Travel, Trial and Triumphs

These past two weeks have been extremely rough for me and John. It's not going to look like it on this post, because we've been trying very hard to do fun things so we aren't constantly in worry and stress. John is interning with the Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center doing therapy groups twice a week. As a thank you for the staff, one of the client's parents invited all the staff to a Rockies game in a private suite. John and I rode the lightrail down to the game and it was a very fun night (even though the game was lost).

John's first week of school was quite discouraging and although we spent the weekend at Cherry Creek State Park at our ward campout, we still had a rough week. It was nice to interact and get to know people from the ward better though.

Last week was a lot better as I put in my application for a job I really want. (It felt so much better than applying for stuff I guess I wouldn't mind doing) John, also, had a much better week in classes. Maybe the weeks feel really long, but by the end, we're always ready to get out and do something.

I think John and I must have a thing for waterfalls. It might go with the fact that we like hiking and it's nice when the end of a trail is something as nice as a waterfall, but we've seen quite a few since we've been married. John had a couple of friends suggest Seven Falls just southeast of Colorado Springs. Trying to use another open Saturday to get away for a while, we made the hour and a half drive south. Our first discovery was that we loved Colorado Springs and definitely wish we were living there instead of Denver. Seven Falls is really one giant fall that has 7 tiers. The first viewpoint is accessible by stairs or in-mountain elevator. We went with the elevator. To get closer to the falls however, you can climb 200-something stairs following along the falls to the top. Because I was interested in the hikes on top, I forced my way up the stairs. I didn't see much other than the stair right in front of me...You can see the stairs if you enlage the above photo.

The frightening staircase.

Beyond the top of the stairs was a trail to inspiration point. I wish this picture gave the impression of where we were, but it is sorely lacking.

A view of Bridal Veil Falls from the staircase on our way down.

Garden of the Gods is a free open space park just northwest of Colorado Springs. Since it was on the way back, we decided to give it a look more for future visits. We had limited time since I needed to get back for the Relief Society Broadcast, but it seems like a nice place to spend an afternoon. Definitely nothing compared to our June Arches trip, but a nice area.

I especially enjoyed the Relief Society Broadcast this year! It was such a blessing to be a part of for me. I can't wait for conference this weekend. Between conference and the Denver temple finally reopening next week (it's been closed the whole time we've been here), I so ready to feel the Spirit that comes through the words of the prophets and temple worship.

Washington Park

John and I spent our family home evening at Washington Park . We had bread ends so we decided to see if there were ducks to feed. Between the ducks and Canada geese, we should have brought a few loaves of bread instead of a few ends of bread.

The park has two lakes with different walking/exercise trails around the entire park. It also has beautiful flower gardens and a lot of open space and picnic areas. We'll definitely be back.

Our Stake Fair is a great Stake Fair

Our Stake puts on quite the event for their Stake Fair. There were so many booths with food and activities as well as different dancing and other sorts of carnival entertainment. John and I were not ashamed to get our faces painted as well as participating in as much of the fair as we could.

John and I entered the drawing at the food storage booth and John won us a jar of jam and one of those topsy turvy planters.

As part of the fair they brought in a blow up obstacle course. I totally creamed John, but I guess him coming out of it with a possible broken toe doesn't mean I can claim total victory...

Ways to get away

We were very lucky to be able to spend Labor Day with Brittney's aunt at her home north of Denver. It was a very nice break from job hunting and school stressing. John and I took our turn tubing behind their boat and got to spend some time in the sun with some very fun people.

The turn in the season made us longing for some mountain time. We turned to our map and found Lair o' the Bear park up in the mountains and decided to take a look. It has a very Green Canyon feel to it and it was so nice to just hike around a little bit. Plus our drive took us by more places we just can't wait to explore!

Death Cab at Red Rocks

As we prepared to head to Denver, we were told if there was a band we like touring to the Red Rocks Amphitheater, the venue was worth the money it would cost to see them. Curious, we looked up the schedule and turns out, one of John's top 3 favorite bands was performing there 3 days after we would arrive.

Initially he didn't want me to get the tickets, since they weren't cheap, but we purchased some on the day of when there were still tickets available and we came to terms that it was an experience we would regret not participating in. The venue is fantastic, a natural amphitheater built between natural red rock.

An outdoor theater means the smoking was crazy with the alcohol consumption promting us to leave at the encores to avoid the intoxicated drivers. The show was amazing and so fun!!! I'm so glad we went. Although since then, we've missed concerts by the likes of Adam Pascal and Joshua Bell...I don't think we have enough money to attend all the concerts I'm going to want to see here.

Hogwarts

So the end of July was the Keisel family reunion which John and I put together this year. It's just parents and siblings, so not too complicated. We decided with 4 siblings a Harry Potter theme would prove to be fun with 4 houses to participate in. So we informed every family they would have to attend summer school in order to continue their education at Hogwarts the next year. John designed out t-shirts...a K made out of a lightning bolt, snitch tail and wand.

When we first arrived at camp we made our owlery bag. It served as a mail center and Addyson was especially good at writing and delivering mail to everyone.

Since our reunion was at Mirror Lake in the Uintahs, we took a picnic lunch to Provo Falls and played in the water for a while.

This fella was a surprise as we got finished with our hike into Fehr Lake.

Just one of the cute crafts we did up at camp. We made parachord bracelets, decorated our wizard hats, made stepping stones out of tile grout and found and decorated wands.

Our favorite thing to put together was our Patronus night. We had a list of Native American totems, read through the descriptions of each totem and matched them to our different family members. We enjoyed thinking about each person as we put them together.