18 months of Elaina

Dear July,

You came and went too fast. But we sure had lots of fun! 

We went up to visit Grandma & Grandpa Tetzlaff over the 4th of July - always fun! 

Holly came for her annual 'Up North Vacation' - she probably wouldn't call it a vacation but we sure love having her here...

thanks to Holly we got to go out on 'date night'

This little boy turned 5 & celebrated pretty much all month!  

We began a basement project... I'm hoping in my 'Dear September' letter to be moved back into the basement (oh I can hope!) 

T-ball started. Jackson LOVES!

The Wulfekuhle family took over Clear Lake for a family reunion - so fun! 

Daddy had his annual 'Dolphin Golf Outing' in WI. So the kids and I headed to Decorah to visit the Gavle family.

Good bye July, we sure did have fun!

The adventure to summit Mt Whitney...

So, 6 months ago I decided to go on an adventure with my dad and brother Brett to hike Mt Whitney (the tallest point in the lower 48 states). I'm 99% sure dad asked so I didn't feel left out & I'm 99% sure he didn't think I would say yes. I honestly, am not sure why I said yes... But I did and we ended up with a hiking group of 9 including Jaclyn (Brett's fiance - ooh I like how that sounds!) Dad's high school friend, Doug - his two daughter's Grace & Shorey - Shorey's boyfriend Phil and another high school friend of Dad's, Mary. It was great - if I would have written this post Friday night after hiking... I would not have made the statement 'it was great'. I actually was comparing this hike to childbirth - that doesn't get an 'it was great' review. But like childbirth you quickly forget the bad and remember the good :) So we're going to go with 'it was great'.

So here is our journey through photos - I hope you are able to get a feel for how amazing and beautiful this trip really was. 

We arrived and enjoyed an evening in Las Vegas & on Wednesday morning began our journey to Lone Pine, CA (which involved a drive through Death Valley) Due to my lack of geography and research I did not realize 'Death Valley' was a national park - who knew?

Death Valley is filled with barren ground, rocks, mountains, sand dunes, dust tornadoes, a few joshua trees & two little towns 'Stovepipe Wells' & 'Furnace Creek' - the temperature reached 122 degrees when we were there - yikes! 

The lowest elevation in the lower 48 states is here in Death Valley at 282 ft below sea level... we decided not to get out again and take our picture - once was enough - so a photo at sea level will do!

After a 4 hour drive we arrived in Lone Pine, CA and set our sights on the highest point in the US, Mt Whitney - there she is (the peak is the larger peak to the far right) Isn't she pretty?!

On Thursday we took a short 5 mile hike up to Lone Pine Lake so we could acclimate a little to the altitude. 

Here's our hiking crew! 

And here's our lake! She was pretty & cold - Dad and Phil swam - they're crazy! 

At 3:15 am on Friday morning we hit the Whitney Portal @ 8360 ft - bags packed, headlamps on, layers & trekking poles - we were ready! 

Watching the sunrise was simply breathtaking - I love this photo of the moon in the upper corner and the sun starting to rise in the valley - one of God's beautiful moments.

This is a look down at our trails along the 97 switchbacks.

I didn't take many photos - my focus was pretty much on praying that I didn't slip and fall, lots of deep breathing so my body could take in as much oxygen as possible & singing random songs in my head to take my mind off the long 22 mile hike. 17 hours of this...

"here we go go go go on an adventure... the thingamajig is up up and away..." - Cat In the Hat theme song

"alabama, arkansas, I sure love my ma and pa, not the way that I do love you" - 'Home' - Edward Sharp & The Magnetic Zeros

"carry on my wayward son" - Kansas

'here I go again on my own... going down the only road I've ever known, like a drifter I was born to walk alone. And I've made up my mind... I ain't wastin' no more time. But here I go again..." -Whitesnake

You get the idea... then we reached the trail crest 13,600 ft & I was feeling good - like - I've got this... only 2.5 more miles... type of good.

We sat & took in God's beauty

Feeling re-energized we took off for the back side of the mountain - this was awful. I can't really come up with any other way to describe it - I hated it. I wanted to sit down, cry and turn around... but there really wasn't any place to do that... unless I was going 13,000 feet down and that did not seem like a very good idea (ok so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit I could have turned around) but this was tough for me both mentally and physically I was seriously tested here. I prayed a lot and thought about Curt and the kids a lot for this 2.5 mile stretch.

After being my dad's 'nurse' as he called me for the last 1/2 mile (the altitude was getting to him and he was moving like an 80 year old man... needing to stop every 20 steps) we made it to the top!!!! 

Then this happened - yes Brett proposed and Jaclyn said 'YES!' It was awesome I hid behind a rock and snapped a few pictures from afar. Then we hear a 'YES!' from the distance. Everyone on top of the mountain was cheering - awesome, awesome! So happy for the two of them. 

There are no pictures from the trek down the mountain because it was not very much fun and I would be ok with forgetting this portion of the hike.  We arrived back to the trail head at 8:30 (we thought we'd be off the mountain at 3:00 - ugh!) 

So we'll just move on to how we rewarded ourselves... We headed back to Vegas on Saturday morning & sat poolside - thank goodness because my body was not really moving easily. Mom and Sara deserved this - they sat in Lone Pine for two days... there was a lot of nothing to do in Lone Pine so this was 'their' day!

we celebrated with wine & sushi - ahhhh life is good!

and ended our adventure with 'Le Reve' - Awesome (yeah that's with a capital 'A')! 

Thank you to everyone who helped me so I could do this amazing trip! Mom and dad for taking me, Curt for encouraging me and changing his schedule to take care of the kids,  George, Jackie & Uncle Brian for coming over and helping with the kids & the house! Feeling blessed in so many ways.