Traveling Home--July 7

On the train in the Denver Airport with Uncle Kev, Auntie M, Isaac and Lydia

On a pit stop in Trinidad, Colorado. The girls were still in p.j. s until here.

I've been meaning to blog about this since it happened. We were really impressed with God's graciousness and protection on our road trip and the few days following. Only a few miles before we arrived at home, there was an accident with a fatality that must have happened moments before we came upon it (we saw on the news that the police closed the interstate within minutes of our passing), and we thanked God that Casey had decided to pull over near Santa Fe just so I could change Haley's dirty diaper. It may have made the difference between our involvement in the accident or not. A few days later, on Casey's commute home from work, he witnessed an 8-car pile-up right in front of him.

Of course, God would still be good and gracious if we had been involved in either accident, but we are so grateful for these glimpses of how very often God spares us from grief and sadness. Most of the time we are completely unaware of His sustaining and protective hand in our lives.

July 6 Hike

Okay, so someone had this idea to get some great family photos at a nearby waterfall and off we went with 6 children 3 and under--3 of them 6 months and under! Thank God we had Sandy to help us! The hike ended up being a half mile each direction, and our 3 oldest (Ruby-3, Gabe-2, Claire-2) walked (often running!) almost the entire way by themselves!

With Lita

The whole kit and caboodle! From top left: Casey, Claire, me, Ruby, Corey, Karen, Sandy, Gavin or Grant, Grant or Gavin (can you tell I'm still clueless on how to tell them apart in a picture?), Gabe and Haley.

The falls themselves--nothing compared to Multnomah, but WATER, nonetheless!

Grandma Sandy (Lita to our girls) with her 3 oldest grandchildren

Uncle Corey and Aunt Karen with their clan of G-boys!

This is a blurry pic of Ruby, but I'm so captured by the beauty surrounding us that day on our hike through the foresty forest! It really is so gorgeous in that part of Washington! But as rain is known to do, it not only makes things green, but attracts mosquitos. The forest was THICK with greenery AND mosquitos!

Here's how we did it: The 3 youngest in slings/baby carriers and the 3 oldest running from parent to Uncle or Aunt or Grandma. Great fun.

While on Vacation. . . July 6

Let's go to Chuck E. Cheese's! Only with Uncle Corey and Auntie K! (We'd never be so fun on our own!)

Should we really be encouraging this kind of behavior?

Ruby was hilarious trying to do skiball. She'd give it her all, but the ball would just roll back--all her "oomph" didn't have enough force to even get it in the "gutter!" At first I thought it was great entertainment at a small price, but she ended up gettting discouraged and exhausted. I guess she knew enough that it was at least supposed to go away. . . not keep coming back to her.

Alright, so I guess Chuck E Cheese's is the exception to what I said here. This is the cleanest, most enjoyable restaurant play structure I've been in so far! It was even air conditioned!

Why won't this rotate? It's right on our computer. . . this is the 3rd attempt to upload a rotated one. I give up! Haley slept through most of the hoopla.