MTB Race #2: Mantua

Here we go into the second mountain bike race of the season.  Race two was in Mantua. All the kids were excited to ride on a familiar race course. This course has a lot of climbing but it is still fun. The weather was great and everyone got to race their full race.

Of course Logan is our smiley boy who has just a fun care free attitude. He was way excited to start in 5th place. Logan was the first to race as usual. 

Logan raced really well and was able to maintain his top 10 slot by coming in 7th place.  Logan has come a long way this season. Great job buddy. 

Emily is always great at her races. She has come a long way with her confidence and trusting her bike. This season, she has a new good luck charm: tattoos on her face and calf. If she has these on, her race will be great. 

It was a great race for her. Emily continued to move up in position by 9 slots coming in at 23! She was able to keep up with her goal to make state.  

Colby was also excited to start at a good position. He started in the tenth slot and had the goal of making podium because Mantua is one of his favorite courses.

Colby cooked on this course securing his goal of a podium slot coming in 3rd! He raced hard and did awesome.  He was so excited to make podium for the first time.

It was a great race for all of them.   Our team also did very well and we had multiple riders make the podium.  Because of this, Mountain Crest got 3rd place in the division. 

It has been a great experience being Head Coach and seeing so many of the kids having fun and accomplishing their goals.

First Cross Country Meets

Emily is doing Cross Country again this year and loves it.  I think she like the people on the team more than the running but she is great at the running part too!  Emily has really improved over last year and is now on the Varsity team.

These 7 girls work so hard and do such a great job at every meet.

The first meet of the season was at Skyview.  Since this was the first meet, all of the girls ran together so the coaches could determine who would be on JV or Varsity.

All meets are hard but Emily did great finishing in 24:17 and securing a Varsity slot finishing third on the team.  She said she felt pretty good and it was a good start to the season.

The next meet was the UIAAA Invite in Spanish Fork.  This was a Varsity only meet so Emily was excited to run in her first Varsity meet.  She finished 2nd on her team and got a new PR of 22:45.  Emily said there were so many people in her race but it was nice to run with the faster girls because it helped her PR.

The next meet was Pre-Region at the American West Heritage Center.  This is Emily's favorite course so she was looking forward to this meet.

The goal of this meet was to run together as the Varsity team.  They did really well at pacing for the first half of the race but then they started splitting up.  It was awesome to see the flood of orange as they ran by.  They didn't finish all together but all of the girls got great times for pushing each other.  Their goal was 21 minutes.  Emily didn't quite get that time but was still able to get a PR of 22:35 and place 20th overall in the Varsity Girls. She may or may not have cut the corner at the end by accident! Oops... 

The season is starting off strong and we are looking forward to more exciting meets!

August

August was a busy month with a lot of fun memories. Between mountain biking, cross country, and family outings the whole month flew by. We started the month out with a trip down to Lehi and go to Kari's baptism. 

It was a great time to see family and hang out. After the baptism, we went to Jen's house to hang out and eat. Rick was in charge of the entertainment for the afternoon so he brought out his katana swords and some water jugs.  At first we were not sure what was happening but it turned out to be really fun.

We each got to slice a water jug in half with the sword. It was way cool and fun. We all felt like ninjas.  

Right before school started, Charlotte got a new look on life, literally!

She got glasses and was way excited to finally see better.  Charlotte was finally able to see the trees on the mountain for the first time.  We laughed when she told us about the trees!  Hopefully this will help her in school so she can see the board better.

Charlotte, Brooklyn, and Tiffany were able to help with the Top of Utah Half Marathon. 

The Hyrum Youth Council was in charge of the aid station at mile marker three.  They all had a good time handing out water and Gatorade to the runners.  Charlotte and Brooklyn felt really cool to be part of the big kids.

 

Lastly the garden this year was a big success. We were blessed with a lot of vegetables. 

We planted a lot of potatoes and man did they grow. We probably had 50 pounds or more.  We also planted way too many cucumbers.  Those things just kept growing.  We turned many cucumbers into many jars of pickles. We also grew green beans, lots of carrots, a few ears of corn, and peas. We had a great year for tomatoes.  We canned pasta sauce, salsa, and jarred tomatoes. It was a fun month for the Farnsworth family.

First Day of School 2025-26

Sadly summer has come to an end and school is back in.  I don't think any one was really very excited about it except Brooklyn.  She could not wait to start preschool!

This year we have at least one kid in every school.  Emily is starting her Junior year at Mountain Crest High School.  She is excited but nervous for all that entails because usually the Junior year is the hardest.  She is happy to see her friends again though.  Emily is also looking forward to cross country and track as well as being a member of the leadership in the GRIT Club and FCCLA.  It should be a good year for her.

Colby is starting his first year at the high school as a Freshman.  He is looking forward to high school and is excited to be leaving the middle school behind.  Colby is also happy to be back with his friends again.  I hope he gets involved in some clubs and sports so that his high school years will be fun too.  Right now his whole focus is on Mountain Biking.  High school will be a good experience for him.

Logan is starting his first year at South Cache Middle School as a 7th grader.  He was mostly excited to start riding the bus every morning.  As we were preparing for back to school time, we went and toured the middle school and found his locker and all of his classes.  After one time through, he had it down and said he was ready.  I am happy that he has a few classes with his friends and they have already planned to meet up in the lunchroom each day.  Enjoy middle school, Logan!

Charlotte is the only one left at Canyon Elementary.

Charlotte is starting Third grade and she was so happy to have a few of her friends in her class this year.  Her teacher, Mrs. Boelter, seems really nice and I have heard a lot of good things about her.  We were really concerned about Charlotte this school year.  I felt like she might need some more help in school.  Russell and I discussed a lot of options including homeschooling or sending her to a Charter school.  We were not quite sure about homeschooling because I am not the best at consistency.  We had her registered at the Thomas Edison Charter school and went to the back to school night and met her teacher there.  I think she would have been fine there and her teacher seemed really nice but Russell and I both had a nagging feeling that it wasn't the right move either.  It was a pretty stressful week before school but Charlotte said she really wanted to go to Canyon.  After making that decision, Russell and I instantly felt peace.  So we decided it was the right choice. I hope everything goes well this year for her and that she makes new better friends and also progresses academically.  

Brooklyn was counting down the days until preschool.  Like I said before, she was the only one excited about school starting.  Brooklyn is going to preschool at Mountain Crest.  This is the same preschool both Logan and Charlotte attended.  A few days before school, Brooklyn was able to meet her new teacher Ms. Mindy.

On her first day of school, Brooklyn did not even look back, she just headed right into the school with her teachers.  It was so cute but so sad for me too...  Why do they have to grow up?  Brooklyn loved school and told me all about all of her new friends and everything they did when she got home.  I think this will be a good experience for her because she is so social.

This is the cute new backpack I made for her to take to school.  I love the bicycle print and it turned out so good.  Brooklyn loves it!

Brooklyn also had another first day.  This week was her first day of Let's Play Music.  

Brooklyn was also so excited for music class.  She loved singing and dancing with her teacher and all of the other kids.  She asks everyday if it is music class day.  This will also be a fun experience for her.

So here we are starting another school year.  I hope all of the kids enjoy this school year.

I hope they make a lot of new friends.  I hope they learn a ton.  Most of all I hope they are kind to others and grow stronger as individuals.  Good luck this year and enjoy every moment.

MTB Race #1: Price

Mountain bike season is in full force!  Price Utah was our first mountain bike race of the season. Emily, Colby, and Logan have worked hard the whole summer training and riding a lot. 

We got to Price on Friday night to do the pre-ride. The course was a great course and really easy. The kids looked forward to racing on it the next day.

 This was Logan's first race and he was way excited. He laughed and to us saying, "What if I podium." We told him to do it! Logan raced first in the Beginner 7th Grade Boys category and it was fun to see him take off and race his heart out. 

Logan is the kind of rider that is there for the fun, but is also a silent competitor. He pushes himself and gets ahead of people with his endurance up hills. I saw him on the midway point on his lap and he was in the top 10 spot. Holy cow he's was doing amazing considering he started at the 38th position!  We continued cheering for him and told him to keep passing people.  Then came the steep hill climb which Logan is great at.  On the climb he passed 5 more people and I thought, he really is going to podium! When he sprinted to the finish line, he placed 5th and got a podium spot on his first race. 

We were all way excited and proud of him. It was cool to be his Dad and Coach as I gave him his 5th place medal. Way to go Logan!!!

Emily is a pro by now. She knows the ins and outs of the race life. Emily races in the JV B Girls category and her goal this year is to qualify for state. To do this she needs to finish the year out in the top 40.  I told her that is great and she could do it. I also told her to have a fun and race. She started further back this year, but she made up for it quickly by being more aggressive and passing a lot more. She moved up quite a bit during this race. 

Right before the start gun went off for her race, the race officials gave the riders some news. Because a storm as coming in and they wanted all of the riders to race instead of cancelling, the race officials decided to have all of the afternoon riders, starting with Emily's group, do only one lap instead of the typical two laps they would normally do.  This announcement got a lot of cheers but also required the riders to change up their race strategy.  Instead of conserving energy for the second lap, this race became a sprint. Emily was okay with this and did really well. At the end, she was still going strong. Her finishing time was 31:43 and in 32nd place! She started in 47th place so she was able to pass 15 people getting her closer to her goal of state. Good job Emily!!

Colby was also fun to watch. He also only had to do one lap instead of two. He was excited for this because he knew he could sprint the whole way and move up a ton. He had a huge game plan mentally down in his head. We told him good luck and get it done. After seeing Logan podium, I knew he also had a goal to push hard and podium. 

Off he went in a cloud of dust. Colby is great at sprinting and knows when to push on hills too.  You can just see the determination in his face as he rides. He came across the finish line at 9th place with a time of 26 minutes. What a race for him as he started in 28th place.  He didn't get the podium spot he wanted but 9th place definitely put him in a good position and a possibility of a podium for the next race. Good job Colby!!! 

We had podiums after the racing was done and it was fun to stay and watch everyone. Mountain Crest did a great job received multiple medals. After the podiums, the weather came in and down poured. Thank goodness they shortened the races or Colby would have been racing right during the downpour.  There were some areas on the race track that had some flash flooding. We stayed in our trailer and stayed dry, ate food and played games. We headed back home the next day.  It was a good race day!

Jason & Kenna’s Wedding

The second weekend in August, Charlotte, Brooklyn and I headed down to St. George for Jason and Kenna's wedding. The boys were at Young Men's camp and Emily wanted to work and go to some cross country parties.  Russell stayed home with them while I took the two youngest with me.  This was a fun trip to St. George and it was good to see family and celebrate Jason's wedding.

The wedding was beautiful.  It was the perfect day in St. George.  It was hot but that is to be expected.  Jason and Kenna were married in the St. George Temple in the East Sealing Room. (The best one!)  It was an awesome sealing.  The sealer explained the endowment ordinance in such a way that I had never thought of before.  It was a way that made it make more sense to me.  I was definitely glad I was able to attend and learn.

After the wedding, we all stood around while they took pictures. At noon-ish, I picked up the kids from the Hughes' and headed over to Santa Clara for the luncheon.  Cafe Rio salads are the best!  After eating, we got in the truck and headed up to Cedar Mountain where the ring ceremony and wedding reception was held.

This campsite is Kenna's favorite place to camp and it was such a beautiful place. It was very unconventional but it totally fit Jason and Kenna's personalities.  They had decorated everything with logs, pine boughs, and cones.  I actually loved it!  If I could do it again, I would do something like this and forget tradition.  

We had hot dogs and doughnuts for food and their wedding cake was actually a Dutch oven berry cobbler.  We all danced in the dirt and grass and just enjoyed being in the woods.

Charlotte and Brooklyn loved running around the campsite exploring.  They found this fun swing made out of a log and spent most of the time swinging.  We also hiked around in the woods until it was time to go.

Jason and Kenna were sent off in festive style with ribbon wands, bubbles, and lots of cheering.  This was such a fun, laid back wedding.  I was glad I was able to come down and join in the celebration.  Congratulations Jason and Kenna!

Teton 50 Miler: Day 5: Going Home

 The morning of the final day was a little bittersweet.  We were happy it was our final day of hiking but we were sad to leave everyone and this experience.  We all wanted showers and a real bathroom for sure but then could we just come back?

Before we started hiking for the day, Dawna gathered us all around and showed us the map of the trail we had hiked over the past week.  Looking at the map and the grand plan of the hike after experiencing it, just made it more spectacular in my mind.   

We had covered so much ground and had learned so much along the way. Not only about the terrain and how to filter water but about ourselves and the girls we were with. 

Well it was time to begin our final hike.  Our end goal for the day was to make it back to the trucks.  Our packs were a little lighter which was nice and we had smiles on our faces.  We also knew we had about 10 more miles to hike that day though and it would not be easy.

The steak dinner we had the night before gave us the energy we needed.  Today we decided to all stick together for the most part instead of splitting into two groups.  Because of this, I got to know some of the girls in the other group a little better.  

We followed the river most of the way and it was really pretty.  Then the trail turned up the mountain as we climbed to go up and over it.  While walking we spotted these prints in the mud:

No they were not the prints of a dog, they were the prints of a big wolf...  and they were pretty fresh...  This gave us all a little start and we kept looking around watching for the wolf.  I just knew it would jump out at us from the rocks above.  This was another reason why we decided to all stick together this day.  Luckily no wolf attacks happened.  I think the reason we didn't see any big wildlife this week was because we were a little too loud with all of our talking, laughing, and singing.  Oh well.

At the top of the trail, we came across this cool lookout point that looked over the river and a waterfall.

We all stopped and rested for a while so we could admire the incredible view.  The water was rushing so fast and it was loud.  Some of the more adventurous girls hiked down to the river and were able to get a better look at the waterfall.  We could see it from above but the view was obstructed a little by boulders.  The girls came back and reported about the awesome sight and said they could feel the water spray.

When we started this hike a week ago, the girls found out that the Datwyler's were also out on horseback hiking through the wilderness somewhere.  All of the girls were hoping to catch a glimpse of Spencer at some point along the trail.  Well all of their hopes and dreams came true on this last day as Spencer and his dad passed us along the trail!  It was so funny to watch the girls just stand a little straighter and smooth their matted hair and bat their eyelashes as he rode by.  Spencer was totally oblivious and just rode on passed without even looking our way!  Inside I had to laugh so hard. Just seeing a boy that was not Chet or Casey after a week just made their day!

We ate lunch near this cool bridge.  All of the girls wanted to dip their feet in the water while we were here.  We made sure to fill all of our water bottles because it was going to be a long dusty trail the rest of the way.  After crossing the bridge we would be going away from the river.

The craziest thing for me was noticing the direction the water was flowing.  All week the rivers have been running left to right or north to south.  But this river under the bridge was flowing the opposite way.  It was going  right to left and west to east.  I stared at the water for quite a while before asking if I was going crazy.  Shawn said I was not going crazy and the river was flowing a different direction because it was a different river.  As we crossed the bridge, we could look down and see where this river flowed into the main river we had been following and then start flowing the "correct" direction.  I don't know why, maybe exhaustion, but that was mind-blowing to me at the time!

After the bridge was a very steep climb.  Like on the climb to the Crater Lake Overlook, we just put our nose to the ground and plugged along up the hill.  There was not much talking, we all went at our own pace and didn't stop until we got to the top.  It was steep and very warm but we made it.  That was one of our last steep inclines.  The trail from there followed along the mountain line through the trees and finally crested at the top.  From there, we could look out and see for miles. 

We could see the three peaks of the Grand Tetons in the distance.  We could also see the meadow where we had parked the trucks. We were almost there!  The rest of the trail was downhill to the meadow.

The downhill was a nice change and the landscape started to look familiar.  At the crossroads, we could either continue straight and make the 50 mile trek all over again or we could turn left and head back to the truck!  We, of course, chose to go left.  The final climb up the Dug-way proved to be our final trial.  Once again we took our own pace and didn't look back or stop until we had reached the parking lot.  We all seemed to stagger in one at a time but that was okay.  Each time we saw a girl come through the trail head gates, we would cheer and cheer for them!  We had made it! We accomplished our goal!  We fought the good fight and finished our course!  We hiked 10 miles this day getting us pretty close to 50 miles for the week.

We all just dropped our packs and breathed a sigh of relief.  Dawna laughed at our sweaty backs and took a picture of us.  After resting for a minute, we all rushed to the water spigot and literally started "bathing!"  The soap and water spit bath never felt so good!  We also changed into cleaner clothes and some girls washed their hair.  

For me, I was so happy to see that nasty pit toilet that I didn't even care how dirty it was, I just sat down and signed with relief at the comfort of sitting on a toilet seat!  

Dawna and Casey had the horses loaded and ready to leave by the time we got back so they wanted to hit the road.  The hikers were too busy getting clean to care about driving 4 hours though.  Finally the trucks started pulling out so we knew we had better get in if we wanted a ride home.  On the way home, we stopped in Jackson to get a Subway.  The real food tasted really good!  

I thought we would sleep the whole ride home but we were too busy laughing.  Once again we were entertained by Miss Rosie.  Dawna also gave us a CD to listen to on the ride home.  Well the CD was full of silly kid songs and we all laughed at every song.  Casey was going crazy listening to all of the songs which made it even funnier.  He finally yanked the CD out of the player and said "Oh darn the CD player is broken!"  

We finally made it home and Emily and I could not stop telling all of the fun stories about the trip.  The warm shower felt amazing and my nice soft bed welcomed me home!  

This was a very memorable trip and I am so glad I had the opportunity to participate in this High Adventure.  I am grateful to our neighbor, Kurt, for letting us borrow all of his backpacking gear like his tent, sleeping bags, and a backpack.  We could not have done it with out his expert tips and tricks.  We are also grateful for Dawna and all of the time and effort she put in to getting us ready, setting everything up, and taking care of us on the trip.  It wouldn't have happened without her.  This is something I will always remember.  I am glad I was able to spent this time with Emily.  It was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.