Lunch with Family!

Today in Denver we met up with Todd and Miriam (Rory's cousins) and their youngest kiddos, Max and Gioia for lunch. I am so grateful for the opportunities we have had on this trip to get together with individual families, one on one. Sometimes family functions are just too busy to actually connect and really get to know each other. I really enjoyed getting to know Miriam while Rory and Todd talked business.

Sweet Lizzie

We spent election night at Anne and Ross Kedl's in Denver. Anne, is my Godmother (I had nine incredible men and women as sponsors at my baptism, and she is one of them) and my parents are her godparents, and I am her son Justin's godmother. Anne is 10 years older than I am, and as life progresses it is so fun to realize that we are growing in to good friends (I love how age gaps begin to fade when you get older.) I didn't get a picture of the whole family last night, but I have this one from when we got together with them this summer in Alexandria. And since then, they have adopted Lizzie from China.

When we saw Anne and Ross in July, they were anxiously waiting for the go ahead to go and get their daughter. I read their blog religiously, trying to imagine the intensity of all of their feelings as they walked through this process. And now, just two months later, it was pure joy to see Lizzie at home, loved SO FULLY by her mom and dad and phenomenal brothers. We watched the election results come in last night and Ben and Justin were kind enough to SHARE THEIR HALLOWEEN CANDY!!!! WHAAAHOOOOOO!!!

Aspen

While looking through our Aspen pictures, I realized that we had taken many more pictures of ourselves than we did of the scenery. And it made me happy because for me, these pictures sum up our trip the best. We have loved and cherished each other well on this adventure. I am so grateful for this time on the road and how fully I live life with my best friend.

We had stunning weather in Aspen, and walked around a lot. We spent an entire morning at the Aspen library reading our books in a sunny window on cushy chairs. We had a picnic in the city park, and got a caramel apple at the Rocky Mountain Candy company. It was pretty dreamy.

Arches!

Our trip to Arches was a three hour detour from our planned route to Aspen and ended up being a complete highlight of the whole trip for me. When I saw the rock next to the picture of me below I laughed. There is so much joy in God's creation- and some of it is just comical- the gigantic redwood trees, the huge rocks jutting out of the ocean in Oregon, and now this...these phenomenal rock formations right in the middle of the desert.

The Pharisees told Jesus to silence the crowd who were praising God, and Jesus replied, "I tell you, even if they keep quiet, the stones themselves will cry out."

Reno and Salt Lake City

Rory has been using kayak.com to find our hotels on this trip, and in Reno we broke our record for a cheap hotel. We stayed at casino hotel for $35! Reno was a bit of a riot...it felt like this must have been the hot spot in the 70's. All of the casinos from the outside had a strong feel from that time.

We were then on to Salt Lake City and actually, in our two days there, never even saw the Great Salt Lake. :( We drove in to the area in the dark and stayed in a suburb outside of the city and didn't drive that direction again. But we saw lots of salt driving into the area that looked a lot like snow.