So Pretty!

I got up real early Friday morning before everyone else was up as I wanted to repack our luggage so we could get everything home!  I went into Jordan's bedroom since he was in with his Mommy and Daddy to look out the window.  You can't tell it by the picture, but it was still dark outside.  The moon sure lit things up.

Relaxing

After driving back to Brett and Karissa's house from Denver, we all . . . . .

just . . . . .

relaxed on one form or another :o)

Headed Back to Albuquerque

After driving for several hours we finally were back in New Mexico.  (Sorry for the blurry picture!)

You can see for miles

and miles

In the middle of nowhere is this little plateau

And there was the storm clouds.  You could see lightning many miles off in the distance!

Can you see the big herd of cattle?

And then it rained sooooooooooo hard that you could barely see!

 

This is how everyone was feeling after driving so long :o)

 We finally made it to our destination ~ Albuquerque!!

Missions International Dinner

Last night, Friday, October 26th, was our 1st Annual Missions International Dinner.  We've done this before at the Church we pastored in Ohio and it was always exciting and interesting.  You never know what to expect, but for the first time we had a good turnout of people who brought a lot of food!  Our friends, Scott and Oksana Sobie, who are now Missionaries to the Ukraine use to bring a special dish that was something special to us when we did this dinner in Ohio.  She is from the Ukraine and would make a soup called Borscht.  Dennis was hungry for it so I started out making a pot of it, but ended up with two rather large pots of it :o)  I had emailed Oksana and she sent me her recipe.

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Borscht

Here are the ingredients:

chopped onions

shredded carrots

a shredded beet

Cooked in oil

Shredded beets

Mix a couple tablespoons of tomato paste with a cup of water and mix with the onions, carrots and beets.

 Peel and cube several potatoes and boil them

Shred a medium head of cabbage

Add a couple cans of beans 

Mix beans and cabbage with potatoes and boil a little while.

Next, add the onion, carrot, beet and tomato paste with the above mixture and let simmer.  And then be sure to take a picture:o)  I forgot the finished look!!  (This was a Russian dish). 

Then I came across a new recipe this week for a chocolate cake with cooked peanut butter icing.  It was so good and tasted just like peanut butter fudge!!  Mmm!!   It was called a Chocolate Texas Sheet Cake (American)

I also made a big dish with sauerkraut with kielbasa cut-up and put mashed potatoes on the top!  Again, mmmmm good!!  (German)

 

Monkeying Around

Hurricane and Earthquake

Hurricane Sandy is stirring stuff up around Grand Cayman!!  There's definitely a storm system out there as we've been having a lot of rain.  The winds have picked up some, too.  I'm sure as the Hurricane moves across the waters and gets some closer we'll have more bad weather.  I read on the news yesterday that today sometime the waves on the Sea here are supposed to be up to at least 9 feet!!  I want to see that!!  Yesterday afternoon we were in George Town and the water wasn't really that rough.  When we got back closer to our house the Sea was as calm as could be!!  But it won't be much longer, I guess.  Thankfully we aren't supposed to get hit by Hurricane Sandy.  I feel bad for the people in Jamaica who did have damage to their homes, etc.  And this morning I read one person lost their life as a large boulder fell on them!

And then I read this on the news last night and was pretty shocked!!
"There have been no reports of anyone feeling the short quake which occurred in the Cayman region this lunch time. However, at a depth of more than 20 miles under the ocean and more than one hundred miles away it comes as no surprise. A spokesperson for Hazard Management confirmed that the 5.4 magnitude quake which happened at 12.56 pm on Wednesday some 101 miles SSW of George Town was one of many small tremors that can occur in the ocean around Cayman. “There have been no reports that the tremor was felt by a single local resident and there was no tsunami threat at any time,” he said."
WOW!!  That's too close!!

Royal Gorge

My oldest brother, Jim, had told me about the Royal Gorge and so we decided to go check it out!

Here we are at the entrance

I love this picture of the "boys" holding hands :o)

They even had a kiddie train

We were pretty disappointed when we saw the price of admission.  If I remember correctly it was around $25.00 each for the adults.  We decided not to pay that as I really don't think I would have walked across the gorge on that bridge.  Brett said he wasn't going to do it as since his last deployment when the plane he was on dropped several thousand feet in the air he isn't too fond of things like this.  It was really senseless for us to pay and not go out there and look around!  But we watched the zipline .

There was a red cable car to ride across the gorge

Zipping by us again

And the cable car getting closer

and almost to it's destination!  I don't think I want to go on one of those either!!

Here's an aerial view from their website

 They had beautiful pots of flowers sitting around which. . . . .

attracted pretty butterflies!!

 

Caden standing by the "Silver Rock"

He picked until he got a couple little pieces off of it!

The easiest way to get back to the van :o)

 Even though it was off the route we had planned it was a beautiful drive!!

Caden

Playing with his new game we gave him for his birthday!

It made the long trip go faster for him.

Caden had my camera and snapped a few pictures of more red rocks!

And an adobe house.

After Two Years ~ We Still Miss You!

It's hard to believe, but it was two years on October 18th that my mother~in~law passed away!  I still remember the phone call from Dennis' sister when she called to tell us that their Mother had went in for surgery on her eyes and afterward went into a coma.  She never came to from that, but when she did wake up she had moved to her new Heavenly home!!  We miss her so much!!  It still seems like she should be there when we go to their home in West Virginia.  She was Dennis' best friend and a wonderful Mother~in~law to me and a super Grandmother to Brett and Brandon!!  We love you and miss you so much, Alice!!  You'll always be in our hearts!!

Good~Bye Pike's Peak

Oh, the beauty of the majestic Pike's Peak!

I just kept snapping pictures of it. 

I hope it's not too long before we visit the Denver, Colorado area again!!

Headed on back to Albuquerque!

The Air Force Academy

On our way to Denver, we passed the exit to the Air Force Academy and I mentioned about stopping there on our way back to New Mexico.  So, we did!

As you can see the Academy is nestled along the beautiful mountains! 

One of the many sights driving back to the Academy 

Getting closer

Finally, we got to the Visitor Center

Pappy and his favorite boys!!

Brett and Karissa

Inside the building there were many, many interesting things including the plane hanging from the ceiling!

A model of the Chapel.  It's beautiful from the outside.  Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to go inside.  I wish we could have!

Caden wanted me to take these pictures

I love the mannequin in the red and black :o)

And he wanted me to take this picture.  Their sports team at the Academy are called The Eagles.  They do a lot of research and training with eagles there.

Back in the van

and leaving the Academy Base.

A very nice experience visiting here!