colorado is confused

Yeah that's right. Sometimes I feel like there's things the state of Colorado just doesn't get. The confusion the past couple days has been that it has poured down rain and the temperature is only in the 50s. And it is AUGUST. Come on now. It should still be blazing hot summer weather. I'm sure that weather will come back in a few days, but I am annoyed. I wore jeans and a sweater yesterday and I was not happy about it.

Anyway, we're gonna move on from that. So all the kids have been going back to school this week, and some next week, so summer is basically over. I can't believe how fast it comes and goes every year. I mean I don't start class until the 27th, and in fact I still have one last vacation to Florida coming up, so that's good for me.

I guess the last thing I wrote about was Peru, so let's have a brief run down of how I spent the rest of the summer.

I saw a lot of movies. My favorite was obviously Prince Caspian, but I also really like The Dark Knight and Hancock and Kung Fu Panda. Wall-E...not that great.

A bunch of my Kansas boos came out to visit for Linsie's wedding.

Cloud Nine represented. (That's what I think Emjo named that dress a long time ago.)

I loved getting to hang out with all of them again, it had been way too long. Also, Jen and Alan are engaged now! Sweet.

I played a lot of soccer. A couple games on the indoor team, but I also played on an outdoor team with people from seminary. That team and league are so good though, and they make me feel like I've never touched a soccer ball in my life. Still fun.

Got to go to Seattle and play tourist with the fam...

Pike's whatever market place.

Up at the top of the Space Needle, which I accidentally called the Sears Tower like three times when I talked about my trip.

Here we are at some waterfall. Yep, that's Jeff G.

That's just funny.

Cute family photo. This was right after I downed about 20 pounds of crab legs at brunch. Best moment of vacation.

So I came home from Seattle and about two days later headed off on our High School lake camping trip in Glendo, Wyoming. Some of the most memorable moments of this trip actually occurred on our car ride there, thanks to my girls Kristen, Kelsey and Bethany, and of course, Smiley.

But here's a nice sunset.

I tried to put in a video of Mark water skiing, but I can never figure out how to upload those stupid things. So here's a picture instead.

He's good, but I'm still not quite sure where he learned how to do that.

So that was a fun trip. Then I came for about two days again before I left on my backpacking trip, which was actually a class for seminary. Awesome, I know. It was pretty intimidating because I was like the least experienced person in terms of backpacking, but I still made it.

This is my new friend Allison. She's pretty awesome.

I am partially giving a thumbs up because I'm excited to go, but at this point I think I was mostly excited that I had figured out (with help) how to pack and wear that backpack.

First we did some rock climbing.

Challenging and fun.

Then we did rappelling.

Absolutely terrifying.

Then we headed out on the trail.

We mostly were just hiking around this valley, so it wasn't like a constant uphill hike to the top of a 14er or something. It just looked really cool. Like Narnia.

These parts made me the most nervous, because I thought for sure that pack was gonna pull me over into the freezing cold water.

And I made it all the way out. Barely.

Here's the whole group at the end of the trail.
It was a great group. I really enjoyed getting to know them and hiking with them and battling the rain with them.

The trip overall was really sweet. I learned a lot, which is good considering it was a class, but also it was just a good experience. We got to enjoy some beautiful parts of God's creation and just be away from life for awhile. Yeah it was sweet.

Oh and then a couple days after that, we had a really cool baptism service and I got to help baptize a few of my girls.

It was really cool to be a part of that. I love those girls. I mostly loved that they all wanted to be out there to support each other.

And since then I've played with Cait and watched the Olympics. But I just watched a China vs. China women's badmitton match, so I think that's my cue that it's time to do something else for now. Like go running in the rain. Fun.