Friday, July 20, 2007

Life in Colorado....

It's been a little while since I've posted anything...life has been interesting since we got here. It's taken awhile to settle in, but we're slowly getting there. It's a bit strange living with Luke's family - not that they're hard to live with, it's just that we've lived on our own for almost a year and now to come and live with family again takes awhile to get used to! I don't even cook anymore because Luke's mom Jenene does all the cooking....that's taking a bit to get used to as well!

There's definitely been some hard days in the past couple of weeks. I've been really homesick lately, and that doesn't help anything either. We've had a bit of a run around with Luke's previous employer, which I won't go into here, but I will say they will get their just rewards someday!! And I won't be sad to see it happen....people amaze me sometimes. And we're unsure of how things are looking with work here in Colorado for Luke as well. The school district he was going to work for is going through some major changes this school year and they're not sure how many more bus drivers they're going to need. So because of that, they can't say a definitive yes or no on whether Luke will get to start in August or not.....which is extremely frustrating. So....it could be going better....but God doesn't give us more than we can handle....I have to keep on remembering that!

It'll get better....It has to really :)

That's all for now I guess.....I miss my family.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

We're here....finally!

Wow, that was such a drive!! We left Victoria on July 2nd, both of us teary eyed and sad. There was a level of excitement, but more so there was a real saddness about having to leave our little island. I tried to be brave and fight the tears up until that point but when my mom started crying and I had to hug everyone goodbye, that was it man, I was sobbing before we left Sooke. I had to keep reminding myself that it was going to be an adventure...one that we would remember forever...and that of course we would be back. But man it was a hard drive!

We caught the 8:00 ferry and enjoyed a nice breakfast onboard while thinking about all we were leaving behind. I wanted to call my family already but I fought the urge :) We had a long wait at the border since it was a long weekend up in Canada and entering into a long weekend in the USA as well....so we waited about an hour or so. And then we drove....and drove...and drove some more! :) It seemed endless! Eastern Washington State and Oregon sure are dull...it's just plain flat lands and some rolling hills. But nothing at all exciting to look at. But that's alright, we jsut listened to the radio and chatted about how hot it was!! :) On Day 1 we spent the night in Boise, Idaho.

We left Boise kind of later then we wanted to on Day 2. We spent some time taking the top off the jeep and buying sunscreen...but that was a necessary evil. The problem we were running into is the the jeep was beginning to slightly overheat. Not to a level where we needed to stop and shut the car off or anything, but it was just getting a little hotter than Luke would have liked. So the solution to that is to drive with the heat on! That disperses the heat that's around the engine and sends it into the cab instead :) Well, that's all well and good, but it was already over 100 degrees outside, so add that to the heat that was being pumped into the cab.....well, let's just say it wasn't too much fun! :) So our solution to the heat issue was to take the top off the Jeep...it lets a lot more air get to us and disperses that excess heat! Luke had warned me that driving with the top off all day would lead to a sunburn if we weren't careful, so we made sure to stop for sunscreen and we were lathering it on all day long. Apparently, the sun didn't seem to care and burnt me to a crisp anyway!!! Oh man, was I red! It was horrible by the end of the night - I was in a lot of pain. Of course I was wearing a tank top all day because of the unbelievable heat...so I was pretty much red everywhere! Not fun! So on Day 2, we got all the way to Grand Junction, Colorado. We spent the night there so that we could stop and see the Colorado National Monument on Day 3.

Day 3 started out with me lathering myself over and over with ALOE! :) heheh! It helped a little bit....plus I wore a long sleeved shirt that day as well. It was still right around 100-105 degees, but it physically hurt my skin to have the sun touching it...it felt like it was burning it right off my body! We went and saw the Colorado National Monument and I was so glad that we did...it was an amazing sight! People compare it to the Grand Canyon as a smaller version. It was breathtaking...I took so many photos!! :) There's a monument there named Independence Monument and every year on Independence Day a group of climbers climb up and mount an American flag on the top of the monument. There was a really large group of people watching and waiting for all the climbers to get to the top. We waited for a little while but then decided we needed to keep going. It was really neat to see though!

So on Day 3, July 4th, we arrived at Luke's family's house. We arrived just in time for the fireworks too! :) It was a really nice night - so clear outside. It made for a perfect night for fireworks! And imagine, fireworks just for us! heheh :)

We've rested lots already today - Luke and I are both super exhausted from that long drive. It was an amazing experience though, and we're so glad we did it. We're so blessed that the Jeep held up and didn't have any major problems at all. We've always had some sort of car issue when we travel, but thankfully this was the exception! I miss my family already, but I know I'll get to see them at the end of September for the Feast....it seems like forever though.

I'll write more when we start to get settled....who knows how long that will take!