Pictures Day 10 8-16-08 Grand Junction, CO - Hendersen, NV

Up & on the road by about 10:20! Have over 500 miles to go today. Happy half birthday to Lindsay today! Too bad she doesn’t feel better so we can celebrate it! Guess we’ll have to do it later when we get back home. Sorry honey!
Maddie is enjoying watching her new DVDs. She even took a nap before lunch. Since she was sleeping so well, we decided to keep going before we stopped for lunch & a bathroom break. But we finally had to stop in Richfield, UT (last stop for about an hour) at Arby’s for lunch. It was good. Had to wake Maddie up, but she woke up in the greatest mood!
After driving for awhile longer, Maddie was starting to get a little restless so we stopped in St. George, UT & found a really nice park to play. You could see lots of lightening & the dark clouds & even a few sprinkles. After we left St George, we heard on the radio that there was a weather alert for severe thunderstorms & the potential for quarter sized hail & wind & up to 60 mph in the mountains of NV. We were about 30 miles outside of Mesquite, NV when we hit the weather. I don’t think we had any hail but just hard rain-lots of lightening too.
We arrived at out hotel sometime around 6:30ish & got checked in & unpacked. Then back in the car to drive around some. Ate dinner at Red Robin & then off to see the lights of Sin City (aka Las Vegas). It is neat to see all the lights, but so much other stuff that you don’t want to see, or your kids to see! We took lots of pictures of the buildings & even got to see the water show in front of the Bellagio as we drove by. This bored Maddie-she fell asleep. Poor little thing. We have her schedule so completely messed up. It took awhile once we were back in our hotel room for her to go back to sleep. Good night!

Pictures Day 9, 8-15-08 Engelwood, CO to Grand Junction, CO

Today we woke up to a drizzly morning. Looks like it has been raining all night. Lindsay is feeling even worse, but we have to get going. Poor thing. I feel bad for her, no fun to travel when you’re not feeling well. She has her bucket by her side in the car. We made it on the road by 11!
It has been raining all the way from when we left the hotel, until we got into the Rockies, then it started hailing & snowing! Egads! We are in our shorts & flip flops. At one point our thermometer said it was 35 degrees outside! This is blowing my mind-snow in August! It is a little unnerving with the weather, especially for Michael driving & slipping a little-after yesterday’s adventure into the mud! We don’t have Mark to come rescue us with his tractor! We actually came to a stand still & crept along. It took us about an hour & a half to go about 10 miles. They had a sign up saying there was going to be a detour at a tunnel we were coming up to but as we crept our way up there, it was open again by the time we got there. It looked like there had possibly been an accident.
We stopped in Frisco, CO for lunch at A&W. The root beer was so yummy. Maddie even liked it. On the sign outside of the restaurant they had John 3:16 up for the entire world to see! Inside they had Bibles around on their shelves & fliers up about Bible studies.
We arrived in Grand Junction, CO about 6:30. This is one of our favorite hotels that we have stayed in-it’s a 2 room suite! The kids each have their own bed & we have our own room. We unpacked the car, settled into the room, tucked Lindsay in bed & then the rest of us went to Mesa Mall. We shopped at Target & stocked up on some new videos & then hit the mall. They had a food court, so we all could pick what we wanted. Michael & Matt had Chinese food & I had Japanese & Maddie had both!
We went down to the pool, but the water was so cold, that we got in the spa. It was perfect. Maddie loved it! She threw a fit when we got out-she wanted to stay sooo bad! Maddie hit full meltdown about 30 mins later. She was just so tired (no nap). No one could make her happy. She finally wore herself out & fell asleep on the floor. Ahhhh, quiet. A little computer & TV time & off to sleep.

Spencer & Scout

Another addition

Yeah! We did get the blue point Siamese kitty today. :) The nice family (the Hughes) that we got the kitties from, even brought him to us today. The boys were happy to see each other again. They had a lot of fun playing. Enjoy the pictures! We are still thinking of names, but right now they are Spencer (the orange point one, has more orange on him & has a pink nose) & Scout (the blue point one, has a little darker coloring & has a black nose). Maddie had a good time coloring their playhouse.

We've adopted again!

Relax, this one didn't require a trip to China, just to the ancient mystical land known as Paso Robles. Lindsay & I went and got an adorable little flame point Siamese kitty. They think he was born Aug 2. We may get his blue point brother too. A lady had already made arrangements to go look at him tomorrow afternoon & if she decides she doesn't want him, he's ours! Is it soooo bad to hope she doesn't want him? But she'll take one look at him & fall in love too. Lindsay is in Heaven with her new little kitty. This little thing purrs at the slightest touch. He loves to cuddle too. We're still thinking about his name.

Susannah

Just a quickie post here. I have gotten this link from 2 different friends now, so think God must REALLY want me to be praying for them. This family is in China right now to pick up their beautiful little girl. Reading through their blog is a testimony to what a truly HUGE God we have-He can move mountains (or government agencies). If you can take a few minutes or even seconds throughout your day to pray for this family, God will hear you & they would appreciate it. Here is the link: http://roomforatleastonemore.blogspot.com/

Pictures Day 8 Diller, NE – Engelwood, CO 8-14-08

Not wanting to go, but knowing we had a long drive, we wanted to leave by about 10. Not bad, we were on the road by about 5 mins after 10. We had our GP(M)S directing us & it had us going a different way then we had come. I think it was going to take us through Kansas-alright, we’ll see another state! Within minutes of leaving the Weers, we followed the GPS down a muddy road, (it had rained last night), where we quickly lost traction & started sliding & down into a small ditch. Michael put it into reverse, but the tires just spun. Great-another adventure! Thank goodness for on star-as we have no cell service there! We called Mark & their phone was busy, so we started trying other numbers we had for them. One of the boys had checked caller ID & saw our number so they called us back. Mark & the boys come over in their truck & realize they need something bigger to get us out. So they call for the big tractor! In just a matter of minutes, we hear the rumble of the big John Deere tractor coming to the rescue! Ethan & Cole were over the moon-they were sorry this happened to us, but they LOVE helping people out like this. They hooked the tractor up to us & pulled us out & down the road until we were back onto a gravel road, where we still slid around a little! We followed the tractor back home so Michael could scrub the thick gooey mud off his flip-flops. While we were there Mark & Ethan washed all the mud off the Tahoe too! Talk about full-service friends!!! Thank you guys so much for all you did for us! So, we’re on the road, again!Now it’s about 11:30 when we are leaving. We are going back the way we came originally! Quickly becoming a Runza fan, (Ok, so I had one & loved it! Is that so bad? We don’t have Runza’s at home!), I asked Michael to stop & get us one, if we passed any. Being the great guy that he is, he did! He didn’t have to, as I was asleep & never would have known that we had passed one!So, you think our adventures for the day are over? Far from it We are probably about 2 hours into our drive, Matt & myself are asleep, & Lindsay & Maddie are watching Ni-Hao Kai Lan, when we start pulling over. We look behind us to see those famous red lights! Yep! Michael was getting pulled over. L We were coming out of a work zone (where it is 55mph), when the trooper pulled us over. He said his buddy had radioed him saying he had clocked us going 66 in a 55 zone! So he got a ticket. First one in over 20 years! Poor guy-what a day it has been.Our next mini-adventure-Madeline melts down! She had been asleep for a little over an hour & woke up pretty grumpy. We pulled over at the nearest exit & got her out. She was crying really hard & wanted to be held but pushing away at the same time. She didn’t want to walk or even “drive” the car. It took about 20-30 mins to calm her down. We think she may have had a gas bubble. But then she was fine. Thank goodness.We could see out in the distance the dark clouds & lots of lightening. Neat to watch it. We stopped at Sterling, CO for dinner at Pizza Hut, just as the rain started coming down. It rained pretty hard too. It had let up some by the time we were done with dinner & back on the road.We got to our hotel in Englewood, CO about 9:15. It had been an 11 hour car ride. Lindsay was feeling pretty yucky. She just crawled right into bed. After bath time & a little tv, it was bedtime for all of us!