Rocky Mountain High

There is a song by that name I think. Colorado was a whirlwind of good weather, family and great times. All coming to an end too soon. The first few days were spent in the Highlands Ranch area with Dave, Gail and nieces - Stephanie, Susannah and Carrie. The girls spent time making friendship bracelets, swimming and learning new card games. These card games move way to fast for this old mom and cause too much stress to my system (I have this competitive spirit that comes out when we play games.) The weather surprisingly was only in the mid 90s this time and of course there is no humidity, WOW! Now some of you have met Gail. She is a wonderful cook and likes to feed people. She went out of her way to provide gluten free meals and much food for our girls and us.

The highlight of our trips is always a visit to BeauJos in Colorado Springs. It's a pizza place that is just a melt in your mouth kind of pizza and they have honey on the table for you to dip your crust in when you have eaten all the pizza off it. I know you are thinking it sounds gross but try it sometime with thick crust pizza. So on the way out to Colorado we talked about our favorite pizza place and decided that it would not happen this time, of course they wouldn't have a gluten free menu right. Well we were wrong! Thankfully they have a very very very good gluten free menu that is actually part of their official menu. Not just a paper print out. Needless to say we were pleased and did visit our favorite pizza place and it was wonderful! We also got a bonus and went on gluten free wednesday and got $5 off.

Jonathan took the girls on some fun hikes. Dinosaur ridge was a mile walk up a mountain road and then back down again. They were dog tired. I waited at the bottom and relaxed. The next day was our visit to Colorado Springs and he took them up to see St. Mary's Glacier (not officially a glacier because it is not floating.) This was a 3/4 mile hike up a very rocky path which ended up at a beautiful lake and snow! Niece Carrie joined us for this day out. Minor fall caused some knee scrapes and tears but that was taken care of with a nice blue bandaid. Again I stayed at the bottom Kalyn texted me and sent me pictures when they got up there. I visited with other hikers and encouraged some that looked at the rocky path and the length that they could do it. If my 6 year old and 4 other girls could walk it they certainly could. We rewarded our girls with the trip to BeauJos.

On thursday we headed up into Estes park for the family reunion. Considering everyone had to travel we had a great turn out, about 50 family members gathered. Most of these people we only get to see at this reunion which takes place every 3 years. It's a great time to catch up and meet the newest members of the family. We always have a worship time together and it is just amazing to hear all the voices lifted in song. We stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies. Great facility with soooo much to do. Our family only went on 1 hike up in the mountains around Lilly lake. Jonathan and the girls, including my nieces took turns pushing me in a wheel chair so that I could accompany them. The rest of the time there was spent making crafts like; mosiacs, painting wood and ceramics, tye dying t-shirts, swimming, playing soccer, minature golfing, eating, and just visiting.

So I have spent this week recovering from our great times. I am so thankful to have such wonderful family and friends that continue to pray for me/us. It was a vacation that took a lot our of me but it was wonderful!