There is Beauty All Around

Two weekends ago we decided to go enjoy the beauty of the mountains.

I didn't have to work on Friday and my husband didn't either (one benefit of furloughs).

We left Friday morning and returned Saturday evening, a quick trip, but we enjoyed it,

and it was a nice and much needed time away.

Here we are at the beginning...

 Well, technically this is the beginning.

 This particular hike was beautiful, as most are, but we saw a bunch of lakes!

The hike started out next to this lake.

The first part of the trail is a bunch of switchbacks straight up, but the reward was this beautiful view!

We decided we should come up sometime and take a sailboat on that lake, although we are going to have to book about two years in advance, seeing as that lake's campground is already completely booked for next year!

 My sweet husband is such a sport and posed for pictures anytime I asked.

 One thing I love about hiking is seeing and enjoying the beauty of Heavenly Father's creations.

I started snapping pictures like crazy, of course the pictures never quite do them justice, but they are still beautiful.

 A little bit before this next picture we had to choose which lakes we wanted to camp by,

we went left and as we were hiking we heard water, which obviously is a good sign since we were hiking to a lake,

so we went to investigate the water a bit more, because we hadn't seen much on our hike (besides the lake at the beginning).

 It turns out it's a natural spring, or the water goes underground for a while, either way it was pretty neat.

 Sweet husband investigating a bit

 Here's a picture of the spring itself.

 These are the other two lakes we could have hiked to.... another day.

 Me with the lakes, please excuse the funky poncho connected  to my backpack, it was starting to rain, so we took them out for easy access.

 This is the lake we camped by.

 When we got to the lake it was raining pretty hard. 

So we set out to find the best camping spot possible.

Then it started hailing,

so we set out to find any camping spot possible.

We set up our tent in record time.

About this time the rain stopped, so we decided to fish for a bit before dinner.

My sweet husband forgot that you aren't supposed to throw your pole into the water, just the line...

It was still raining a bit and apparently the fish in this lake don't like to eat when it is raining, so we didn't catch anything, and decided to make dinner.

 We feasted on two different mountain house packets, they are yummy.

The first could have used a little more seasoning but the second one (the one my sweet husband is showing) was really good.

After that we were pretty beat and decided to read in the tent. We're reading the Work and the Glory series right now. We like to read on car trips, we've read a few other series already, and decided that we should read this one. I've read the entire series before, but my sweet husband had only read a few of them. So we started, we are on the third book of nine right now. They are really good and help us put perspective on our lives and we are learning a lot, but that's a story for another time.

We actually slept in the next morning, so we probably missed the best fishing, but while we were eating breakfast we saw fish jumping like crazy so we fished a bit more.

 The water was SO clear!

We could see the fish swimming near us... unfortunately that didn't help us catch any.

I don't think they liked what we had to offer, we needed some wet flies... next time.

My sweet husband started calling me the fishing assassin because I would wait until I saw a fish jump or saw one swim by and would cast right at it... or next to it.. or where I thought it was swimming next... lol!

 It was SO beautiful!

 Then, sadly, we had to head back home.

 We thought the hike back would be a lot faster than the hike out, it was pretty much the same,

so you can imagine how excited we were to see a glimpse of the lake through the trees!

 And then it got bigger

Lol, and then it disappeared for a while

 But then we made it to the trailhead! YAY!

 So I was being silly and flexed my "muscles" and then I wanted to take a picture of my sweet husband and joked that he should flex, he told me no a couple times and I just laughed and was just going to take his picture, but he ACTUALLY flexed! lol! He said, "the things I let you do to me.." lol! I sure love him!

 It was such a beautiful trip! I love to be in Heavenly Father's creations! And especially love to be in the mountains, I always feel so close to Him there! It was just what we needed after a rough week. I love to spend time with my sweet husband! It was a great weekend!