Last Saturday, while I was working with a customer at Chico’s, one of the ladies I work with handed me the phone and said ‘it’s Matt’. Matt does not call at either job unless something BIG is happening! When he does it always makes my breath catch just a bit. There have been a lot of things in the lives of his family recently and my mind began to reel. Silly me!! Sometimes I laugh at myself -woman of faith – sure you are! First, thinking the worst and then letting the spirit of fear in the door. Shame, shame!
When I answered the call, Matt informed me that Joshua’s lifetime friend, Peter Jaques, was in Denver and wanted to come spend the night with us. Now, THAT was light-years from where my mind had gone and what an awesome surprise!! Was I excited! We were not that busy in the store, I was allowed to leave early, and was fixing dinner when Pete arrived.
It is hard to pen all the feelings we had when Pete arrived! I had been a little homesick that week and so to have hugs from Iowa was a delight to be sure. Pete’s hugs, however are special and you have to understand Peter to understand how special they are. Pete seizes life by the ruff of the neck and shakes everything out of it that there is. His enthusiasm is so contagious! He loves the Lord and now he is in love with Megan as well. When Pete hugs you, those feelings are all felt and it is an intense moment. Not to mention that he brought a ‘spare hug’ from our Kristina! It was grand!!
We had dinner, laughed, and just shared all the stories of our lives. We told some childhood ones, too. Josh, I know a few things I did know before! We’ll talk later… It was grand to catch up on Pete’s life and the lives of his family. Peter is going to be married this summer to the lovely Megan. He is involved in exciting business ventures with his uncle, some here in Colorado. We hope those endeavors are successful and will bring him back again – maybe even with his wonderful bride.
Thanks, Pete, for blessing us with your visit. It was a grand time and a much needed time of fellowship from Iowa.
or not…. I just got back from spending two hours on a horse. A rather stupid one at that. I think that might put me up to counting on two hands, the number of times I’ve ridden a horse. Or perhaps walked a horse would be more accurate. It seems like “riding” should involve more than walking.
My patience and trust in God has been rewarded. I found out this afternoon that I’ve been selected for the ITT position. 
Took Abby for little walk up in Ute Valley Park today. She enjoys it immensely and I find it quite relaxing too. I have found a nice secluded place where the woods and rocks combine to form small sanctuaries. Little restful places where you can sit on the rocks in the midst of the pine trees, soak up the sunshine, and smell the earth and woods around you.
Unless you have a case of blindness you’ve noticed that I “winterized” the look and feel of the site. This seems appropriate since it looks more wintery around here at the moment. Ronda twisted my arm this weekend and we went hiking. I wasn’t overly excited by the prospect since all I have to put on my feet are my trail runners, which are awesome in warmer weather but not worth a hoot on icy surfaces. I’ve put off buying any “gear” as we have more important things to spend our limited funds on at the moment.
My shoes did not turn out to be quite the disaster I was thinking and I got along pretty well. The trail winds around a bit and after a few miles descends down into the canyon which is fairly broad at the bottom. There are plenty of trees and boulders to keep things interesting. The trail splits and forms a 3.5 mile loop at that point. We decided it would take too long to hike the whole loop so after consulting the map decided to take the more arduous right fork which climbed up to a very nice scenic overlook. We went off-trail aways, stomping through some knee-deep snow to get to some exposed rocks out on a point. 
