Sunday, August 20, 2006

Sunday – 20 August

Wow – this month is zooming by.

I finally have decided – well about 90% decided - not to begin school with the little ones until the end of September. I for sure won’t begin before Mike deploys (first week in September). The girls will be leaving two weeks after that – and waiting those final two weeks is the part I’m 90% sure about.

Mike visited all services today. I went to two. Arielle and Stacia went to two. Arielle has a friend who is moving this week that she wanted to say goodbye to in the traditional service. All of us went to “our” service – the contemporary service. What a hoot this group is. Mike mentioned he’d be leaving in 3 weeks for the desert and the keyboardist piped applause through the chapel. :::snort::: I managed to sit through the entire service with Zander and Stacia….nice to hear a sermon…I love to hear Mike preach. It was also fun to have the girls there. For some reason having the girls there made everyone think we were a huge family….I guess before we were slightly above average. LOL

Yesterday I made homemade ice cream….vanilla and almond chocolate. Cy was getting out the go-withs. Zander LOVES Neman O’s (organic Oreos) and only gets them once a week. Cy told him, “Only two cookies Zander” and he said, “Cy, my life is WRECKED!” Remember when your life could be wrecked by such a thing as not enough Oreos? {G}
ODE TO THE GASOLINE PUMP
If I weren't so tired I would write a poem worthy of these final pictures. I want to get all the photos uploaded as I'm hearing horrors of bloggers upgrades. I have no clue what they are upgrading but want these photos UP before they do whatever they are about to do. {g}
As I shared at the start of the trip, I decided to try to take photos at each gas pump we filled up at. I suspected it would be the most "important" highlight of our trip. I didn't get them all - but here's quite a few....and we found gas to be cheapest right here in West TX.
New Deal, TX - first gas stop of the road trip
Raton, NM
CO Springs, CO (where I THOUGHT I lost a child)
Billings, MT
Spokane, WA
Livingston, MT
Mike even cooperated
Getting good at catching models on the fly...Jamin
10 people in the car and not ONE of them will pose any longer....the last day before we arrived home...Santa Fe, NM
ROAD TRIP PHOTOS - 16 AUGUST - HOME....
Stacia celebrates her 1st birthday
ROAD TRIP PHOTOS - 15 AUGUST - BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT
This park was way cool! It followed the "people of the beans" - literal meaning of the Spanish words I can't remember...and YES...we did talk like characters from Lord of the Beans most of the day! LOL
Cliff Dwellings
Arielle climbs into a cliff dwelling

Krista makes BIG inroads in her mission to win over Staica....she slings her when I was gulping for air on this high elevation climb.

The Gang

Cy helps Zander into a cliff dwelling

Isn't this strange? Does it prove aliens existed centuries ago?

petrogliphs

See the green blob with the bad roots on the left? That's me suffering from elevation sickness - migraine - while the rest cheese for the camera. {bg}

ROAD TRIP PHOTOS - 14 AUGUST CONTINUED - LORETTO CHAPEL
This chapel is famous. It seems that the Sisters had a chapel and choir loft built in the late 1800's based on a chapel in France. Near the end of the building it was realized that they had neglected to build stairs. They had a beautiful chapel and a beautiful loft but no way to get from one to another. They prayed a novena to St. Joseph and on the last day, as legend goes, a man with a donkey showed up. He built the stairs and left without being paid.
The stairs are 22 feet high, there are 33 stairs, they make two 360* turns, have no center supporting beam, really no support except where they attach at top and bottom. Originally there were no banisters but the sisters asked for those to be added. Oh - and it is all built with wooden pegs instead of nails.
ROAD TRIP PHOTOS - 14 AUGUST - SAINT FRANCIS CATHEDRAL
This is a beautiful cathedral
The door of St. Francis'
The kids walk the labrynith - which reminds them of recent prayer walks....
ROAD TRIP PHOTOS - 13 AUG - TRAVEL DAY
Somewhere on the road between Canon City, CO and Santa Fe, NM the monotony of cows are broken up by buffalo!
Nolan & Zander enjoy their new dino puzzle
Oops - forgot this picture. Mike - happy to have reached the top of the mountain and the back of the cave.....it was a SMALL opening, BTW.....finally got the children up the mountain he's loved for more than 40 years.....
ROAD TRIP PHOTOS – 12 AUGUST – MARBLE CAVE – WESTCLIFFE, CO


The main reason for our route home was THIS adventure. Mike’s father Earl and his older brother Earl had discovered this cave over 40 years ago. Mike had taken me up to it once – over 20 years ago. He had talked for years of taking the kids up there and THIS was the time to do it. We drove home by back roads so we could visit all these old spots. I couldn’t find a motel in Westcliffe so we stayed in Canon City for two nights to make this adventure possible.

I’ll let Krista tell this in her words – and pictures will follow.
“So the trip down to TX was a lot of fun. My favorite part was Marble Caves. GPa G and Uncle Earl found the cave a long time ago (they are Conquistador caves). GPa G would take Dad up to it when Dad was little. Dad and Uncle Earl discovered Marble Hall on one of these trips. The last time Dad went was about twenty years ago. Dad decided to take us kids up to see Marble Caves. Pretty much as soon as I heard we were going to hike up to the caves I had flashbacks of Boston and said it was going to rain when we got up there. At 1st I heard that it was a 20 miles hike, then 18, and then it settled on 12. I’m not sure how long it was, in truth I think it was more like 9 or 10 miles. We took the Honda instead of the van (the van has a V-10 engine and lots of clearance) because only five of us were going (Dad, Josiah, Jamin, Jared and I). We came to a dirt road that said,”privately owned don’t park on this road 1.5 miles”. The road looked pretty bad so we decided just to walk the 1.5 miles instead attempting to take the Honda. We had gone about ¼ mile when Dad managed to get a hold of Uncle Earl and they were on their way. They had a pickup. Uncle Earl, cousins Crystal, Jerome, and Dominique, drove their pickup up the road and Cy, Jamin, Jared, and I stood in the back and held onto the metal rack to carry stuff on top (I’m unsure of what there called).It was a lot of fun and once again it reminded me of Boston - only this time of the subway. The road ended up being much longer than 1.5 miles, it was more like 3or4. We were very appreciative of Ford Pickups. The 1st 2 miles of the hike were pretty easy but the next 2.25 miles were real killers for me. I blame it on the altitude we were at - 11000 feet at this point (the caves were at 11,800 ft). We finally broke timberline and ate lunch!!! Dad and Crystal saw a bear. After lunch we started heading up some more WOHOO. On the way up Crystal and I were to the side in the rocks instead of the loose dirt when the boys above started yelling wolverine. I wasn’t really paying attention (I was singing I Believe I Can Fly in memory of P. Nate). Earl called up and told us to move to the center - Now. We did, just a little sad at having to give up the solid groundL. But then the Dads below saw the animal and said it was a marmot and we could go back overJ. We arrived at a cave and climbed through it which was really fun. Cy and I crawled/wiggled to the very back of the cave (once again being short came in handy). We then went over to Marble Hall and there was writing on the outside that said, “400 feet to the white marble hall ß 8/11/1897”. Jerome, Dominique, Cy, and I climbed to the back of Marble Hall. The ground was covered in bat scat at one level and the other level was all crumbly. We were all covered in mud - I loved it. We got out of the Hall and some storm clouds that the Dads had been watching but figured would miss us did miss us. However, some more came up over the ridge behind us. :o We tried to go ahead and make our way across the side of the mountain to Marble Cave where there is a Maltese cross painted on the wall. But the storm hit and it was one nice thunderstorm with hail. It was decided, with no discussion, that staying above timberline in a thunderstorm was Stupid. So down we came; I was laughing inside all the way about the irony of it. We made it down to the truck soaking wet and thanking God for Ford Pickups.”
On the top of the world!

Krista climbing back into marble hall
Jared at mouth of marble cave


Cy at mouth of cave

Mike's brother Earl, son Jerome, daughter Cyrstal and her son Dominque

Mike & children at the entrance to the marble hall

ROAD TRIP PHOTOS - 9 AUG - YELLOWSTONE
A few of the many photos we took...
Bre with Arielle and Nolan
Stacia & De'Etta

Krista

Seven of the kids

loved these "almost" boiling hot springs

Old Faithful