Greetings from the heart of the Colorado Rockies. I'm so sorry I haven't posted sooner. In fact, last night I was reprimanded by Den to get with the program and blog. So since its still very quiet here I thought it would be a prime time to share.

We left Michigan Monday, late afternoon. We were only an hour or so into our trip when Victoria started throwing-up. We were able to stop and take care of her mess, get her some tylenol, eat and continue on. Several hours later she threw-up again, it is then I decided to start her on an anti-biotic (Brennan came down with strep the day before) PTL we were able to get scripts just in-case. We traveled, allbeit, over-crowded and cramped but happy and excited throughout the night. We were just into Nebraska when Blake declared he wasn't feeling well. Oh my gosh. . . . .thankfully he didn't have a fever, so we decided to stop at a Holiday Inn for a few hours, let Den recharge so he could drive, let Blake sleep, hoping he would feel better and me and the younger kids hit the pool and hot tub. The kids had a blast and the guys slept! Thankfully the Holiday Inn took pity on us and only charged us $50 for 4 hours instead of a full nights rate. It was well worth it. We all showered and put on clean clothes and loaded the van and headed off, westward bound. Blake was feeling much better, the kids no sooner got themselves settled in the van and were fast asleep. We stopped several hours later at a rest area for bathroom breaks when Den came rushing out of the bathroom with a very familiar friend; one we hadn't seen in at least 10 years, a man, once a boy in our youth ministry. How unbelievable to run into someone you know in a rest area, of all places. We all hugged and laughed and were introduced to his beautiful wife and handsome little baby boy. What a blessing God gave us in the midst of a very long journey.

We finally made it to Golden, with the Rockies looming every so beautiful in the background. Jacqueline and Colson were in awe and couldn't peel their eyes away from them. We met up with Bryan for a few minutes then headed out for Dens Aunts place on the western slope of the Rockies. We arrived late, tired but happy. The kids were out in minutes once they crawled into bed. I think I finally fell asleep at 1:3o our time only to wake up at 4am their time. This time change thing really is tough to figure out and deal with for the body. We had a great time outside yesterday, enjoying the scenery, taking pictures, riding horses, riding the rhinos, laughing and just enjoying ourselves.

Colson and Jacqueline now have strep but thankfully we have meds for them and I'm just praying they feel much better today. We head back to Golden, today, to spend the night, having dinner with great friends there, then tomorrow is Bryans graduation from the police academy.

We have a very full iteneary, yet we are able to enjoy some down-time too. I will update again later today and apologize for the extremely long post. Hopefully I can keep make the next few posts like a journal entry for each day.