A new project!!!

Hi All,

This is J writing this time! As you can see from the above photo, we picked up a new boat last night. Some may look at it and say "new?", well it is new to us! Most would take one look at this boat and then proceed to load it up and take it to the dump! I look at this boat and see all the history that is behind this simple vessel, and the life that is yet to be lived by it!! To the best of my knowledge it started it's life as a guide boat at a local fly shop in CO. Later in it's life it was severely neglected and left to rot outside. Someone eventually saw some potential in it and took it on as a project. Well, that person lost interest and the little guy changed hands once more. Then as in most boat cases, the idea of having or restoring a boat sounds bliss but in the end it usually becomes more work than most are willing to put forth or other priorities take over. Therefore, the boat is off to another home. This time it landed in my gear strown and crowded garage. Hopefully to begin a new life as a guide boat and river trip boat for our family!

One might be inclined to ask, " how did you end up with such a nice little boat?" Well I'm glad you asked, because I was gonna tell ya anyways! The mighty power of the Craigslist pages brought this little guy to my attention. Then a few frantic phone calls later and one case of Fat Tire and the boat was ours!! We brought it home and I threw some ribs and corn on the grill and just sat in the boat, pondering it's future. I can clearly see the day it will see the water again. Well, pretty clearly...I havn't decided what color to paint it yet!

I hope to keep writing about the restoration of the new rig. In my other ventures I have failed to chronicle the events that lead up to a finished boat. This time maybe I'll remember to take more pictures and write more down. Who knows maybe someone will find it interesting!!

Later,

Jamie

The Kiddos

So far in my little bloggy, I haven't really put a good post about our kids- they went to feed ducks last week with our friends- they had a grand time- and us moms' got to relax and catch up a bit as well! :-)





Oh, and the kids were really excited about their new Carhartt's, they outgrew the old so in with the new, and they even got hats this year. :-)

The road less travelled

So we did some driving this weekend- we are quite at home on the road headed to anywhere so this wasn't any new occurance for our agenda. We headed out of Colorado Springs via a dirt road leaving Garden of the Gods, then we headed into the fog towards Deckers, CO. The fog, turned into hail, and then into snow!



Leaving Deckers, we travelled through a HUGE vast area of burned forest from a fire back in 2002.






(Only YOU can prevent forest fires!!)



We went a little further to find a good place for the kiddos to run around and explore..



Continuing on, we ran across this little incident!!



Within a couple of hours we had these guys out and us through to the other side as well. We later got to see lots of wildlife and explored many more forest roads in the area, which led us to one conclusion:


"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." -Robert Frost

Should in the forest roads in Pike, Teller, and Park counties' case, better be stated:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that... has led me back to where I started.

Then again, two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I then took the one more traveled by,
And that... led me to a dead end.

Hahaha! Happy exploring! :-)

A little catching up...

So apparently I'm not very good at this blogging thing... but here's a little catch up.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Land Rover ("Lander") needed $4000 worth of work to get it running.. we decited to dive in and do the work ourself. We removed the exhaust system, both drive shafts, and transfer case, transmission, and anything else in the way to get to and change out the damaged fly-wheel! Then we took the whole top of the engine off and apart to change the head gaskets and have the heads cleaned and machined! Finally after it all and after changing out every seal and gasket along the way- it's been back up and running again better than ever since around the end of march! Wahooooo!!!!

Discovery, Simplicity, Trust

So, we found out on Monday, extremely unexpectedly and unforeseeably, that our Land Rover needs $4000 worth of work done to it to get it running again. It was perfect this past weekend, perfect Monday morning when J drove it work, but somehow self-destructed the flywheel when he started it to come home from work Monday evening. You can imagine how my prayers have sounded this week.

Well Tuesday I sat down with my kids to lunch and our 4 year old said our prayer for lunch... it went something like this:

"Dear Jesus,
Thank you for this food... and thank you for Daisy (our dog), and thank you for my trucks, and thank you for dirt... Amen."

A true boy thanking God for dirt! And as a kid, he's just simply thankful- like God asked us to be... over and over and over again...

Colossians 3:15- "...and be ye thankful"
Philippians 4:6- "...but in everything by prayer and thanksgiving let your requests be known unto God."
I Thessalonians 5:18- "In everything give thanks, for this is the Will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

And on and on- all throughout the Bible.

So, my 4 year old just thanked God for dirt- he didn't even ask for more dirt, or a bigger pile of dirt, or a big yard with lots of dirt (we live in a townhouse and he has a very small rectangle in the landscaping to dig in)- he just thanked God for dirt. I have a lot to learn from this! It seems like, as adults we're always asking for more or better or bigger (even if it's for "better" for our kids!) instead of simply being thankful for what we have. I believe there is a reason Jesus loves children and tells us to be like them... "Dear Jesus, thank you for dirt"...

So Lord, thank you that we have a second car that J can drive to work, thank you that we live within walking distance of a grocery store so I don't have to have a vehicle right now, thank you for always providing food and a nice warm house for us to live in, thank you for my beautiful kids and how sweet they are, thank you for my wonderful husband and our relationship, thank you for family and friends, and laughter, and mountains, and fun, and for saving us and for giving us hope, and thank you that this $4000 and this vehicle is not the most important thing in the world and that everything will be OK... because we have You.
Lord we love you, and praise you, and THANK you.

Getting Started

The beginning of one (hopefully) very interesting blog...

that we should have started a long time ago!

Welcome to our Blog!
-All of Us