Rocky Mountain High

We just got back from our annual fall trip to the Ouray, Colorado area. For the past five years we've gone jeeping, or off roading in the San Juan Mountains of south west Colorado. That area of the state has some great jeep and atv trails and the fall color was just about perfect this year. Plenty of professional photographers travel to the area to photograph the fall foliage and the mountains.

We hauled our Jeep again this year, stopping the first night in Red River. Red River has become one of our favorites places. Situated in the high altitude of northern New Mexico, it is literally a cool place to start and end a trip. It was 35 degrees in the morning and it felt great compared to Texas. On a side note, while we were coming across from Clayton over to Springer, we ran into a hail storm!! You couldn't see 10 feet in front of you and we were just lucky that the hail was small and pretty soft. Otherwise, we would have had major damage.

Instead of going over to Durango and up the Million Dollar Highway this year, we opted to go the northern route, taking us through Alamosa, Monte Vista, Gunnison, Montrose and then to Ouray. There is a lot of really good farms around Alamosa and they were baling alfalfa and digging potatoes.

Once in Ouray, we met up with our friends Jerry and Terry as well as Guy and Carolyn and planned out our jeeping adventures. The first day brought us rain so we took Engineer Pass up to Poughkeepsie Gulch since we knew the terrain was all rock and shelf roads. The following day was beautiful so we took Engineer over to Lake City, where we enjoyed a stop at the San Juan Soda Fountain! We took Cinnamon Pass back to Animas Forks, then down to Silverton for a late dinner. Driving the road from Silverton to Ouray is probably better in the dark because you can't see the drop-offs!!

The last day we went up to the top of Governor's Basin. It was pretty hairy! Not one of Beverly's favorite trips. It is amazing to see all of the huge, and we do mean HUGE boulders at the top of the basin, and you know that they rolled DOWN from the top and here we are looking up at the ones that are yet to fall. It makes you think!

On our way home we met up with Jeremy and Annie in Salida where we had dinner and visited for about two hours. Earlier in the day Jeremy ran a half-marathon in Aspen. He had been training for it for several months. He shortened his time by 13 minutes in a course that had over 2,000 feet in altitude gain over the 13+ mile distance. Annie looks great and now only lacks about 4 weeks until her due date!! So, Colorado, here we come again. Taylor requested a "bobble"head (hard to find!) and Presley is into purses. Luckily, we found both in Red River.

Coming Soon---Grand Baby #4

We are very excited about our latest “grand baby” news! Our number of grand children will soon d-o-u-b-l-e! Our youngest son Jordan and his wife Ashley are expecting a bundle of joy on or about March 21, 2011. Ashley is now about 14 weeks along and is doing great, except for an extended period of morning sickness. We are hoping this will soon subside and she will be feeling better.

Jordan and Ashley sent out invitations to family and close friends recently asking us to come one Sunday afternoon to find out what the “buzz” was all about. Hmm–could it be? Well, yes, we thought, it had to be! But, too many clues were dropped that may have lead certain members of the family to believe that perhaps it was going to be twins! They were both hush-hush but some important pieces of information were “leaked”, such as finding a book in their house on twins and triplets. We were all relieved that it is only one especially since Ashley is so petite.

We all enjoyed the afternoon get together as we shared the good news with them. God is indeed good. About the time Jordan and Ashley find out the sex of their baby, older brother Jeremy and Annie will become parents of granddaughter number 2. Stay tuned for more information on all the exciting happenings!

Pictures from the “buzz” party!

Grandparent's Day and New Tricks

Recently our community celebrated our annual Dove Festival. Every Labor Day weekend in our small town the Chamber of Commerce sponsors a festival to kick off the dove hunting season. Most of the time the weather is hot, but this year was cool and pleasant. It was a good thing, too. Taylor ran his first 1 mile Fun Run and finished up in the top third or so. Several of his classmates ran with him and it looks like we might have another cross country runner in the family! Oh, no!

This week was grandparents day at the elementary school so we asked Taylor what he wanted us to bring him for lunch. He wanted a ham and cheese sandwich (with a little mayo on it!) from Subway, regular Sun chips and ice tea! It was a fun time and we got to see tons of people our age that we don't see very often.

Presley stays with us on Fridays and her grandmother BeBe has been teaching her how to pick up marbles with her toes! Presley likes to play with these big marbles and now she can pick them up while standing. It entertained her for hours. And, it might come in handy sometime. Besides, it gave us a break from watching the Wizard of Oz!

End of Summer- Start of School

We are a little behind on our blogging as usual! Although summer isn’t officially over, school has started for many including Toby, Jennifer and Taylor. When teacher in-service started we kept the grandkids during that week and planned a little fun time for them. These days we spend a lot of time watching the “Wizard of Oz” which is Presley’s favorite movie. She is fascinated by the flying, or winged, monkeys as she calls them. Taylor would rather play games on the iPhone!

We spent time at the orchard since they love to drive the Gator. Presley loves to run out there while we follow her. Taylor seems to like to run, too, so the orchard is the perfect place to practice.

One day was designated as “Craft Day” so we brought out all of the glue, construction paper, popsicle sticks, tape, scissors, stickers, crayons and markers and they spent the morning making all kinds of projects. All you have to do is give Presley a bottle of glue and some paper and she is set for the day! Taylor usually makes more “complicated” projects and he likes you to “interact” with him (he likes you to help)!

On Friday, we told them we were going on a one day vacation! They were excited but we didn’t tell them where we were going or what we were doing. It drove Taylor crazy! He questioned us frequently until we made our first stop at McDonald’s for breakfast and time on the playground. Then it was on to Waco to the Mayborn Museum on the Baylor campus. This is a first class museum, but we were mainly taking Taylor to a Lego display. It included lots of things built with Legos such as the historic bridge in Waco, castles from all over the world and games for the kids to play. They had tables and plenty of Legos where you could build whatever you wanted. Taylor built a castle pretty quickly. They really enjoyed it.

We have always tried to take our kids to educational places on our trips and this one would qualify since the remainder of the museum is filled with all kinds of history from the Waco area and Texas. It was a great morning. Afterwards we took them to the main Baylor campus to see the bears and then it was off to Olive Garden for lunch.

The day concluded with an afternoon movie. We went to see Toy Story 3 and it was wonderful. Beverly never thought she would laugh or cry so much over an animated movie! We topped it off with ice cream on the way home and then took them back home by dark! It was a fun day.

Lots of other things have been going on, too. Stay tuned for the news about “what the buzz” was all about with Jordan and Ashley! Our next post will give all the details!!