April/May early June

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello there and we're glad to finally be able to update our blog.  It's been too long.  Anyway, here's a brief update of a few of our exciting adventures.

Salt Lake City
An interesting place, steeped in Mormonism of course, but top marks for city planning and inspirational building.  The biggest copper mine in the world owned by Rio Tinto is here, we saw it when it was blizzarding!

Yellowstone National Park
America's first National park.  Wonderful place.  We saw it in snow, huge Bison, roaming deer, lots of animal tracks, the predictible Old Faithful Geyser.  It was delightful to see the boys eagerly jump out of the car to examine the animal tracks in the snow with a guide of tracks in their hand.  However, we weren't expecting snow here, silly us, and on the night before we left it snowed about 18 inches.  So much so the next morning it took us over an hour to sweep the snow off the roof of our slides before we could move them in!  Visited a lovely fellowship for Easter where the boys enjoyed a great egg hunt and a pancake breakfast.

Bozeman, Montana
While in Flagstaffe, we made friends with 'Carol and Bob' who ever so kindly invited us to stay with them in Bozeman.  We enjoyed a wonderful 4 days in Montana with them.  They were beautifully hospitable to us and our boys (who were very comfortable to sit and chat at the kitchen bench).  We enjoyed the comforts and friendship of extended family life and we loved it and appreciated it.  Bob, has the grass grown back on the front lawn yet???

Rapid City
We found Rapid City really interesting.  Mt Rushmore is here and Crazy Horse.  Amazing, inspiring celebrations of American history.  We witnessed the Minuteman Missile Silo's and saw Badlands National Park, a park featured in some old western movies.

Denver
Now this is a place we could live in!  We so enjoyed our stay in Denver.  The RV park was magnificently situated by a stream by a bike track which we used as did many others.  We could walk to 'Golden' an older picturesque part of Denver which we loved.  Visited a wonderful church called Redrocks.  They advertised the starting of a ladies Bible Study 'on Tuesday'.  Feeling the need for some female company I thought I'd attend.  In the course of the evening I spoke with 'DeLana'  who told me about an orphanage in Mexico and a mission trip planned for early June.  I drove home feeling full of hope and excitement at the possibility for us.

Colorado Springs
We had a wonderful time here.  The highlight was visiting Focus on the Family, a Christian organisation that specialises in kids stories and kid's radio productions.  The boys were given the opportunity of creating their own 'Adventure in Odyssey' story by using a real radio production studio.  Campbell and Angus had speaking parts and Wesley, the sound affects.  We walked away with a CD of the recording.  Really exciting.

Pueblo, Colorado
We were able to meet the director of Casa De La Esperanza - the Mexican orphanage, who just 'happened' to be in Pueblo this weekend.  It was our delight to meet Gil and Becky Sanchez confirming our plans to join the mission trip.

Glenwood Springs, Colorado
A true highlight for us was to raft down the Colorado River for a couple of hours.  We are told the river is up this year and so our raft was adventurous.  The boys loved it as a first rafting experience.

Great Sand Dunes National Park
Can you imagine Sand Dunes, 750 feet high?  We climbed them with no problem,  all the fun was in running down.  Campbell particularly loved this and laughed and laughed.

Los Alamos
This was the sight the Atomic Bomb was developed.  Interestingly only 16 days after the bomb was first tested another was dropped in Japan.

Sante Fe
An old Mexican town with New Mexican arts and 'Pueblo's'-  the Mexican community developments.

Casa De La Esperanza, Mexico
After leaving 'Rover' the RV, locked up behind chain wire fencing in a church yard in El Paseo, we joined a party of 13 others to journey to Casa.  Our border crossing went without a hitch although it did take an hour and then 5.5 hours of driving to Anahuac near Chihuahua city.  The orphanage is run by the Church of Christ and Gil and Becky Sanchez have directed it's operations for the past 13 years.  They are wonderful people who have a sincere and loving passion for caring for children caught up difficult situations.  Currently they house about 40 children and are running a most wonderful Christian home and farm for them.  The week we were there they received a pair of sisters and a toddler to add to their home. We were able to do some work to progress their dreams and play with the children and extend love to them.  The operating farm on the property includes pigs, piglets, chooks, cattle, sheep and goats.  He owns 2 horses and all the children do work around the farm.  They are developing a green house to grow vegies and have tremendous dreams of developing their own school in time to come. 
Our boys were exposed to serving and generosity, but one of the most impacting things was just how happy the children are.  Our boys commented many times, in fact Campbell felt he'd never known such happy boys.  We loved our week here.  We appreciated the opportunity.  We felt God was encouraging us to have the experience for which we are really grateful.  We long to see what seeds have been sown and what fruit may come from it.  Praise Him !