What's Up! :)

Saturday afternoon we happened to look out the front door to see...this! I couldn't fit it all in the photograph but both the beginning and end of the rainbow were in the field in front of us. Pretty amazing. It's been quiet here on th blog because we've had guests....our friends the Bruncks from NC last week and Grandma Dale has been here for 2 weeks. Grandma leaves Saturday and the Bruncks come back for a couple of days next week. Then we're looking forward to having Reid's sister Susie and family in town. It's a lively home and we're enjoying having family and friends here. What a treat to get to share the ministry of Timberline with them as well as our new home here in Grand County. We've gotten to explore some new areas ourselves...Idaho Springs and the goldmine there - along with Beau Joe's - the best pizza in Colorado - and it WAS very good!!! :) Well worth stopping if you're going that way :) So, we'll sign off with that for now - and with a picture Ian took of the blog author... ;)

2010 Pictures we just found :)

Nicholas Copernicus for Classical Conversations' Essentials evening. The kids had to write an essay on someone in the Middle Ages. Ian's class had to choose a person, Julie-Joy's class had to choose a group of people. She chose Noble Ladies of the Middle Ages. The signs in front of them were mixed up at first as parents had to guess who they were.

Fun at Nannie and Poppies house this past Thanksgiving.

Aunt Susie riding at Papa's barn

Papa!!!

I think...that's Ian.

Visiting Nannie and Poppie in Crusco.

Our other mountains! :)

Two more

Jenna with Niah - her new little buddy! :) They are so precious together - Niah teaches Jenna how to ride a bike and Jenna tells her stories! :) Julie-Joy and her friends never stand still long enough to catch on camera! :)

Bummed that this one is blurry - but maybe Lauren and Megan are glad - they had some rather teary eyes - but look just as precious as ever - two more students our kids have come to love! You guys are already missed

Random Pictures in May

SURPRISE!!!! ;) Ok, not really - that little one is Judah Thomas - the precious little one of Dan and Sarah. We've had parents ask for pictures of the grown ups too - so we finally had a half-way decent one shot today - waiting on supper after graduation! What a fun, happy, sad day!

For Reid's Mom! :) The aprons have found a special little display area!

Julie-Joy and one of her new friends here in Colorado - Sarah Pascucci - aka Skooch!! Our family has come to love this young lady and she is going to be greatly missed! Thanks Skooch for babysitting and just lovin' on the girls especially! Your fake southern accent will be missed! :)

Ian with Jordi - what a neat young man. He blessed us just by spending time talking with Ian and playing various games at the sand dunes with him. Another student that will be greatly missed. Wished we'd had more time to get some more pictures....but got busy talking to everyone.

I don't konw what the kids were paying but I got tickled that they were barefoot! So typical!! Except Niah and Keelan of course...they know better! :)

A few random pictures in May

So we had two little guests this morning - two coyotes that I didn't catch until they have moved away - but they were running, jumping up and digging in the snow ... for rodents I assume.



Jenna, working on her spelling! :)

If it's not Snow it's Sand!

Ian took a few days off school to come along. What was truly amazing were the mountains in the background - like the Sahara Desert in front of the Alps or something....

Walking over to the dunes....we weren't sure how to dress - the sand can get really hot, but the air is still cool...

I think this was right after Dan and Aaron decided to roll down the hill together holding on to each other's heels...I don't think they got very far...

The first day, Dan took all the kids over to the dunes. Lauren and Megan took them over to a little wet spot (off in the distance in the picture) and they stayed occupied for a VERY long time! :)

You could see for miles and miles

Jenna, who doesn't exactly enjoy walking long distances, was such a trooper climbing the dunes! :)

The students - throwing themselves down the dunes, cartwheeling and surfing and who knows what else!

Sweet little Julie-Joy - had SUCH a blast!

Jenna and Lauren, one of the many bibleschool students that our kids are going to miss when they graduate next week. Lauren and Megan were so sweet to take all the staff kids over to the sanddunes to play for a while!

All bundled up for the night - the kids are somewhere under there!! The stars at the camp were breathtaking - since you could see so far and there were no city lights in sight. No pictures though! :(

Jenna and Niah (Thomas) - they are precious together, telling each other stories and playing make-believe. We had fun listening to "The Magician's Nephew" by CS Lewis on the way home while Julie-Joy enjoyed traveling with Keelan for a little while. I wanted to get some pictures with the Hammonds and the rest of the Thomas family and staff but time got away from us. Hopefully graduation day will be a good time for pictures! :)

We managed to get it up!!! :) With a little help from Pete as the rainfly proved a little tricky! :)

So - all that to say, if you have a chance to visit the Sand Dunes near Alamosa - DO!! And yes, we're looking forward to going camping again! :)

I wrote the following and had it before the pictures - somehow it's popping up afterwards and I can't figure out how to copy and paste:

We just retured yesterday evening from our first (EVER!!!) camping trip. And when the Dales attempt to do something new they do it right! ;) It was in the 20's and 30's at night (that's below freezing for my European friends). But we had a truly wonderful time. The kids loved having some extended time with their friends, the Thomas and Hammond kids, and a bunch of students also blessed us by spending time playing with them and making our first camping experience a truly wonderful one.

The driv down to the Sand Dunes was breattaking - past some of the Rocky's highest mountains (the three collegiates, Mt. Princeton, Mt. Harvard, Mt. Yale eg. are over 14,000 feet). The sanddunes themselves made Reid and I think that God decide to do some sweeping and just swept up a "little" (30 square miles I think) sandpile over in a corner. It's a very unique National Park - and well worth the trip. The 5 hour drive passed so quickly as there was so much to see along the way and we stopped in Frisco (near Breckenridge) and several other places along the way to get to know our new homestate a little better. The pictures below don't do the trip justice - but I know grandparents and aunts and uncles will have fun seeing a little of what we got to experience along the way.

Camping Trip

Our family is looking forward to it's our first ever camping trip with the Timberline Community to the Sand Dunes near Alamosa in the southern part of Colorado. Looking at the pictures makes me wonder if we need to bring along Ian's light sabers in case we encounter any sand people....but we're very excited. We were supposed to leave today, but the weather today was supposed to be rainy/snowy with lows in the teens. Seeing as how the Hammonds and the Thomas's are bringing wee-ones with them, we decided to push the trip back one day - when it will only be in the low 20's to 30's at night!!! However, the high's are expected to get into the 70's - we might need air conditioning in our tent! HA! :) Erin Pagel is our staff member who plans these retreats and I've been super impressed with how detailed she is in planning these trips. She has a real gift in this area!

This trip to Alamosa is an annual trip that is planned at the end of the school year for all the staff and students to debrief and talk about the school year. We look forward to having some extended time away with our new Timberline Family and the kids are beyond excited to get to spend time with their friends. Ian is even getting out of school for the occasion.

Since most of my posts are about family I thought I'd add this brief update about Timberline and what is going on here. Once the students graduate on the 14th of May (always a happy/sad time, as I remember very well being a young girl growing up in Torchbearers and having to watch the students I'd come to love, leave at the end of the school year), the school closes down for a couple of weeks and a lot of staff leaves to go on vacation before things gear up for our summer guests. We're looking forward to having Reid's grandmother visit with us for a couple of weeks in May from North Carolina as well as the Brunck Family, some precious friends from our home church in NC as well. Then at the beginning of June, Reid's sister Susie, brother-in-law Issa and their kids Sami and Alexa will be visiting. The kids are beside themselves with anticipation with their cousins coming into town as well as their friends Hannah and Noah. We're really looking forward to some extended time with family and friends and the opportunity to share Timberline and our new family here with them!

We have several churches coming in for retreats as well as a photography retreat and a peak-to-peak bike tour- a part of our Ascent program. I believe there is still room in both programs for anyone interested in participating. We're also still accepting female students at Timberline for this coming year's Bibleschool (I hear that there is a waiting list for the guys).

Reid mentioned off hand that this year's Torchbearer's America's Director's meeting will be held at Timberline so we'll be looking forward to connecting with some old and new friends at that time.

Well, spring time has arrived in Fraser, CO. That means that when fresh snow falls it melts - but just this past week we got another good dumping of 10 inches. It could snow all the way up until June we've been told.

Well, I'd better finish packing....and will do my best to pack the camera so hopefully we can post some pictures of something other than snow!!!!