GREAT TRIP TO COLORADO

John, Charles and Sandra

Charles and John

Chapel

Spiral staircase

Spiral staircase

Birds and Prairie Dogs

Sondra and Jonathan ready for their night out.

Jonathan and Sondra.

The Cripple Creek side of the Mountains.

Daniel and I at Cheyenne Mountain Park

Fall in all its glory.

Wide open spaces.

John and David.

Looking out at Pike's Peak.

We have been back from our trip to Colorado for a week now. I have been trying to make time to post some pictures and write a little about our trip, but it has been busy at work and the recliner looks to darn good when I get home in the evening.

We drove out with Sandra and Charles and had a really nice trip. It was fun traveling with friends. We left on Friday afternoon after I got off work and drove to Memphis. Monica had a nice dinner waiting. (Chili, dips, chips and all sorts of goodies). We turned in pretty early and had a good nights sleep then headed out again about 6:00 Saturday morning. We drove across Arkansas, Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle and into NM. We finally stopped at a motel around 9:30 when we reached Albuquerque. We were worn smack dabbed out. We all fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. We were back on the road by 7:30 Sunday morning. We drove over to Charles' aunts house and visited with her for a while. She is 83 years old but insisted we go to the casino and have lunch and play the slots for a while. Charles won $400.00, his aunt won $200.00 and his cousin won a couple of hundred. We had a great time and we all had a day that once again left up exhausted.

On Monday we got up early and headed on up to Colorado. We stopped along the way and saw the Church of the Sisters of Loretta and saw the miraculous spiral staircase attributed to St. Joseph. The church was beautiful and serene.

While we were in Santa Fe we went into a few shops and stopped at a couple of street vendors. Sandra go a White Buffalo (white turquoise) ring and I got a pair of white earrings.

We had a wonderful week visiting with the grand kids and taking a few side trip in the area. I took a heck of a cold while I was there, so I felt a little crappy most of the week. Daniel has just learned to walk, so he was toddling around everywhere. He is always smiling a really laid back. David is in kindergarten and knows more than I did when I graduated from high school. He is reading and writing and constantly asking questions trying to learn more. He amazes me.

I had to be back to work on Monday, so Sondra got me a ticket to fly back home on Sunday. I was a little nervous because it was the first time I had flown by myself. I had a great flight and it took me about 5 hours to get home. Luckily the storms that went through came the day after I got home. John, Charles and Sandra got in on Tuesday evening after traveling two days. We all had a wonderful visit and it was good seeing the kids and grand kids. I think we will rest up for a while before we take off again. By the way, we just found out that Sarah and Cody will soon be moving to Washington state in a few months. Can we get there from here?

John and I with Daniel and David

OCTOBER IS HERE ALREADY

Well this is the 9TH of October already. Time seems to be on a race horse course to the end of the year. It seems that it was only a few weeks ago that the new year was beginning and I had dozens of things I had hoped to accomplish this time around. But it seems that I have got caught up in the old day to day stuff and my to do list has not gotten any shorter. As always it is "I owe, I owe so its off to work I go". I am in the figuring out stage about work, should I continue working or retire. In my case it would not be retiring, it would quitting because there will no retirement benefits. (One reason to quit). I still just don't know if I want to stay at home all the time.

The weather has cooled down somewhat and there is a hint of fall in the air. Cool mornings and evening and warm days. Fall and Spring are my favorite times of the year. Makes you want to get outside and do things. With the leaves starting to fall I'm sure there will be plenty of outside work before long.

John went down to FL to sit with Luke and Charlotte for a few days while Sarah took some classes over in Foley. I really would have liked to go and visit with the kids, but couldn't ask off at this time. ( That is another good reason to quit work).

We were in Memphis last weekend. We had not been able to see Andrew play PW football and the season is getting shorter all the time. He did really well and got his name called on the speaker several time for making tackles. ( Missing out on the kids activities is another reason to quit). Matthew and Aaron had a great time playing with John Pearson and Emily. We ate to much stayed up to late.

It is back to Memphis this weekend to attend Mark and Paige's engagement party. I will probably ride up with Johnny and John Pearson since my car is acting up and I don't want to end up on the side of the road somewhere near Walnut MS. John will be getting home from FL about the same time I'm leaving for MS. He will be too tired to make the drive to MS. I'm sure.

In another week we will be going out to Colorado to visit Sondra, Jonathan, David and Daniel. We are all getting excited about making our cross country adventure. We will probably stop over in Albuquerque NM to visit some of Charles' family. John and I have never been there and we are looking forward to that. I hope to get lots of pictures to post. This is where you really start praying for nice weather.

I guess I had better finish getting the house work done ( one good reason to keep working, John keeps the house running better than I do) and start packing. Hope everyone has a great weekend.