Our Community Life Trip 2010--In ABC Form

This past weekend, we traveled to Colorado with our small group for some fun time away. Here are the highlights--(although some lack a good picture...)

Aaron's Hat. Aaron made several fashion statements on our trip. From his hiking hat...

to his water shoes, we were always entertained.

Beverlins. We are so thankful that Matt's grandparents let us use their beautiful cabin! We slept 14 quite comfortably!!

Cool mornings. Can you see it? I have steam coming off of my head! That's how cold it was in the mornings. Delicious sleeping weather!
Dangerously high roads. These high roads above tree line FREAK me out. But luckily, Wyatt was a good driver and told me that he wasn't looking at the scenery, he was looking at the road. Thanks Wyatt! :-) (Oh, but these high roads have incredible views!)
Elk. There is a difference between elk and moose. Apparently, these are elk. And we saw TONS of them!

Flowers. I have no idea what this one is, but it is beautiful! It always amazes me that the most delicate, colorful plants grow in places where few people see them.

Girl Time. Since we drove the majority of the way in segregated vans, we had not a MOMENT of silence in the girl's van. Definitely good talk time!
Hiking. Our first morning, we headed out near Granby Lake for some amazing hiking. We ended up finding a beautiful waterfall (and hiking 9 miles!)
Insurance. Sure glad Aaron and Shannon had insurance on their new van! We got rear-ended and totaled it. The rest of that day was spent on the phone figuring out insurance stuff. We are so thankful no one was hurt! (And so thankful for Eric Tippin who drove RJ's vehicle out so we could all get back home!)

Justin and Aaron. They found really good walking sticks for our hike. Aaron made it about 10 feet with his.

Killer Water Fall. This is the source. It plummets down from here and runs down to a beautiful mountain lake.


Lumbar pack. Luckily, having Bill Good along ensures that we always have everything we need. Including iodine.
Medical Vehicles. Many of us saw our first interior view of an ambulance. And this picture? It's showing where we were hit--the skid marks, then where we ended up. (In FRONT of the ambulance!)

Napolean Dynamite. Now seriously, you CAN'T have a weekend away without this classic. We were all very entertained.

Out. Enough said.

Pondering. This river was freezing. At this point, I'm pretty sure Matt and Bill were pondering how much time they had until they completely lost feeling in their feet.

Quenching our thirst. Good thing God invented water.

Rivers. We followed this river all the way up to it's source--where it dropped over a cliff creating an incredible waterfall. (an incredibly STEEP waterfall. I may or may not have yelled several times at Joel to stop climbing on the rocks.)

Snow. Sarah Ekeland is AWESOME at skiing down snow in flip flops.
Tippins. They get 10 extra points for letting us borrow their Yukon. Quite a pleasant ride, by the way!

Us. We [heart] each other.

View. We were surrounded by beauty. At the cabin, on our hike, white-water rafting, driving up Trailridge Road--Colorado is so full of God's amazing beauty.
White Water Rafting. I'll have to add these photos later. 8 of us went rafting Saturday and had SO much fun. Highlights were: watching our guide flip over a rod in the air and NOT land in the boat. He kicked another person in the boat when he went down... Oh yeah, and have I mentioned Aaron's shoes?

Xcitement. Lots of laughs. It's so fun to have a group of people that you can enjoy SO much! We laughed so hard the whole weekend.

Yummy BBQ. I wish I had a picture of Saturday night's meal. It was a little restaurant in Idaho Springs, and we DOMINATED food. And laughed a lot. And kind of got in a food throwing contest.

Zzzzzz's. Lots of sleeping on the way home. Good thing for on-the-road movies. We watched Dumb and Dumber (both vans!) and lots of The Office.

Okay. I admit that some of these were a stretch. But hopefully you got a taste of our super FUN trip!