Recap and Upcoming

This past week was another eventful one. We didn't do a lot of "touristy" type things, but we still stayed pretty busy hanging out with new friends and finding new parks. On Thursday, (or maybe Friday?) we found a new park called Bear Creek Trail. Being that there's a lot of bears in the area, there were actually instructions of what to do (and not do) when you encounter a bear on the trail. It even gave instructions to fight back if you are being attacked! Though we appreciated the info, it made us a little nervous to take the kids for a walk on the trails... but we went anyway. We decided ahead of time to sacrifice the littlest ones first so the rest of us could get away if we needed to :)

After that we decided to stop by Ron and Jane Knudtsen's place, which was pretty close to the trails we were on. These are the folks that we stayed with for a few days when Sara and I came here in July looking for housing. They're about the closest thing we have to family here in The Springs as well. They are Sara's dad's brother's wife's parents. Make sense? So anyways, luckily they were home and we were able to hang out at their place for a few hours. They could very well be the most accommodating and caring people I've ever met! They also live on a beautiful piece of property that the kids thoroughly enjoyed. They even have the picture-perfect tire swing hanging from one of the huge trees in the yard, and a creek surrounding the perimeter of their back yard. I meant to take some more pictures there, but I forgot about it. I did take one with my phone's camera of Micah sitting in the little wooded area at Ron and Jane's. He's sitting in "the kitchen" of a little fort some other kids made:

On Saturday, there was a neighborhood BBQ across the street. It was fun to get to know people a little better while we ate food and played some boche ball. There's plenty of kids on our street which kept our kids plenty busy. There's one particular family with three girls that have been spending a lot of time with our kids ever since we moved. Here's a picure of Aubri and Felicity (youngest of the three girls) under the umbrella at our BBQ. Oh, did I mention it rained for the first hour or so at the BBQ?! It cleared up pretty quickly though and made it more enjoyable to do some outdoor games. I think the kids maybe enjoyed the rain more than the sun that day anyways! :)

Gavin's been riding bike like crazy since we got here. I guess we give him a bit more freedom here than we did in Minneapolis. He actually just blew out his back tire the other day because it wore all the way through. So, I got a new tube and tire from Walmart and he's back on his way. On a somewhat related note, we were biking to the park as a family tonight and Sara was taking time to explain to Gavin why we need to stop and check for cars before crossing the street. She said something like, "and you'll want to be careful for cars like this that drive too fast..." and all of a sudden this young girl in a SUV comes flying down the road and hits the median curb and pops her tire! Then she sped off with a flat tire, probably embarrassed that our whole family just witnessed her blunder. I found it sort of funny, because we couldn't have had a better and more timely visual example to show Gavin what to watch out for.

Well, tomorrow's the big day! Really, it's the beginning of the main reason we came out here. Orientation at New Life School of Worship starts at 9am Monday morning. I have to admit I'm very excited! Sara's also starting her homeschooling tomorrow as well. I think she and the kids are pretty excited too. Lots of new changes... all good changes, I think. I'm also really hoping the buyer for my business will be able to sign the loan papers Monday morning as he was promised. I'm sure there will be a huge weight lifted from me when I know those papers are signed and the deal is done.