Mountain Seagulls: Lake Catherine with Nick's Parents

A good night's sleep was much needed and I must say enjoyed after yesterday. First of all, Julia and I went to church while Nick and his parents went to their church. My church meetings were so so so good. Sacrament was the primary program and the little kids were fun to listen to with their little voices talking about how you need to read the scriptures for yourself to learn of their truth. In Sunday School we were in 2 Corinthians and talked about forgiveness, more so how/why to repent and how we are obligated to forgive others otherwise we are keeping the atonement from them. Good stuff. Then in Relief Society we talked about what happens after you die. That class was a giant deep discussion that everyone was involved in. We talked about the spirit paradise and prison and who will be where and what they will be like and what people will be doing in each place and how this earth life is preparing us for that time. While all the discussing was going on, all I could think about was how God really does have a plan for us. He is very organized and has order concerning the life before, this current earth life and in the life to come. He is a creator, as we all are.

Nick, his parents and myself all went for a hike up to Lake Catherine. The start of the hike was rough. We couldn't exactly find the trail head so we guessed and trekked up a very steep and long mountain. At the top, we ran into the real trail only to learn that the trail we were previously on was a restoration area. Ooops. Hiking along the real trail was so much easier and the scenery was amazing. Wildflowers and colors were everywhere! We came upon a meadow and oncoming hikers told us of a moose up ahead. It was about 20-30 feet off the trail eating some bushes. We saw it, took some pictures and went on out way. We finally made it to the lake. It was so so cold and windy. Nick's dad seemed to be in Heaven (he loved the outdoors). After chatting with some other people, taking pictures and enjoying the view we started to head back down. Again, oncoming hikers told us of the moose. As we went around a few turns the moose was right on the trail. Then we saw two. The moosen were on the trail and between a few groups of hikers. We ran into a moosen enthusiast who was out taking pictures of the large beasts and kinda hung out with her for a few minutes till Nick's dad started to walk towards them. I didn't know if he just wanted to get a picture with them or what, but he said that he was going to try to shoe them off the trail and as we slowly got closer they walked away. We continued on the trail and the moosen were just walking around the meadow and eating about 100 feet away. They started running around and that was my que to get out of there! They were fast and could get to us within 5 seconds. I didn't want to stick around to see what would happen. We made it back to the car and made our way over to the Cheesecake factory for dinner before saying good bye to Nick's parents because they headed back to Ohio early this morning.