really fun and scary.

We all climbed to the top of Bathtub Rock to rappel down and Josh rappelled for the first time ever!  As he started down, some velcro on his harness came undone and he got a little nervous, but luckily it didn't have anything to do with his safety so it was allll good. Bryce went down face first and ran into a bush growing out of the rock and all of us down below had to dodge the branches that fell down from it. As for me, I freaked out a few times on the climb up, got nauseous, glued myself to the top of the rock until it was my turn, and then had a blast once the rope was connected to my harness and I was on the way down. I have a love/hate relationship with rock climbing and rappelling, obviously.

On Sunday, we woke up, did some preparations for the dinner after church then headed to church to hear Kevin. His talk was amazing. He has such a powerful testimony and a love for the gospel. You can really tell that he is ready and has a really strong desire to serve the people in Arizona. I look up to him so much and its going to be really hard to not be able to call or hang out with him for the next two years, but I wouldn't have it any other way. He's going to be amazing!