Empty nesters first get away!! And a gospel principle to boot!

Scott and I decided since we are now officially empty nesters that we have a new motto we are going to live by it is "We can do what ever we want!!" I really sort of dreaded being alone again after all these years of all the usual Mom things that occupied my busy days, until one night I said these words and they put me in a better place emotionally. We still plan on doing our regular things that have become almost a habit but are also things we WANT to do, you know the usual things, Family and personal Prayer, family and personal scriptures study, service, family home evening , and Sunday dinner at the dining room table talking about our church lessons. But we also can do things we haven't been able to do without planning around all the kids schedules and our own. So, early one Friday morning around 6 we took off for Moab Utah which is about a 4 hour drive from our home. Which happens to be my very favorite National Park in our state!! We arrived there around 10:30 am and headed straight to the Fiery Furnace for a very grueling hike as you can see from the pictures below. It is so gorgeous and the added fun of it was we could climb around on some very scary stuff and we didn't have to worry about kids taking a tumble over the edges of the cliffs! We have been there before but we went into harder places this time. We even found this arch below that we have never seen before.

We went on some other trails until evening and then stayed overnight in Moab. That evening they had a parade of old cars right down the main street.









The next morning we off again to the park to hike to Delicate Arch. It was on this hike we witnessed the Gospel in Action and a principle that I love about the gospel most of all!!!

As we were hiking down from this beautiful site we ran into a scout group that was hiking up to the Arch. We watched a small cluster of boys rapidly ascending the steep rock face as if they were walking on flat ground, then a little farther down there was a few more of the boys that were struggling just a little bit and as one boy leaned down to rest himself on the boulders marking the path he exclaimed panting to his leaders "Where to do those other guys get all there energy?" As we continued down quite a few steps farther we had an example placed before us of Christ like love that brings tears to my eyes even as I type this.

There was a young man of about 12 with a noticable physical and mental handicap walking ever so slowly with 2 scout leaders on each side of him encouraging him upward. Here was the Gospel in Action and the principle I want to share. The world is like that hillside and the boys the people in this world trying to get back to our Heavenly home and parents. Some of us seem to rapidly and some what effortlessly make it through life, some of us struggle just a little bit more even fall down, get scraped up a bit and stop to lean on things to catch our breath. Then some of us as that last young man were born with hard things to make it even harder for us to travel this path, like depression, anxiety, handicaps, learning disabilities, abusive families, poverty, too much money, etc. (the list could go on and on). We have to work a lot harder and might not even make it all without help. Each of those boys made it to that beautiful view some easier than others and in better shape, but they did make it!! We will each make it eventually back to the arms of our loving Heavenly parents and isn't it wonderful to know we will be blessed equally. Our Savior has walked this path and experienced all of lifes struggles so that he knows how to succor us. This I know and wanted to share with you. I love my Savior and I love what He teaches me in small and simple ways even in my favorite park!!!