Our amazing view

This is the view from where we are staying. It's pretty unbeatable! Mark was fly fishing in the lake right out our front door. I have no idea where the mist came from, but it was cool enough to get me out with my camera!

The other night when we were driving home this huge elk was just sitting in the meadow in front of Long's Peak. Pretty amazing sight! This was only a few hundred yards from our lodge.

Climbing Programs

So, this summer Mark and I have coached the 'climbing' team. Mark has taken the lead as the climbing guru for our project (he's the only one certified this summer) and I have gotten to be a belay slave:) It's been so fun to watch our students grow in so many ways. Each week we'd take them out and do programs that our other staff members wrote for climbing. I love this project becuase we get to see people actually change over such a short period of time. I have total confidence that they will leave here changed and more mature in their walk with the Lord. The growth has been really apparent this summer and I love to hear their deeper understanding of who they are in Christ coming out in discussions like the one pictured.

Have you ever seen such a pear shaped climber? My harness has fit sideways all summer long...it just doesn't lay right. Pretty funny looking:)

So, the kids have been involved in a number of things while we've been here. Jack has had soccer, pirate camp, and now swim lessons. Noah just plays at the playground while he's waiting. It's turned out to be a pretty good summer for them afterall! We've also done a fair bit of hiking and climbing as a family. Two of our hikes were fruitless searches for new climbing spots. It's funny how history has a way of repeating itself...for some reason I don't learn my lesson and I keep going on these 'adventures'. The second time I finally decided to read the directions from the climbing book myself once we got about a mile into the hike (I had been told that it would only be about 200 yards total)...it turned out to be a 2 mile hike with a 1/2 mile scramble to the base of the summit. That didn't sound like fun with my two kids and a bunch of other people in tow...so we turned around and just went out to coffee. A much better option:)

Finally, a post for this summer!

Ok, so we've been here for almost 6 weeks now...and I'm finally getting around to posting on our blog:) So far, we've had an adventurous summer. We had our last outreach today and invited people in the community to rock climb for free. It's so fun to be able to offer something like this to people that they can't do on their own. It's been a fun summer and I've been able to participate in almost everything. I was only about 4 1/2 mos. along when we went backpacking, still big enough around that I had to improvise and wear some of Mark's pants part of the time. They don't really sell outdoor maternity clothing anywhere that I know of. The backpack was ok, it just sat low around my wide waist.