March 27 - April 3 A holiday week in America

Sunday, March 27, we went to Westside Bible Chapel, a brethren assembly recommended to us by Jerry Benjamin.  The people were all wonderfully welcoming and smiling and friendly.  It was great.  They have a Bible Study in the evening which we attended and we think we will make this our home while we are in the US.  Thank you everybody for making us feel so welcome!


Monday, March 28th.

 We visited Focus on the Family's headquarters just outside of Colorado Springs.  We 'happened' to meet up with a young man we met at church who is here from Alabama for a couple of weeks. We had lots of fun exploring the excellent facility and book shop.  Ryan treated us each to a Wod-Fam-Choc-Sod - if you are not an Adventures in Odyssey Fan, that's a World Famous Chocolate Soda.  Yummy!

Garion and Lachlan did a little 'performance' for us at the insistence of Ryan!

In the Narnia room.

Tuesday, March 29th, Grammy Joy and Poppa Dick inducted us into the Art, Trade or Mystery of shopping at Costco wholesalers!  Wow - there was even a $70,000 diamond ring alongside the 2 litre cartons of whipping cream, gallon tubs of cheese and bacon balls, tents and bison hot dogs - but no vegemite......


After shopping, the Dewhirsts took us out to a fantastic Mexican restaurant and introduced us to the wonderful cuisine from south of the border.  It was very tasty, thanks Poppa and Grammie.


Later in the afternoon we visited Manitou Cliff Dwellings.

There was an interesting souvenir shop, but the main attraction was fascinating.  Hundreds of years ago native Indians had built stone houses in a long shallow cave.  The rooms were tiny, sometimes stacked three high.  For the most part, there was only one room about 2m square for each family.  Interestingly, the doors were positioned about 2 feet from the ground and were less than 3 feet high.  It was incredible how symmetrical the windows were considering the fact that they hardly shaped them at all.  We had a great time and wished we could come again.

by Hamish     

Lachlan has begun a collection of pressed pennies.  You can get them at all the tourist attractions, by inserting 2 quarters and a penny into a machine, selecting an image, then turning the handle to press your own penny.  So far, he has 5 pressed pennies and a little album to keep them in.

Wednesday and Thursday, March 30th and 31st were quiet, snowy days at home.  Marmee was feeling very sick and most of us were not feeling much better.  We watched a DVD of the Duggar family which we had bought at Focus on the Family.  They are a Christian homeschooling family with 18 beautiful children - very inspirational.  They seem to have a lot of fun together.  

We bought Briony-Anne a beautiful book of prayers 'for my daughter' and are taking turns reading her one each evening.

It's wonderful to have time for lots of chatting.

Friday, April 1st, Tony and Bryce went early in the morning to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to register the suburban.  We had been warned of long queues but they were early enough to go straight through and were home before 9am!   So that part of the organisation is all done.  Now there's just finding accommodation for May through August and then - enjoy!!  We have found a house the right size, right price, right availability, fully furnished and have just received an email from the owner - she knows Caring for the Heart Ministries and would like to rent us her house!!  We'll look at it tomorrow.

Now to drive up to Pike's Peak, elevation 14,110 feet!

Even in the foothills it was cold and blowy!!

About halfway up there was a souvenir shop and cafe with restrooms!  Obviously much needed as there was a large sign 'last restrooms before the summit'.

This road is kept open most of the year.  The boys were all intrigued by this enormous snow plough.

After a winding drive up narrow roads with only the occasional safety rail and shear drops of dizzying heights, we finally made the summit!  We've since been told, that if we had taken a bag of potato crisps with us, it would have burst open on the way up due to the falling air pressure!  We certainly noticed the lack of oxygen and ElizaBeth was pleased to know there are oxygen bars up there - though we didn't need them!

We were thrilled by the view of the Rocky Mountain Range in the distance with all those incredible snowy peaks. There are over fifty peaks above 14,000 feet. Awesome.

Snowballing was fun and very tiring at this altitude!  We found a souvenir for Daniel here - hope you like it, Dan.