At Home in the Mountains

 It has been busy, busy, busy since school started. The end of this week will mark a month of being back to classes. On Labor Day we did our traditional end of summer trip to Farwell. We didn't get to leave until Saturday.  We got to Lubbock about 5:30 and had supper with Grandma and Grandpa and David, Janet, Clayton, and Karsyn. I hadn't gotten to meet Karsyn yet so it was really good to get to spend some time holding her. Everyone else was at the first game for Tech. After supper we loaded up and drove on out to Farwell. Sunday morning we went to church and really enjoyed. Then Mema made a delicious dinner for the whole family. It was great to see everyone and Maddy enjoyed hanging out with Mema, the grandparents, various aunts and uncles and cousins of one sort or another. It was kind of a mixed feeling day because it was a year ago that we spent our last weekend with Papa before he died.  After church that evening, Aaron and Eldon went out to the watermelon pat...

 On Friday morning we got up and had a leisurely breakfast and then started packing up everything to go out to Red Mountain Camp. Maddy really enjoyed the BBQ Aunt Jan made for the meal the first night. It was delicious! Maddy was really excited about seeing Bethany at the camp and she was able to stay up just long enough to say hi to Bethany when the Halls got there later in the evening. It was so fun to have a couple of days to watch Maddy and Bethany get to play together. Maddy still talks about Bethany all the time. It is so cute.  Lots of other family was there too. Maddy learned how to play memory. I have a memory game on my phone and she did not really get how to play it before vacation. When we came back she really had the concept of memory down, so she had good teachers. :)  There was of course the usual basketball games, 42 games, card games, etc.  We had the yearly ice cream competition. Janet and I were surprised to find out that we had both decided to...

 As we headed back over the mountains on Sunday we stopped off at Deckers to see the Fletcher grandparents. Grandma Fletcher had just picked a lot of produce out of the garden so I volunteered to snap the beans. It made me realize how much I miss having a real garden. I have yet to figure out how to grow stuff in this crazy Dallas climate....but that is a story for a different day. We ate dinner with them and we had the most tender and tasty pork roast I have ever eaten. Grandma Fletcher also made zucchini muffins that Maddy loved, and squash and salad. Everything in the salad except the bean sprouts were from their garden. We ate dinner pretty late. We had pear pie for dessert and then headed on to Colorado Springs and got there about 11. We were all pretty tired so we unloaded and went to bed. Mom had to work half days while we were there so the next morning Dad made us breakfast and then we headed to Walmart to buy Maddy some puzzles. Let me explain that one of the few things w...

 On July 21st we began our trek to Colorado. We left in the afternoon and stopped in Amarillo to break the trip up. We stayed at the Luxury Inn and Suites aka Nastotel off I-40. If you want a free tasty waffle shaped like Texas for breakfast and are willing to give up all the comforts and cleanliness of home to get it, then Luxury Inn and Suites is the place for you. The next morning we got out of there as fast as possible and continued our drive. We stopped for lunch in Trinidad and found a really cool little park there. They had a playground and a splash pad. We put Maddy in her swimsuit and let her play in the cold Colorado water. I had forgotten how cold the water is there. Maddy loved it but I got pretty chilled from the spray after awhile. After we did that we continued to Colorado Springs and spent the night at my parents house. The next morning we jumped back in the car again and headed for Grand Junction to Grams 82nd birthday celebration. On our way over the mountains we...