Turquoise Lake...

Not far from our new home we have a beautiful huge lake... I know I have been using the word beautiful a lot lately, but there really is no other way to describe this place we live in... We began our exploration of the lake tonight with a bike ride...
On our way to the lake we found this huge rock... It is just one of many around the lake! Of course we had to climb it...
Then we got to the lake and we took some time to skip some stones!We really love our new home for the year!

Chad's Installation...

This morning Chad was installed as the Vicar of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Leadville and Christ Lutheran in Breckenridge!

We woke up and headed to Good Shepherd first for their 8:30 a.m. service. We met a handful of people and participated in the service. Following the service we had a few moments to say hi to a couple of the people and then we were on our way down to Breck for their 10:30 service (this is a 45 minute drive, so we literally finished the service and took off). While we rushed off we looked forward to the day when we could spend a little more time in fellowship with the people of Leadville, where we will primarily be serving.

We arrived in Breckenridge just in time for the service and then Chad was installed there. We had a little more time to fellowship afterward.

This is the picture of us at church in Breck... We look forward to an exciting year of serving both churches!

Hiking in Vail

So we arrived home in Colorado and began unpacking and getting settled right... WRONG!

You can't be in the mountains and not take a hike + plus we needed a few Walmart supplies and the nearest one is Vail... So on Saturday morning we went to Vail and took a Gondola ride up to a peak where we proceeded to hike three miles through beautiful terrain!When it was over we went to Walmart! Maybe we will work on settling in tomorrow!

Travel Day 4... Heading Home...

Day 4 of our trip starts in Golden, CO and ends at home on top of the world in Leadville!

We woke up and had breakfast with Chad's supervising Pastor, Pastor C. It was great to finally meet him and we are excited to see what this year holds for us and the churches of Breckenridge and Leadville.

Then before heading up the mountain, we went to Dinosaur Ridge where you can see Dinosaur footprints in the rock.
Following a little hike to see the footprints, we got back in the car and began our trip up the mountain! Along the way we stopped for this picture (and anyone with young boys knows that the real reason for this stop was a bathroom break... we just happened to get a picture after that was taken care of!)Later that afternoon we drove into Leadville, CO!
Welcome HOME!

Travel Day 3...

Our trip today took us from Kearney, NE to Golden, CO...

Our stop for today was at the Buffalo Bill Estate. The boys had a chance to see some Bison, sit on a saddle and play with some wildlife.
After driving through the Plains (and I believe the reason they call them the Plains is because of how plain they are... Did I mention yesterday that we saw some corn and some windmills)... We were all getting a little tired of the car. Turns out DVD players are more entertaining than just for watching movies... Check out Seth's headphones...
But our trip was not over and as we approached Denver we began to see our first signs of the mountains...
Tonight we are sleeping in Golden, CO!

Travel Day 2...

We left Des Moines, IA this morning to begin the next leg of our trip to Kearney, NE where we will spend the evening with a friend of mine from college and her family.

The trip was much smoother today and, though the terrain of Iowa and Nebraska is pretty much the same (corn fields and windmills), we did find a Union Pacific Railroad Museum which was interesting and informative!
Tonight we are visiting the Bogus Family. Alexis and I were prayer partners in college at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay... For years after we graduated we didn't see each other and then, 4 years ago, when we were moving from Hawaii to Indiana we stopped in to see them for a couple of days and now we were able to spend some time with them on this trip as well. They even taught us to play the game "Settlers of Katan." We may be hooked.

Travel Day 1...

From Wild Rose, WI to Des Moines IA....

We left Wild Rose early this morning with a trailer packed and loaded to pull behind our van. We got off to a rough start when a little over an hour down the road the trailer blew a tire. Thankfully we had a spare and in the next town we were able to replace the spare and have it fixed.
About half way through our day we stopped in Austin, MN to tour the SPAM museum. The kids loved the free miniature SPAM Mobile they got as we left. We also had fun learning about the history of SPAM.
About 6:00 we pulled into our hotel in Des Moines and hit the pool for some family fun before bed.