Spring Picnic

This Saturday was our branch picnic and although we were among the first to leave the church and head to the picnic site, we were the last to arrive. On our way up to the picnic site our friend, and driver, Marianna learned we hadn't yet been to Medeu so we took a short detour and headed up. Medeu is basically a mountain-side park with a very large ice-skating rink. I managed to not get any pictures with the huge snow-covered mountains in the distance, but let me assure you, the mountains shown here are practically molehills to the big ones not pictured.

You can see the ice-skating rink below:
Obviously an East Coast girl, I'm quite partial to green, tree-covered mountains (and earth in general).
Chris stands near the bottom of the stairs which lead up to the summit. Take a moment to look to the top of those stairs as they are pretty far from the bottom.
I started out taking two at a time, but quickly stopped! With the change in altitude and the never-ending stairs my legs were quickly burnin'!

After taking the last picture Chris decided to go at his "own" pace and record my slow-but-steady climb up. I'm pretty sure he went a little faster than comfortable just to do this.

Why am I sure? Well, if you didn't notice, he was breathing rather heavy in the video and this picture captured also caught him catching his breath/cooling down.

Remember how I told you to note how high the stairs went in a previous picture? This is what it looks like when you get to the top of the stairs... A lot more to go! We didn't want to make Marianna wait much longer so we didn't actually finish the hike to the summit this trip.
Addie & her daddy having fun in the mountains:
Addie with Nurzia:
Marianna is rallying the group, giving them instruction for a short activity:
Most of the youth and a few adults lined up, held onto the person in front of them, and walked with their eyes closed. The person at the head of the line was responsible for leading the group and warning them of "dangers" like tree branches, roots, etc.
Everyone was really good about keeping their eyes closed, I didn't see anyone peek the whole time!