Remembering Colorado

I hiked up a fourteener this summer in Estes Park. I thought I was in a lot better shape than I realized when we got past tree line and I wanted to puke the remainder of the hike. Here is our crew at 5 am .... we left the trail head at 3 am. Totally worth it!


The view was worth the nausea.


I barely took this shot 'cause I was exhausted.

Remembering Summer Trek

This August I lead a group of 50 junior highers on an 8 day service project in Montana. We endured long cold rainy days blazing trail through boulder fields for a Christian camp that guides young people into the back country.



At the end of our trip we all hiked up to the top of a cliff that overlooked the camp we stayed at during the week.

If...

If I ate a piece of pie for breakfast, would it actually be a breakfast strudel?

Happy Birthday, Phil!

Happy birthday, dear husband!
Birthday extravaganza pictures to come...

Safari

A few days after we got back from Colorado, we left for a junior high camp in central Washington. Here is a picture of Phil teaching one of the nights. While Phil was involved with the junior high side of things, the camp is staffed by a team of high school students, which I helped with. Phil took good care of me too, and got a long extension cord to put a fan in our tent!

Reunion

The last week of July, we were able to go out for a family reunion. There was about 50 of Phil's family and extended family. The reunion was held at Timberline Lodge in Winter Park, Colorado, where Phil and I first met. It was a fun time with familiy, as well as reminiscing of our friendship and dating days. We also got to spend some time with some dear friends, and also spent some time in Boulder and Estes Park.


Our immediate family on Phil's side.


Matt & Phil on a mountain biking ride.


Phil and I on a family hike. Phil went on past these falls, and others of us turned back and went shopping in Grand Lake.

Viva Mexico

I don't think we ever mentioned that we went to Mexico for a week in February. We went with our high school group to build houses in Ensenada, Mexico with an organization that connects local Mexican churches with mission teams. We had a lot of fun, and we loved our team!




The house we built with our team. I'm standing next to the mom of the family that we built the house for. Her son is behind me, and her daughter is in the hula skirt. Our supervisor/translator is in the front.

Showered

My good friends Kristi & Rachael threw me a wonderful shower. We had delicious food, played fun games, talked, laughed and opened up a ton of presents. Included in the many presents was this diaper "cake" and the best stroller ever. This girl will be riding in style...

Summer Fun

We have had a great summer. But we haven't posted a whole lot lately... So I'm going to be posting pictures up in the next few days. Here is the first:



This is the day we found out we were going to have a little girl. We went to a coffee shop and opened up the card our ultrasound doctor wrote to us. It was a fun way to find out!

Great News

We have been SO thankful for how the Lord continues to sustain our dear friend, Hudson Vanker, through the kidney tranplant he got last week. We've added the Vanker's website on our links--check it out!
http://www.thevankers.blogspot.com