Here I am

I know I have been missing, yet again, but I am back.  I have several blogs I want to write, and just need to find the time to get it done.

Our Colorado trip was pretty great.  I am a big loser though and only took a few pictures at the beginning and then got distracted and never picked the camera back up.  So you will have to rely on my written accounts.

We left last Thursday and rolled out of our house by 1.  We drove to Grand Junction where we grabbed dinner and got a hotel room.  The next morning Dustin had to do a teleconference at 10 so we went ahead and drove to Riffle, CO and found a little neighborhood park where Austin and I played while Daddy took care of business.

We finished up the drive and got into Grandma's at about 3.  Aunt Cathy was going to drive down and spend the evening with us too, but she got in a minor car accident that messed up the front end of her car so she had to take care of business up there.  Since she had a second vehicle that was parked at her cabin in the mountains we offered to drive her up there Saturday and spend time while there.  We got to go fishing in the private ponds of the association she belongs to and caught some really nice rainbow trout.  I caught the first one and was pretty impressed until she pulled in one that was MUCH bigger.  Austin had a blast playing at the ponds and filled them in a little with rocks.

We headed back down to my Mom's house because my brother said he was going to drive over to see us that night.  We got all the way back and of course he called and said they weren't going to make it, but they would be over in the morning.  Morning came and they called and said they wouldn't be able to make it after all.  That would be fine, but man it was hot on Sunday and my Mom has a swamp cooler in her house; which usually in the arid west it works great because the swamp cooler blows saturated air into the house and then it evaporates and causes the room to cool.  But it has been an especially wet summer in Colorado and it doesn't do much good when the humidity is already high both in and out of the home.  It was pretty hot, too hot to be outside and muggy inside.  If we had known my brother was going to bail we could have stayed at the cabin and played all Sunday.

Monday we were determined to get out of the house so we went swimming.  We went to a rec center where they had an indoor pool figuring in would not be too crowded since most people would probably go to the outdoor pool.  It was really fun and they had a big water slide that we really enjoyed.  We could take Austin down on our laps and Dustin and I would take turns.  The best part is he had to walk up two flights of stairs to get to the top, so he definitely got his exercise.  That night Austin and Grandma got to spend some quality time while Dustin and I went on a date.  I want to do a separate post about the concert after I get the photos uploaded from our cell phone, so I'll share those details later.

Tuesday we were still crossing our fingers and hoping to find out about the job in Wyoming, but they still have not called, so we decided to take the south route home and drive Highway 50 through the mountains so we could see Canon City, Salida, Gunnison, Montrose, and Delta which are all towns we have on our list of places we would like to live.  We stopped in Montrose for the night and got a room.  All those towns were beautiful, but we confirmed that we would take Gunnison and Salida off of our list because they looked like they would get a pretty snowy and cold winter.  We finished our drive home yesterday, and the trip overall was great.

When we were almost home we did get a call with bad news that Austin's Godfather Andy passed away.  He is a co-worker of Dustin who was an incredible person.  When he was a young man he was drinking and driving and got into a bad car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down.  Even so he overcame that and went on to be an upstanding person who is much loved in our community.  He always had a huge smile on his face and kind words.  He was a faithful usher at our church and only missed when he was in the hospital.  Pretty much every year in the winter he would end up in the hospital with complications from his paralysis, but always seemed to get a little better in the spring.  He had been in and out of the hospital ever since last winter and was unable to overcome his complications.