FINALLY!

I finally got blogger to download these last five pictures!

Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE the mountains??

Here's the start of the trail - did I mention how beautiful this trail was?

This shot was total luck! That white thing flying at Jimmy's head is a snowball that Danny threw...yes it did hit him! Great shot...hehe :-)

Don't you want to be out on this trail?

Hiking trip number 2

I must admit, before I start this post off for real - I am FRUSTRATED with BLOGSPOT! AUR. It keeps giving me an error message when I try to upload the last few pictures, so you will have to be ok with these for now. I will have to try again soon though, because there is one that is quite funny! :-)

Ok, on to the real post!

My cousin Danny came into town for a visit this weekend. It was a WHOLE lot of fun getting to see him and doing fun stuff around Denver. Saturday started with a yummy breakfast of French toast - because what is a visit without FOOD!?! Afterwards Jimmy, Stephanie, Jill, Danny, and I went hiking. On the way through Golden we took the short tour of Coors then a driving tour through Golden, a cute mountain town. Then, the hiking was on!

It was a beautiful day for hiking! And the trail was awesome. A wonderful view, a fun trail, and and just enough shade to keep the sun from beat down on us too much, but not so much that we got cold. As I said on the trail...it was JUUUUUUUUUUUUST right :-)

Jimmy and Danny had fun picking up snow along the trail.


Yum...water!

Hiking trip number 2

Wasn't the day just beautiful? Look at those sunbeams.

An interesting part of the hike were these rock slides that we had to climb over. Made for some fun hiking! Here's Stephanie leading the way.
Here's Jimmy, Danny, and Jill - and some random guy - picking their way over the rocks.

Stephanie peeking through a cave.
Pose for the camera Jill! :-)
Danny holding up a VERY heavy boulder!
Stephanie climbing.
Here's Jimmy helping Jill down a steep slope of ice. Ahh the Alley boys...so gentlemanly. They sure have set a high standard! :-)
If you look really closely...just over the hill, you can see downtown Denver.

Hiking trip number 2

We were all pretty pooped when we were done with the hike... Stephanie was so tired that she laid down in the middle of the road!

After a nice dinner in Boulder of sushi, we went back to Jimmy and Stephanie's to watch a movie (the movie, by the way, was not a good one - There Will Be Blood. We actually decided to turn it off and not finish it because our beds seemed much more exciting then that movie) and play some guitar hero. Here's Jimmy in, what he called, the "goggles of power." Yes, we made fun of him!
He also did some "dancing," but I couldn't capture the hilarity of that on the camera.
Danny also tried out the "googles of power!"

Sunday, after church, we all gathered for a nice meal of Thai Chicken Soup (click on the words to see the recipe). It was such a beautiful day that we were able to eat out in the backyard. I LOVE SUMMER!!!

NAP TIME!

First hiking trip of the spring

I went hiking last weekend. It was so fun! The weather was perfect and the mountains get prettier every time I look at them. Hopefully, I'll get to go out hiking many more times this summer. In the meantime, I gotta get my calves in shape! The rest of me...pretty good shape...hiking pointed out that I have neglected a very important part of my legs!

Looking at the mountains brought this passage from Isaiah to mind:

"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thought than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands."
Isaiah 55:9-12

This stump kinda looked like someones legs had been cut off. :-)
First little flowers of spring. You can't really tell from the picture, but they were tiny purple flowers. So pretty!


Look how blue the sky was! GORGEOUS!



Here's my hiking partner, Braden...he was contemplating the beautiful mountains while I was trying to catch my breath. Turns out it takes a lot of lung capacity to try and keep up with someone who is almost 10 inches taller than you!

I tried to get a nice picture of his face...but Braden wouldn't cooperate!

Birthday Party

My cousin Hannah turned 27 this year in the midst of baby Jack making his entrance into the world and Jimmy and Stephanie getting married. Thus, her birthday celebrations were pushed WAY back. But eventually we did get around to having a quiet little family party with yummy pilly cheese steak sandwiches with cold stone ice cream for dessert. Yum!

Winter Camp continued (cause I'm annoyed at the picture uploading process...)

The AWESOME ROCKING Worship team :-)

Here's what I did most of the weekend. I WANT THAT DISHWASHER!!!
Don't I look sexy in that apron??
Jill and Becky being VERY productive...they said I was making them look bad cause I was hiding...err I mean helping in the kitchen. So I took a picture to prove that they were excellent servants! :-)

Winter Camp

I haven't downloaded pictures from my camera in a while and thought I'd go back and update my blog on the year so far in pictures. To start off...here are some pictures from Winter Camp '08 with the youth group. Even though camp had some rough spots, God did some awesome stuff.

Kiki doing Jill's hair.

Becky - just hanging out.

Playing cards before dinner.

Writing before service started.
Waiting for service to start.