We made a bold decision this summer and allowed Landon to transfer schools to Hidden Valley Middle School. It's a brand new school and all of his friends from elementary school were with him in 7th grade, and then left Oquirrh Middle last year. His 8th grade year was pretty miserable. Finishing middle school at Hidden Valley would be good for him with his friends, but it would mean longer days getting up earlier to take a bus to school. Jill and Landon went to check it out before making the final decision to transfer.
One of the biggest events of the summer was Youth Conference that Jill happened to be in charge of. With COVID always changing things, it made it tough to plan because rules with groups kept changing. The stake finally was able to nail down a plan to have the youth conference at CLAS Ropes course in Utah County. It's an amazing area next to the Provo river just before it goes into Utah Lake. It is nice and shady with large trees, and the course itself is really incredible. I did help Jill with some of the preparation but she did so much for this event. We got up crazy early in the morning and took our trailer loaded with supplies to set everything up. There was a mix of CLAS provided instruction, and Stake provided breakout sessions. Jill welcomed everyone at a large amphitheater and gave instructions. Half of the group would do the ropes course, and the other half would do Stake led sessions. Then after lunch both sides flipped.
Part of our setup was to cary supplies and a mural of Jesus down a canal road about 3/4 of a mile. Jill worked the whole day at this obstacle course so she could see each of the youth. All the youth were blindfolded and walked along a path with a rope. There were obstacles and then they sat quietly in this grove and listened to some music and reflected, then Jill said a few words about ways to increase our faith.
I worked in the canoe area for the first half of the day. It was such a blast canoeing around and helping the youth and leaders as they paddled away and had fun. After a bit of a ride, I would throw balls and frisbee's to them and it was a really good time.
After canoe's the youth made a toy to give to children in another country.
I joined Landon's group for the afternoon and we did the ropes course. It was so much fun. Not everything was ropes there were other obstacles and puzzle activities to figure out. One activity was getting everyone through a planks course where we only had 2 planks and everyone got close to get through picking up one plank and moving them through these stumps.
The ropes course was an absolute blast! We were really high up in the trees and Landon and I climbed around, where others couldn't. All the youth had a great time and Landon did each of the activities really well. One part was really tough. I couldn't figure out how to do it. There were these balls that were all hanging together and you would sit on them and move to the next one. A young woman in our ward used her arms to do a pull up and move seats from one ball to the next. Finally I could do it. The whole course was a blast and so much more than what we've done at Snowbird.
This is the leap of faith. There is a ring just outside of reach and you have to leap to! It was really intimidating, but I finally worked up the courage to leap and I grabbed it. Landon came just short.
We had to figure out how to move tiles and have two teams get to the other side moving only one player at a time.
We all wrapped up back at the amphitheater before heading back to the church.
Jill's presidency all worked so hard to ensure a successful youth conference.
We ended the night with a great dinner back at the stake center.
It was announced that our bank was going to be purchased by Regions Bank. They are the 22nd largest bank in the country and so soon the bank I work at will be named Regions. I'm not entirely sure what the bicycle they gave us had to do with Regions, apparently a green bicycle is a symbol of Regions. It will be exciting to be a part of a bigger bank.
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