Bigger than Any Mountain

Bigger than all the shadows that fall across my path,

God is bigger than any mountain that I can or can not see.

He's bigger than all the confusion, bigger than anything;

God is bigger than any mountain that I can or can not see.

He's bigger than all the giants of pain and unbelief;

God is bigger than any mountain that I can or can not see.

He's bigger than any discouragement, bigger than anything;

My God is bigger than any mountain that I can or can not see.

He's bigger than all my problems, bigger than all my fears;

God is bigger than any mountain that I can or can not see.

Oh, yes, he's bigger than all my question, bigger than anything;

God is bigger than any mountain that I can or can not see.

This is one of the favorite choir songs we've sung in the last few years, primarily because of our family situations which have been mountainous in size at times. We live in the shadow of the Rockies. I lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help comes from the Lord. I'm not a hiker, but I love watching them in the various times of the day, the shading, the coloring. God is the master Artist!

My husband is a hiker and a photographer. Two weeks ago I posted one of his photographic masterpieces for Wordless Wednesday. Today I'm sharing some of his hiking shots. He loves hiking and photography so much - he can tell you every rock, every flower, where he was when he took the picture. Enjoy the beauty.

Before I sign off - GOOD NEWS!! I finished computing grade point averages this morning at 11:14 a.m.! Well, maybe not exactly 11:14, but close enough! What a great feeling - 150 files later, I'm finally done! Now I just have to get the faculty to do their part in reading them all.

Update

I should have given you this news before this. DC's biopsy turned out well - he's cancer free! Praise the Lord.

I have about 40 more files to figure gpa's, then I'll be finished for this round of applicants. I can't wait!! I have brought them home so many nights that I'll be able to take a lot of my vacation in April on comp time.


The spring-like days we had last week when a long ways toward clearing the streets and sidewalks of ice and snow. We are thankful. A couple of weeks ago, I was parking at work and a huge ball of ice got stuck under my car and was dragged a ways before it loosened. Here is the result on my bumper - whoever dreamed up plastic car parts anyway??

Kristen's house has northern exposure on the front yard. The other day Anakin said, "I was beginning to think I'd never see grass again!" It'll be awhile before they do see any in their front yard:

Here is the yard just across the street from them:

The good news is that spring is on the way! I found evidence in my front yard this morning:

Have a wonderful new week - the last week of February already!

A Story of Deliverance - Part III

Kevin has posted Chapter 3 of his story here on his wife's blog. Please go over and read his part first, then come back and read my point of view. This journey we are on has been phenomenal. As I have mentioned before, much of it I did not know. I have cried many tears as I have read his words. At the same time, it has been cathartic. He has learned things he didn't know about his dad and me and what we were going through when he couldn't have cared less.

The purpose of airing this in cyberspace is with the hope and prayer that someone somewhere will see hope, and see that Jesus is the answer, and the only answer, to freedom from addiction of any sort. God makes no mistakes. God is the God of second chances. God is in control. God is the redeemer of horrible circumstances. All good truths. All hung onto for dear life. All questioned at times. But we know it's true - God is Good, All the Time! He kept us and sustained us and brought victory where there appeared to be very little hope.

As I mentioned in Part II, we thought junior high went pretty well. Kev had some really good teachers, one in particular, who cared about him and mentored him. It was at this time in his life that the wisdom of the school district in our town took a leave of absence. They decided in April to make huge changes in the educational system of our children - two months before school was out that year, they decided that 9th graders would go to high school and 6th graders would go to middle school. This caused great turbulence for both of my children, but Kev's turned out to be a better situation than Kristen's, because they were renovating his old school building, so there were only two grades for the two years he was there. But when he hit 9th grade and high school, it was not a good thing.

The rule was that 9th graders could not leave the building for lunch, but everyone else could. However, there was nobody at the door checking identification! They came and went as they pleased. Ever since those turbulent high school years, I have been on a soap box about open campus and block scheduling. They were allowed to leave if they didn't have a class, in fact were not really allowed to stay unless they went to the library. At least that is what I was told - who knows if it was true?! The scheduling was really detrimental to someone like Kevin, who took every freedom WAY beyond its original intention. It was at this point, from what I can tell, that he began hanging out with older guys who had cars and were willing to take a 9th grader out to lunch with them - usually not to return.

I was a stay-at-home mom for many years and very happily so. When I did go to work, it was only 3 hours a day in the school district, so I was always home when the kids were. Then I took a job in a middle school, and was still home at the end of their school day and for all vacations. It was the summer after Kristen's graduation, between Kevin's sophomore and junior years, when college expenses were looming, that we decided we needed more income and that the kids were old enough to be at home alone. I'm not sure my being at home would have made a bit of difference, but I have often wondered.

Kev was to find a summer job. He did not. Yet he always had evidence of fast food dining in his car. I wondered who was footing the bills, but no good answers were forthcoming when we asked. I didn't give him any money, which was supposed to force him into the working world. It wasn't until much later that we discovered where the money was coming from.

I remember as if it were yesterday the call I got from the police or the Safeway manager about the cigarette theft. I was new at my job and I remember yelling into the phone, "He did WHAT??" I forgot where I was. Of course, the story I got was that Tony had stolen the cigarettes, that he himself didn't smoke, and that they had thrown them into the lagoon across the street from school.

A really bad memory is the middle-of-the-night call we got from the police that our car (the one we let Kevin drive) was at the scene of a large under-age drinking party, way out in the country. We got up, dressed, and headed for the scene. There were many cars along this road in a new subdivision. We waited for hours in the dark, tortured, wondering where in the world he was. Apparently, they all scattered through the fields behind the house when the police arrived. We knew he'd have to come back for the car sooner or later. As testament to his sneakiness, suddenly the car was no longer there and we hadn't seen it leave. Turns out the young girl's parents were out of town and she took full advantage of the situation to have one of those famous parties that t.v. shows use as a story line - sometimes trying to make it humorous, when in reality it's anything but.

Brandon - the name conjures up sick feelings in my stomach. I never saw the good qualities Kevin mentioned. I only saw a huge, devious, lying, sneaky guy who was aiding and abetting my son's downward spiral. He seemingly had no conscience. When we confronted him and his parents, they were no help whatsoever. We lost so much money that year. We were foolish and trusting and had money in drawers. Over $200 disappeared from my purse one day. One day he came and "borrowed" Dwight's golf clubs from our garage, driving a car from his job that he wasn't supposed to be driving, during his work day. I'll never forget the day we came home and found huge footprints leading to our back door in the snow. We also foolishly left our back door to the garage unlocked in those days. There were wet places on the carpet up to Kev's room, and his gallon jug full of coins was gone. He mentioned losing money from his apartment and finally feeling what it was like to be the victim of theft.

The scam with the bank and the foster mom's checkbook comes as a shock to me. I also remember clearly the day the two detectives showed up at our house to question Kevin about it. I truly believed he was the innocent victim.

The day that our head-in-the-sand or, at the very least, naive lifestyle came to a screeching halt was the day after Thanksgiving. Kristen was home for the holiday and was flying back to school on Saturday. It was our tradition to put up our Christmas tree that Friday. I have to say that, no matter how far Kev got from us emotionally and spiritually, he was very tied to our traditions and wanted everything done as it had always been done. He wasn't home much, but he wanted to be there for the traditions. I believe that had a lot to do with his not leaving for good and never coming back to us.

The phone rang as I was cleaning up from dinner, looking forward to our traditional holiday evening. Little did I know that the voice at the other end of the line was going to cause our world to come crashing down on our heads. It was a woman police officer saying that Kevin needed to come down to the station for questioning. When I told her what was going on, and that Kristen was leaving the next day, she actually let us bring him in the next evening. Kev fell asleep on the way home from the airport. I distinctly remember looking back at him sleeping on the back seat. He looked so innocent that I cried to think that it was all just an illusion. His innocence was long gone. And we didn't know how far gone it was. We urged him to go with us to the airport that day, knowing that if he knew about the police interview, he'd take off and we'd never know where he was. When he woke up, we were at the station. What an absolutely horrid experience to watch your son being fingerprinted. The officer had him sit between us, across the desk from her, as she questioned him. He denied everything at first, but eventually the truth came out that he and his friend (I thought it was Brandon) had broken into a friend's house and stolen several hundred dollars. The immersion into the legal system that day was one I never dreamed we'd enter. We still believed a lot of what he said, and we spent a lot of money on legal counsel.

Kevin talks about graduating from high school by the skin of his teeth, and the dummying down of the school district's requirements. Every student had to take a course in economics in order to graduate. Most waited until their senior year. Kev took it first semester and failed it. There was not a single spot left for him to take it second semester, leaving him ineligible for graduation. We brokered a deal with the teacher to let him do it as an independent study. Tony was in the same situation. I took it upon myself to make sure he passed at least that class. For some reason he would stay home each night just long enough to do a bit of economics homework with me. Tony would be waiting for us to finish - I don't think he ever finished his requirements. I feel certain that I learned a lot more than Kev did about the subject. But he passed it with a B, and I didn't take the tests for him! His graduation year was the centennial for the high school, which meant an evening graduation ceremony at the football field with fireworks to follow. It was a freezing cold night, he was sick, and the memory is not pleasant. I often told him I was going to walk across the stage with him to accept his diploma, since he would not have graduated without my help in economics.

The job with our friends did save his life, I am sure. It was hard work, and long hours, starting early in the morning. He worked for them for 5 years as a welder. These were some pretty dark days for us, and as I've said, we were in the dark about a lot of it. Work became my refuge. I can remember many times, when he was still living at home, watching for his car to come down the culdesac in the middle of the night, because I couldn't sleep. We'd then talk before he went to bed and I was able to finally sleep. I imagine now that most of the talking was for my good, and that he didn't really even remember the conversations the next day, but they gave me hope.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Grandma's Gleanings

You may recall that this past week-end we had the kiddoes while K&M went on their anniversary outing. I have them every afternoon during the work week, but a "sleepover" was especially exciting to them this time. We've done it often before, but for some reason it meant a lot to Care Bear especially this time.

Anakin was with us most of the day Saturday, and then went to be with his mother. Saturday was a day filled with Grandpa-type fun for them. I stayed home and did those "blasted grade point averages."



After breakfast, Care Bear decided to create a road on the living room carpet. I call it the "Yellow Corn Chex Road." Anakin was being the Loch Ness Monster. I'm not sure how that fit in to the scenario, but it made sense to him.

After all the dressing and tooth brushing was out of the way, and way too long for their liking, Grandpa bundled them into his red pick-up (they love to go truckin') and they headed for the "nuseum" to learn a lot about our once little town's history. Care Bear is at the age where everything is an "adventure" for her. It makes it so much fun.

Following a fairly raucous lunch at McDonald's, where Feisty was not in her best form, they prepared for their next adventure - swimming at Great Grandma C's place. She is in an assisted living facility, but still has access to the exercise area. They LOVE to go swimming out there. Unfortunately DC's camera was on the fritz, so we didn't get pictures of them in the pool with 88-year-old Grandma C. They had a blast.

Both girls managed to fall out of bed - one Friday night and one Saturday night. I didn't think Care Bear even woke up enough to know what had happened, but the next morning at breakfast she said, "I fell out of bed and bumped my head - hey, I made a poem!!" She then told us about a movie about Humpty Dumpty. I said I didn't think there was such a movie, but she said, "Oh, yes, I met the author and illustrator and he said there's going to be a movie." Author and Illustrator?? Other discussions we had included the different sounds that the letter "c" makes - both "k" and "s" - and the puzzles of the English language. And this one - "What is the last number?" When we told her there wasn't a last number, that numbers went on forever, it kind of blew her little 4-year-old mind. I have to say I wasn't trying to figure out infinity until I was at least 13!

When Feisty fell out of bed, she wasn't quite as sanguine. She was very angry, and I don't blame her. It was a long ways down for her. All of her body parts were working okay, but she didn't want to be hugged. She wanted to be mad. When I finally got her to calm down enough to understand what she was saying, it was "I want a Band-Aid, I want a Band-Aid." Fortunately for me, a regular old brown Band-Aid was good enough for her. It didn't have to be Dora or neon or anything. She put it on her shoulder and she was miraculously healed and happy again. Oh, if only our grown-up hurts could be healed by a Band-Aid, even if the hurt doesn't show! Something Max Lucado said in the devotional I read yesterday was so apropos to what happened to little Fiesty.

"I like the story of the little boy who fell out of bed. When his Mom asked him what happened, he answered, 'I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in.'

Easy to do the same with our faith. It's tempting just to stay where we got in and never move.

Pick a time in the not-too-distant past. A year or two ago. Now ask yourself a few questions. How does your prayer life today compare with then? How about your giving? Have both the amount and the joy increased? What about your church loyalty? Can you tell you've grown? And Bible study? Are you learning to learn? . . .

Don't make the mistake of the little boy. Don't stay too close to where you got in. It's risky resting on the edge." (from When God Whispers Your Name).

Have a learning and adventurous Tuesday!

Black Ice is Not Nice!

Now that the snow is finally melting in the culdesac, and we'll all be making appointments to get our backs realigned and our shock absorbers changed, it has brought to mind a story from my past.

Black ice is a phenomenon around here and the official dictionary definition is: "a thin film of ice on paved surfaces that is difficult to see." Pretty simple and straightforward - and so very true.

It was a January day - the Broncos were playing a game leading to the play-offs. I was going out for my daily walk, for my health, don't you know?? It was a year much like this one when there had been quite a bit of snow and the city had not done such a hot job of getting rid of it that year either. The streets were rutted and the blacktop was showing where the snow had melted in the ruts. I was walking in the ruts to prevent myself from falling on the icy snow in the streets. The sidewalks were treacherous as well. Anyway -- on the sides of the streets were parked cars and trucks. If it so happend that one of those vehicles had been there for awhile, the snow as it melted formed a very thin sheet of ice on that blacktop and because the vehicle caused shade, the ice had not melted. Enter me - doing a 15 minute mile, getting my heart rate up. Boom - down I went.

The first reaction was to look around to see if anyone saw me. The next was a realization of pain. I discovered I was on a street where a former neighbor now lived, quite a ways from home. I rang her doorbell with my uninjured arm and asked her for a ride home. She was a good neighbor and complied.

When I got home, DC looked up with a greeting. I told him what had happened. You know from previous posts that I am married to a super guy who would do anything for me. But, let's face it, he didn't get the severity of this situation and the Broncos were going great guns! He said, "Hon, just go lie down and I'm sure you'll feel better when you wake up."

I did - and I didn't! When I woke up, it was even worse. Oh, I forgot the other part - he also said, "If you don't feel bette by half time, I'll take you to the emergency room!"

I didn't - and he did! Remember the rutted roads? Well, let me tell you, that was one hairy trip to the hospital. Every rut caused my shoulder to scream in pain. I held it as tightly as possible.

When we got there, they laid me on a delightfully freezing cold stainless steel table, with a harsh light shining in my eyes. I soon learned that my arm was not as important to them as the two elderly ladies (this was 19 years ago, before I might be classified as more elderly - I recall the exact number of years, because my nephew was born that day - good news, bad news kind of a day) who had slipped on the ice and broken their hips.

DC and Kristen decided there was no reason to stay in this bare, unpleasant room, so they went out to the lobby to watch the rest of the game. Okay with me - I was too miserable to visit anyway!

Finally, they x-rayed my shoulder and found that I had a fracture. They sent me home with a pathetic excuse for a sling and I had a very miserable night. I went to a orthopedic doctor the next day and they gave me a better sling. The break was too high to cast it, so it just had to be immobilized with a sling. The good news was that it healed in a couple of weeks. But it makes for such a good story that I decided you had to hear it. DC kind of cringes every time I tell it.

Thanks for your Prayers

Just a quick update - DC's procedure was at 3:30 (see yesterday's post). He was home by 4:30, not too much worse for the wear. He didn't seem to suffer any pain, but it wasn't fun in any sense of that word. Now the waiting game begins for the results sometime next week. I know he has anxiety, since my brother went through this exactly two years ago and it was cancer. Brother's doing great, by the way!

DC came home at noon to prepare himself mentally for the ordeal, I believe. Feisty had the chance to play with Grandpa all by herself for quite awhile, and it was fun to watch. It kept his mind occupied in a very positive way. She wondered where he went, so we told her he had to go to the doctor. The look of concern on her little face when he got home and she looked up at him and said, "Are you okay, Grandpa?" would melt the heart of anyone who has one.

A chinook wind is blowing today (a warm, dry wind that blows at intervals down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains). Really blowing. It was 47 degrees this morning, as opposed to 5 degrees yesterday. Here's hoping for some more melting!

We'll have the kiddoes this week-end as Kristen and Mike celebrate their 5th anniversary. Care Bear can hardly wait for the sleep-over. We hope to take them swimming out at Great Grandma C's place - she is in assisted living, but still gets to use all the amenities. She loves to get in the water with them at age 88.

I will be a great-aunt again today. Chad and Amanda will have a boy today to join sweet Ella. The name is still up in the air, so we're anxious to hear what they decide. That will make my 13 on my side of the family and 8 on DC's side. All adorable, of course.

I must get busy on those blasted gpa calculations! Have a wonderful Friday.

Random Ramblings #7

Thanks for stopping by today for a little visit. While we're waiting for Kevin to post Chapter 3, we'll just chat a bit about this and that.

First of all, thank you so much for your comments on DC's photography that I posted yesterday for Wordless Wednesday. He tells me he was sitting on a rock after eating lunch one day up on Storm Mountain. He spotted that tree perfectly situated in front of that cloud, whipped out his old fashioned 35 mm camera and got that amazing shot. As I told someone in a comment, he loves photography and seldom takes pictures of people. He can tell you every rock, every flower, where he was hiking when he found it and captured it for posterity. I have a future blog planned around some of his mountain pictures. I keep telling him he should try to market a calendar someday.

Please pray for him today. He's having a biopsy done - that plague of men who are getting to a more advanced age, which they don't like to really talk about. Please also pray for Kevin - he is plagued with chronic headaches. He had one yesterday, which is the reason he hasn't posted his next episode yet.

As everyone was posting pictures of their vintage valentines, and as some show us wonderful things from their grandparents, great-grandparents, and further back than that, I was thinking of why I don't have such things to share, or even to enjoy. Kevin once asked me what I collect, and I told him mostly dust. Which is probably another reason I don't collect things - because THEY collect dust - and I hate dusting!

But, back to the original thought - I was thinking of my lack of nostalgic "stuff" and pondering the reason. I don't know if my ancestors weren't nostalgic. I suspect that's part of it. One time I was lamenting the change in the little town where they all lived - it wasn't like coming back to Grandma and Grandpa's any more because it had turned into a "bedroom community" for people from the Twin Cities who wanted to escape city life, but wanted to still work in the big towns. He said, "That's progress. You gotta have progress." To me, it turned "Mayberry" into something totally foreign to me. He didn't mind. So I suspect he had the same feeling about keeping old "stuff." But the other factor is the number of times we moved. I collected lots of things when I was a kid - I had a great collection of fancy napkins - anybody remember the napkins that people used to have for fancy occasions? Oh, my, some of them were positively lacey. I had wedding napkins from all the occasions when aunts had to figure out a way to have my sister and me as part of their weddings. I wish I knew where that box of napkins went. I also collected miniature tea sets - tiny cups, saucers, and tea pots from every place we went on vacation. I have no idea what happened to that box either. Sad!! I suspect they were lost along with one of our many moves. I clearly remember the day Mom and Dad told all 5 of us that, now that we were grown and had places of our own, they would no longer move our "precious memories" boxes from parsonage to parsonage. I think many things were ruined in the crawl space of our first house.

Back to the present - remember the picture of all of those burgundy folders that I posted last week? Now they're all processed and ready for the next step - I have to figure grade point averages for each and every applicant. Some people went to a lot of colleges before they eventually graduated! I have to put all of those gpa's together into one. I always bring files home at this time of year and do it while American Idol or some such mindless thing is on in the background. When I started this job 14 years ago, I realized that when I put those file folders in the faculty's boxes to be evaluated for admission, it did not make them happy. I continually have to remind them that I am only the messenger! This is a program they created, not me. Unless they want me to just read the files and decide who I like the best (the ones who didn't bother me with thousands of phone calls and e-mails with questions they could have known the answer to if they had only read the very nice booklet I sent them, or the ones who didn't follow the directions in that very nice booklet, etc. etc.), they need to quit their bellyachin! I decided that "a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down" and began attaching a chocolate to each set of folders I gave them to read. They really like that, but then began to tell me which kind of candy they do and do not like! It doesn't matter how many letters you have following your name, you are still a little kid at heart at times.

I have been thinking of the pros and cons of my new schedule. Here are a couple of them:

Pro: The four hours I work in the morning go so fast.
Con: The four hours I work in the morning go so fast!

Pro: I only have Feisty with me three afternoons a week while Care Bear is in preschool.
Con: I only have Feisty with me three afternoons a week while Care Bear is in preschool. She really misses her buddy.

When I have a chance to just sit and watch and listen to those kids, it is such fun. Care Bear and Feisty have the greatest imaginations. Their conversations just make it so worthwhile. Feisty really lives up to her blog name. She has to have everything done a certain way, and mostly done by herself. But she has become such a little conversationalist, which is the best thing about being with her alone in the afternoons.

One of their favorite things to do is listen to music as we drive down the road. They have 3 CDs in my player in the minivan. They have certain requests and I have to know which number to punch in on each CD. Yesterday Care Bear really got into the spirit of Valentine's Day. She was passing out home made and store bought cards to everyone everywhere. She took some for her friends and teachers at church last night. On the way home they were all 3 singing with great gusto and one of the songs was "I'm gonna take God's promises and hide 'em in my heart." Now they've been singing and listening to this song since Bible school 3 years ago, but all of a sudden that part about hiding in her heart just hit Care Bear - she squealed with great joy, "Grandma, heart, heart, just like our valentine hearts - thank you, Jesus!" What a blessing to this old grandma's heart!

On another note entirely, I took them to the Dairy Queen for a treat after the library yesterday afternoon. I decided to really splurge with my money and my calories and got a totally decadent Blizzard - only the second in my life. Anakin looked straight at me and said, "Grandma, that doesn't fit on your diet, does it?" I almost choked on my brownie piece that was part of what made it so decadent. I don't recall ever discussing my diet with him! They don't miss anything.

Well, I must get to work doing that for which I am paid not nearly enough. We got another 2-3 inches of really fluffy, pretty snow and it's 5 degrees F this morning. DC washed my car of the inch deep mud when we got back from the mountain trip. I had a clean car for less than 24 hours. I have to remind myself what a wrote a couple of weeks ago - about how this moisture is going to create such a lovely green spring. But are we ever going to enjoy spring this year!

I'll talk to you later!

Wordless Wednesday

Taken by my husband

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR KEVIN!

It was a Saturday, February 12. We went to cousin Joey's first birthday party - his birthday was Sunday, but we celebrated on Saturday. I was miserable, pretty sure that I wasn't going to be around on Sunday to sing the duet with Dad that we were supposed to do in church - we stopped by the church to tell the pastor. He thought we were joking. It was early Sunday morning. We headed for the hospital at 5:30 am. Dad called the couple who had offered to take care of Kristen when it was time - and got the wrong number at 4:30 am! Labor was short - you were born at 8:07 am. After I was settled in my room and ready to rest, there was nothing more for Dad to do, so he was told he should go get some rest himself. He was too keyed up to rest, so he went to church - and sang in choir! Your name had been chosen since we first knew we were having our first baby. When Kristen was born, Kevin remained the choice for a boy's name. I don't know what we would have done if you had been a girl, because we couldn't agree on a girl's name.

You weighed the same as Kristen when you were born, and were the same length. But you grew and gained at a much greater pace than your tiny older sister.

You didn't get a chance to learn to talk, because your sister did it all for you. You were two years old before you first uttered a sentence - you knew how to talk, but never needed to!

Take a little trip down memory lane with me.

Birthdays - Those were the days - when I used to create fun cakes!

Milestones

First night in the "big boy bed"

This one goes without saying!

Helping?!

Helping!

Does my blankie really need to be washed, Mommy?

Easter Morning Excitement

Easter Afternoon Fun with Cousins

Messy Kev!

Fun with Sister Kristen

Top of 11,420 peak - 7 mile round trip

(with Dad, too, of course)

Stylin'!!

Sportsman Kev

Iron Man Cousin Contest (and who is the most burned??)

Last, but not least, some of my favorites of all time --

Brand new Converse All-Stars

Well-Used Converse All-Stars!

No Label Necessary

We are so happy to be celebrating this special birthday - 30. We are thankful to God that you are alive, well, home!

Photo Journal of the Ski Trip

We had a marvelous time. We were blessed to spend such quality time together in such a beautiful place. I relaxed a lot, in spite of doing the cooking and cleaning up. Sema took a lesson yesterday and skiied for real today. Kev boarded and DC skiied. The condo we rented was just right.

These are the caramel rolls we had for breakfast Saturday morning. I made them before we left, half with nuts and half without. I used the rest of the dough for my cabbage burgers (or bierocks, or Runzas, or krautburgers, or whatever you want to call them), which we had for lunch.

Following are some shots of the condo. Everyone's relaxing with some h0t chocolate and cookies, with a little Nuggets basketball after we settled in for the evening.

The next morning, after breakfast, the rest of them got ready for a day of swooshing down the slopes - - -

The view was fabulous. I spent the day enjoying it as I sat by the fire and read my books. I finished J.A. Jance's latest, Web of Evil, and began Margaret Truman's Murder at the Opera.

The first picture is what I could see from my perch on the couch. I intended to go walk around the village, but never got around to it!!

You can see the skiiers coming down the mountain.

This is just before they headed up this morning, and then at lunch before we headed home this afternoon.

Have a wonderful Monday!!