Trip to Kansas

My daughter, my two year old grandson and I went to Kansas last week to spend a few days visiting  her brother/my son and his family and to attend the “Baby Sprinkle” event for my soon to be born second grandson. The two cousins one 2 ½ and one 2 ¼  got to spend all their awake time together, playing alongside, eating alongside and watching each other and copying each other. They are beginning to have short little conversations even. It is still hard to catch them both in the same picture without blurring because they constantly move about, but I will share what I have.

Some of the activities for the week were flying there on an airplane. Going to the Urso’s house and seeing sidewalk ghost decorations. Going to the grocery store. Going to the park and feeding the ducks. Going to a pumpkin patch on a farm. Going to the Baby Sprinkle.

We, well mostly the other two women also were able to help get the new baby’s room organized and his clothes washed and put in dresser drawers. My job was to cook a couple meals and help watch the kiddos. We had a wonderful time. I can’t wait to return next month to see the new “little man.” We will be praying for a safe delivery and a smooth transition.

Snow and tomato plants don’t mix

The end of the line for our lone tomato plant came just after our Fall trip a couple weeks ago. I pulled all the golf ball size green tomatoes off the plant and put them in a paper bag in the garage. A handful of them have now ripened so I will have to plan a salad for tomorrow. We had a few decent sized ones early on but then just all the small ones. Not a good season.

It rained off and on all day yesterday and then the snow started to stick last night. Today we woke up to a winter wonderland. It is pretty, but I am not really ready for the long winter. We built a wood fire in the fireplace last night and enjoyed the ambiance while we read in the living room. 

Our Fall Road Trip

We started out in Vail staying with my parents at Austria Haus. The weather turned cold and new snow fell on the mountains the first couple days there. We got to help my Mom celebrate her birthday and our daughter and grandson and my sister and BIL also came for the celebration. Mav loved the pirate ship playground up by the new gondola at Vail Village. We took a drive past Minturn to view the changing trees and drove off the main road to a deserted campground about 8 miles in and had a picnic by a stream. It was a glorious day. 

The next day we headed on out west to Grand Junction on our way to Moab where we had a motel reservation. We took the loop through the Colorado National Monument and stopped at several of the overlooks. There is a beautiful view of the distant mountains and the fertile valley where the Colorado peaches grow.

There are two highways into Moab, Utah it turns out, the winding one that goes through the Colorado River canyon and the other one that is a nice highway by not scenic. We took the scenic route. We had it mostly to ourselves until we hit the construction at the end right before you get to Moab. We had to wait for the flagmen to let us through. It was still worth it. The Colorado River is already muddy colored long before it gets to the Grand Canyon.

Our first day in Moab we went to Arches National Park along with all the other tour buses and RVs in the area. I thought Moab was sort of an out of the way place, but no, it was quite busy and several of the parking lots were completely full of vehicles for the trails that lead to the arches, you can’t see them from the road. We enjoyed the arches but not the crowds. The Asian tourists are into taking glamour shots, sort of like a model posing for a magazine layout, it cracked me up. 

Our second day was spent in The Canyonlands National Park to west of Moab. We chose to drive to the “Island in the Sky” portion that consists of the high plateau that sits between where the Colorado River and the Green River come together both have carved out deep walls into the rock. In all of these places you can see the effects of erosion by wind and water to sculpt the landscape over vast spans of time. The arches will fall eventually but new ones are already being carved. Look for the idiot car on the 4x4 road in the last photo.

On the third day we left Moab and drove through the far western part of Colorado north to Dinosaur National Park. We visited the quarry where there is a massive display of dinosaur bones are left partially excavated from the rock. We ran our hands over the massive thigh bones like all the other tourists, it feels just like rock since that is what it has become.

We spent the night in Craig and drove over to Steamboat Springs and up into the mountains on Buffalo Pass. It was a gravel road and the higher we got the more muddy and slushy it got so we decided to go to Walden via the highway over Rabbit Ears Pass instead. We also drove over Cameron Pass and through the Poudre Canyon on our way home. We could see the debris from the recent flooding wrapped around the trunks of trees at the high water mark. There were places where only one lane was open due to the road bed being eroded away. We logged 1225 miles on the trip.

Sadness

My husband I and attended a memorial service for a twenty-nine year old woman today.  She grew up on our street, although she didn’t attend the neighborhood school with our children they knew her and her older brother Alan. Crystal, her mom and her 10 year old daughter came to the recent neighborhood block party. Her mom told me Crystal was going through a divorce and was back home living with her while she sorted things out. Her husband was abusive. She had finally gotten the strength to leave. Her mom was really hopeful for her and also glad that she was attending church and helping out with the youth.

Last week Crystal was shot to death by her husband as she returned to their house. I don’t know all the details about why she was coming there that night, maybe it was to pick up their daughter. He was angry at her for being late or something and shot her and again twice more after she fell. Her daughter was there.

Is there any doubt that we live in a fallen world! Just like that many lives are shattered and will never be the same. This world as it is is not our real home for those who follow Christ. It is but a shadow of the new earth to come. There is grace in this world but it is not the norm. It is like a delicate flower that appears briefly then is gone. As Christ followers we are tasked to bring grace into this world, but it is a tall order. This world operates on power and influence, it can be ruthless. Evil lurks.

I appreciate the servant pastor who conducted her service. He brought the simple gospel message of comfort and hope to those gathered in the small humble church. Every seat was filled and the overflow people stood along the sides and in the back. He voiced the torrent of emotions that everyone was experiencing and the questions and the second guessing and encouraged everyone to give them over to the Savior and to let Him replace those with peace over time. Crystal knew Christ despite a turbulent past and a teenage pregnancy. We can rejoice in that.

Don’t get too comfortable here, this is not our final home. Thank Jesus for that, the new earth will be beyond our imaginings. No more tears.