Holiday Rounds

Well, we officially survived our first Christmas as a married couple. It was a nice Christmas and we were so glad to get to see everyone, but by yesterday afternoon we were a bit Christmas-ed out. We came home last night from our final Christmas and had planned on exchanging our gifts for each other, however we both were so tired we just crashed and plan on doing that tonight. Here was our weekend schedule:

Friday, December 22, 2006
Leave Shawnee, KS at 5 pm for Manhattan, KS
Arrive in Manhattan, KS at 7pm
Enjoy Christmas with Ben's parents and sister

Saturday, December 23, 2006
Enjoy breakfast with Ben's parents and sister
9:30 am leave Manhattan, KS for Emporia, KS
11 am arrive in Emporia, KS
Enjoy Christmas with Ben's Weyrauch side of the family (Everyone was there yay!!!)
Stay the night in Emporia

Sunday, December 24, 2006
Enjoy breakfast with Weyrauch's
9 am leave Emporia, KS for Newton, KS
10:30 am arrive in Newton, KS and go directly to church
Enjoy Christmas with Ben's Grandma and Grandpa Manes AND get to see Ben's aunt and uncle from Chicago
5 pm leave Newton, KS for Olathe, KS
8 pm arrive in Olathe, KS
Enjoy Christmas Eve with Amber's parents and siblings
9:30 pm go home to sleep in our own bed!!!!

Monday, December 25, 2006
Wake up at 6:30am to get ready
8 am go to Olathe for Breakfast and Christmas with Amber's family
Enjoy Christmas with Amber's parents and siblings
11:30 am go to Amazonia, MO
1 pm arrive in Amazonia
Enjoy Christmas with Amber's Kirk side of the family
6:30 pm leave Amazonia for Shawnee
7:45 pm drag our weary butts into bed

So as you can see it was a long, busy, exhausting weekend. BUT...so worth it.

We have a few pictures from the Weyrauch Family Christmas to post...and hopefully others at a later date.

Enjoy!

**Edit** Not sure what the problem is, but Blogspot won't let us upload anymore than this one picture. So for now...this is it.

These Pictures were taken during a long hour of standing out in the cold!!! But we got everyone!
**we are on the far left**

WE AREN'T DEAD!!!

Ok so I know its been forever...but I kept waiting to post hoping we might get a new camera cord and I could post pictures. Unfortunately, our schedule has not allowed for us to get a new cord...so this post will be very blah and boring...and for those of you that can't read a book without pictures, you should just stop reading now. :)

Well we are moved...mostly. We moved everything (minus a few cleaning supplies and misc. items) and the house is wonderful! That first week of living with the bare essentials really didn't do the house justice. I love seeing our things in the house and thinking about (once the holidays are done) what we can do with the different rooms.

On a sad note....our sink died. Not really, but our kitchen sink seems to have been put together poorly and we need to purchase a snake to clear the drains until we can have a plumber come in and "re-do" the entire plumbing for the kitchen sink. Boo! Welcome to the life of being a home-owner right? It isn't something that will have to be done right away...and fortunately we can just accomodate it right now. Still a bummer though...

We have again added to our family...no, not what you are thinking. We have adopted another puppy. Moose, is a chocolate lab/basset hound mix, however he takes almost exclusively after his lab roots. He is beautiful and very calm, which compliments Olivia's hyperactivity nicely. They both like to play and have become fast friends. Moose is about 14 weeks right now and growing FAST. When we first got him at 12 weeks he was shorter than Olivia...he has now passed her in height and just keeps gaining weight. We wanted a big dog...so that is ok.

I am currently in a 3 week break from classes...SOOO NICE! I can't believe how nice it is. I am waiting anxiously for grades to be posted and then I can completely relax. We start again on January 8th. Not long enough, but I won't complain.

We leave this Friday to "make our rounds" for the Holidays. I want to apologize in advance to all our family for the short amount of time we can spend with each of you. I know that it won't seem like enough, but I hope that it is still wonderful. We love you all, and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Ok...I am at work so I should probably get back to it. Love you all and..........


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Survivors

Hello all-

This is Amber. I am at work right now on the day before Thanksgiving, bored out of my mind. The phones are pretty much silent. I have worked ahead to cover next week. Now I just have to wait for that 5 o'clock "bell" to tell me its time to take a four day holiday.

Well we are surviving. Life has been very hectic lately. Most of it is due to the fact that we close on our house in a week and move in two. Packing is essentially not happening, school is coming to a head with the module only having 3 weeks left, and then toss the holidays in there to boot and its a big steaming pile. It is always interesting to see how everything will fall when it is all said and done. I have a to-do list about a mile long and I usually add about 3 things when I cross one off. Ok...enough complaining.

I am VERY excited to get into our new home. I can't wait to put up our Christmas tree and paint the rooms the way we want them and rearrange furniture. I love new beginnings, no matter how stressful they are at the time. I am also so very excited about the holiday season. Despite the traveling to and from and squeezing too much family into too little space, I love getting to see people that I see so seldom. I also love being with my family, both on my side and Ben's.

This past weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving with Ben's parents in Manhattan. We drove out Thursday night and then on Friday, while Ben and Pat went hunting, I had the opportunity to spend the day with my very good friend, my best friend, Mindy Scott. (and of course her beautiful son, Luke) We literally spent the day talking. We went to the mall...and talked. We went to lunch...and talked. We got coffee...and talked. Then we went back to her house...and talked. It was the best day. The best day because I am all too aware of how few I have had and how few I will have in the upcoming future. Mindy and her family are moving to Georgia for her husband to go to Captain school for the Army. They will be there for about 5 or 6 months and then after that....who knows. It was so sad to say goodbye to her on Sunday, but I am so happy for them in this new adventure and the next step in their lives. AND, now I have a reason to go visit Georgia. I am already making plans and checking out flights.

The rest of the weekend was spent with Pat and Judy (Ben's parents) and Emily (Ben's sister). On Saturday Judy, Emily and I went to see the Santa Clause 3. It was cute and put me in the holiday mood. Then Judy and I went to meet up with our husbands to watch the K-State/KU game. It wasn't a pretty sight. We can only hope that next year K-State comes out swinging!!! Plus, we still have the bowl game.

On Sunday we got to see all of our old "gang" at church. It is always so nice to see them, yet so sad too. We have made wonderful friends since we moved to Lenexa, but somehow it just isn't the same. I miss you all, Mindy and Chris, Bobby and Lindsey, Annie and Josh, Cherry, Corey and Holly (or Horey and Colly). You guys were a wonderful group of friends and we were so lucky to have to guys as our "group" while we were there. I guess the holidays are good for making you think about the old days too! That afternoon we had a delicious Thanksgiving meal with all the fixin's. It was wonderful and we were STUFFED.

Well it is time for me to sign off. This may come across as rambling and a little scattered, but just know that is how my brain is operating right now. Have a GREAT THANKSGIVING!

Holiday Blues

Hey everyone. Well we are starting to make plans for our first holiday season as a married couple. It is HARD. There are so many places and so many people that we would love to see and spend time with, but we have only a few days. AND with the new house, we are having to get creative to find ways to afford gifts and gas money to make our many Christmas's happen. We did figure out Thanksgiving...or rather Ben's work schedule figured it out for us. We are leaving this coming Thursday evening to head to Ben's parents in Manhattan. Friday Ben will be hunting with his dad (which he is REALLY looking forward to) and then we will celebrate an early Thanksgiving with them on Saturday or Sunday. We will then spend Thanksgiving day in Olathe with Amber's parents and family since Ben doesn't have the day off after Thanksgiving (bummer). At least this means we get in spending time with both of our families though!

The house stuff is moving right along. We met with our loan officer on Saturday morning to give him all of our financial documents and to sign a TON of papers. It was about as fun as having a tooth pulled, but that step is done. We are in the process of getting our homeowners insurance taken care of AND planning with our electric and gas companies to have our utilities turned on...YAY! In case anyone is wondering, we have yet to start packing. BUT we technically don't have to be out of our apartment until the 31st of December, so it is really urgent.

Amber's school is coming right along too. She is halfway through her second module and is loving the classes she is taking right now...Lifespan I and II (Childhood and Adolesence). It keeps her pretty busy. Speaking of busy, she just started her work towards getting her internship set up. All of her classmates have to apply to the available internships just like a job and then interview for them. She will hopefully know by February or March where her internship will be and then she will start in May. At that time she will go down to one night of class a week BUT she will be putting in between 15 and 20 hours of time for her intership...on top of full time work and studying for her classes. It will be hectic, but worth it all in the end.

Friday night we helped sponsor a youth activity for our church. It was a district event called Breakaway and it goes from 6 pm to 6 am ...YIKES!!! We had a ton of fun with the kids. We posted some pictures below to check out all the fun we had...lol

The whole gang at College Church of the Nazarene in Olathe waiting for the service to start (we got there about 2 hours early...so it was a long wait).

Brad...too cool for school. This is kid is NOT camera shy...haha.


There was a group from the KC Urban Youth Center there. They had a gospel choir and then these girls were doing an interpretive dance. It was pretty amazing. The youth at this event raised over $1000 for the KCUYC that night...I was so proud of them!

Worship was very good. For the second half they used their acoustic guitars and bongos!

Brad again...definitely not shy.

Breanna and Kaitlin..taking a time out from the arcade games at PowerPlay for some TCBY.

Becki Privett, another sponsor, taking a nap on the skeeball game at PowerPlay...we were ALL so tired!


Ben and Adam Schwer, our youth pastor, playing Dance, Dance Revolution...Check out their faces...lol


Ben playing some boxing game...he wasn't very good ;)

Ok ya'll thats all for now. We love you and will post again soon!

House Update

Hey! This is Amber... I am at work right now on my break. Ok guys...well so far so good with the house. We have been holding our breaths for the past few days waiting for something to hit the fan or for the whole deal to bottom out (not to be negative), but so far we are still on track to have a home and move in on November 30th. ACK! That seems so close. That is exactly 4 weeks from tomorrow. There is still so much to be done...packing, buying appliances, signing papers, etc. However, we can cross one BIG thing off. We had our FHA inspection yesterday. We had to go out to the house for two hours while the inspector looked the house up and down. It was nice to get to be there though so we could get another REALLY good look at the house without the current owners there. Here are a few things we found that we either didn't know before or we didn't notice the first time we were in the house.

1. There is a lazy susan in the kitchen in ADDITION to the two pantries. Though to some this is nothing, I am REALLY excited about having a bigger kitchen with more space.
2. The whirlpool tup works GREAT! We also hadn't noticed that it is a corner tub...so its really big **wink wink**.
3. The whole front room is already wired for a pretty extensive surround sound. Ben was pretty excited about this being that he owns a system that is currently at his parents house because we can't really use it where we are at now. Sorry Pat and Judy...I think Ben is going to want it back now :(
4. The garage is already wired with electricity. This is good for the date in the distant future when we put a driveway up to the garage and use it on a regular basis. We can install an opener and even put electricity out there for Ben to work on the cars!
5. The two second bedrooms are actually quite large...we hadn't remembered them being that big. We are going to use the front room for our office (the smaller of the two) and then the back room for our guest room (Eventually when we buy a new bed for us).
6. In addition to the bathroom walls being recently redone with tiling, all the fixtures in the bathrooms are new too!
7. There is a TON of cabinet space in the master bath. I am so excited to have room for all the bathroom STUFF so it doesn't just sit out on the counter.

Well, these are just some of the observations that we made last night while waiting for the inspection to get done. I have off work next Friday for Veterans day (which is Saturday...don't ask me, I don't complain) and my mom and I are going to go back to the house to get measurements of the windows and stuff! Exciting! Ok...continue to pray that all goes well as we move along with the house stuff. Thanks guys!

BIG NEWS

Ok. So life has been just a bit busy for us lately as you can see from our previous posts. I haven't updated in a while because all it would look like was ...

Blah blah blah...we are looking at houses...blah blah blah...we are both working...blah blah blah...Amber's in school...blah blah blah...

So you ask , " why are you updating now?" Well folks...(drumroll please)


WE HAVE FOUND A HOUSE AND OUR OFFER HAS BEEN ACCEPTED!!!!

We found this house on Saturday when we were looking at another home in the same area. Our realtor said that while we were over there we might as well check it out. We didn't have all the information on the home with us but we went for it. This was the first home that both of us AND our realtor looked at each other and said "this could be it". So we thought lets check more into it. Our first concern was to make sure it was within reach of our price range. IT WAS! The next concern was to see how long it had been on the market to know what kind of offer we should make. It had been on for about 4 months. We thought we had this one in the bag...no glitches. We were wrong!!!

Glitch number one: We get home from a teen hayride on Saturday night to an email from our realtor that said there was another offer on the table for this home.

Glitch number two: The selling agent let slip that the other offer was already at full price.

Glitch number three: We didn't know if we could get approved to be able to have some working room on our offer.

We called our realtor and our loan officer (mind you this is all at about 9 pm) and they both went into the office (bless their hearts) to work on the logistics. We finally found out at about a quarter to 10 that we were approved for enough to be able to give a stronger offer. We went to our realtors home to sign the papers and left there at about 10:45 Saturday night. All we had to do then was wait until 1pm on Sunday to find out if they accepted our offer.

Easier said than done. Amber didn't sleep a wink and both of us were pretty on edge the rest of the evening and into the morning. Well when we got home from church at about 12:30 we found out that the other potential buyers had upped their offer and we had to decide in about 15 minutes if we wanted to counter back. Oh the drama!!! We decided on a little more but said that would be all. Well...it was enough. We got a call at about 2:30 on Sunday afternoon and our realtor said they had accepted our offer. We signed the final offer and, pending an inspection, we have a home. We will close on November 30 and take possession that same day! We will be in our new house for Christmas. We am so excited, nervous, anxious, crazed that we can hardly contain myself! This module will be a tough one for Amber considering that we will be moving in the busiest time of the module. But we will labor through! Ok, below are a few pictures that we have of the place. This is off the Reece and Nichols website, so the belongings in the picture are not ours.






























The kitchen is quite large and opens up into the main family room. It is a dine in kitchen with room for a table. There is a lot of pantry and cabinet space so that will be a nice change from the apartment we are in now. One of the coolest things is the under-the-cabinet lighting that it has. I really liked that touch. The door in the kitchen leads to the back yard where there is a fenced yard with an additional dog run and a detached garage.
















This is the front of the home. There is a driveway on the right hand side and then in the back yard on the left you can see the detached garage. Eventually we would like to put a driveway back there. There is a large gate that would allow a vehicle to get into the back yard. The front also has plenty of trees with two pine trees in the front. As cheesey as it sounds...it smells nice out there.















Here is the living room with the bay window. The window itself, although you can't see from this picture, has very pretty etching on it. This room once again opens up into the kitchen and makes it feel really open in the main living area.















This is the master bedroom. This is a king size bed that the previous owners have in it and this picture doesn't quite capture how much space is in this room. I couldn't believe how big this rooms was. The master bedroom is the only room in the house with carpeting...everywhere else it is wood floors.

These are the only pictures I have, however there are two other bedrooms, both really good sized. There are two bathrooms, one in the hall next to the bedrooms and then one in the master bedroom. The bath in the master bedroom has a whirlpool tub which is SUPER awesome!!! The master bedroom also has a walkin closet, which will come in handy for Amber's amazing cloths collection. Well this part of the search is over, however we still have a lot to do. This week alone we will have another walk through and the inspection. Then we will re-negotiate the contract based on what the inspectors find and then we will close at the end of the month. Ok...guys thats all for now. We love you and will keep you posted!

Amber and Ben

Home Sweet Home

*** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT ***
Ben and I put in an offer on one of the houses yesterday that we looked at on Saturday. Evidently there is at least one other offer on it, so now we wait. AHHHHH it is so nerve racking, but if it is the house God wants us to have then we will....and if not it is back to the drawing board so to speak. IF we get it I will post pictures of it, otherwise I don't want to "jinx" it. :) But it I can tell you about it. It is 3 bedrooms, 3 baths. Front to back split with a finished basement. Two car garage. HUGE backyard with a privacy fence. TWO fireplaces (one upstairs and one downstairs). Anyway, that is a BRIEF description, but I will keep you updated as we find out what is going on!
*** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT *** EDIT

Ok ok... A new post by popular demand. Popular if you count Teniah asking me to update. This is Amber by the way. I am home on lunch break. Well let me see what is new.

1. Ben and I have decided to begin the process of buying our first home. So far we have been electronically approved (not quite sure what that means) and this Saturday we are going on our first homes tour. Now we aren't looking to get into anything huge or expensive we are just tired of renting and throwing away our money. Another reason we are looking into this is that about three weeks ago Chloe, our cat, had to move out. We found out that the apartment we are living in requires a pet deposit for BOTH animals and since we had only paid one, AND we don't have an additional $300 laying around (nor would we want to use it on a pet deposit for an apartment we will be living in only 3 more months) Chloe moved to live with my sister and her family for the time being. She is close, but it just isn't the same.

2. My schooling has come to a head...or at least this module. Last week I had two major projects due and was working my butt off CONSTANTLY trying to do them AND do them right. Just so you know, I was home, but I STILL didn't see my husband (Sorry Ben). I guess this is what I have signed up for for the next two years. But I really enjoy it....REALLY. It is so interesting how you find yourself as you are learning. I am just trying to enjoy the process and not spend the next two years wishing it were done. Who wants to "wish" their life away?

3. I was in the hospital last week for Kidney stones. For some of you, you may recall that I went to the emergency room a month or six weeks ago for the same kind of pain. It was diagnosed as kidney stones, however they simply sent me home and bade me good luck (with pain medication of course). This time however, the pain was much more intense and had moved to my right side. Once again we went to the emergency room and this time did multiple tests and exams to find the culprit. (the teeny tiny culprit) My stone is 3 millimeters in diameter...which doesn't seem that big until you think about trying to get it out (just visualize). The other problem...it is at the bottom of the kidney, almost to the bladder, and it is blocking my kidney. So they put me LOTS of different kinds of medication (All of which either make me nauseas, dizzy or sleepy). The stone is a no show as of now, but with the medication and LOTS of fluids, I am feeling much better.

SO, now you know why I haven't updated recently. I don't have time for pictures now....but they will come soon. I PROMISE. We will try to take pictures this weekend when we look at houses.

Love you all!
Amber

What's new...

Well not a whole heck of a lot. Amber made it through her first week at her new job. She is really enjoying it, and looks forward to knowing more about her duties and what exactly she is to be doing. Other than that, there isn't much happening that is too new. Between classes (Amber), work, church, and the animals, life stays pretty busy.


However, we do take time to have fun. Last night we went to our friends, Matt and Darcie, and played game with them and another couple. It was fun. The guys first picked out the game called Shadows over Camelot. Yes....Amber thought it sounded like a spin off of Dungeons and Dragons. But, once we got into it and learned the many rules, it was fun. Then we played a few rounds of good old Revolution. If you have never played that game, we won't go into details, we will just say, your status is EVERYTHING. We figured out that the boys are incredibly competitive (not that we didn't already know that) and the girls don't really care. We did get some good pictures of the boys pouting through. Justin and Christie took those, so we will post those when we get them.

Well, the cinnamon rolls need to get out of the oven...and then its time to get ready for church. Talk to you all soon.

We know how picture hungry you guys are, so we wil leave you with a few pictures.


This is a shot into our office of Amber's desk...and most importantly her new laptop.


Another shot into our office.


A shot into our living room (it was laundry day)


This is our $25 table that Amber's mom found at a garage sale. The top is a little scratched up, but it is SOLID wood. Someday, when we have the space to do it, we will sand and refinish it.


Probably Amber's favorite part of the apartment...the walk-in closet. Yes, Ben gets a little portion there in the bottom left corner, but the rest is hers.


And this is hers...


and this. Pretty much all the clothing storage space in the house is Ambers.


Something we do share.

Ok...Gotta run now. Hopefully next time we have more interesting news so we don't bore you to death! Love you all

A and B

Let's Go Royals, Let's Go!

Ok, we said we might post about the Royals game last night...so here it is. It was a lot of fun. We got there and then ended up on the complete opposite side of the stadium as our seats, so we didn't get seated until the bottom of the second. However, when we go there the Royals were up 1-0, and they kept that momentum throughout the rest of the game. Jeter struck out a grand total of 3 times, and then had a pop fly on another at-bat and got out that way...needless to say, not a good day for Derek Jeter of the mighty Yanks. The Royals ended up winning 5-0 and even though it makes no difference at this point in the season, it is always nice to beat a team like the Yankees at home. Anyway, here a few pictures of the game for your enjoyment.


A shot from left field where our seats were. There actually was a homerun hit right to our section by a Royals player...it was caught about 7 rows down from us.


A shot of the score board and jumbo screen. because of our seats it was hard to capture the score and whatnot.

Us...about the top of the fifth


The fountains were pretty awesome. I got pretty obsessed with trying to get a really good picture of the fountains.


Amber took this picture, right before Ben called her a freak...really sweet huh?

Ok guys...thats all for now. Love ya!

New Beginnings

Hey guys, this is Amber again. Well last Friday was my last day at JCDS. It was pretty awesome. I would love to say that I will miss that place, but I can't. I will however miss some of the people there, and I will miss my consumers. I had gotten pretty connected to those guys. Anyway, today (Tuesday) I started my new job at Johnson County Human Services and Aging. I am really going to love it. I have a boss, however he is the director over the entire Area Agency on Aging...so I am somewhat autonomous. And my mentor, Barb, is awesome. She is the coordinator of volunteers for Catch-A-Ride, the area that I will be working in specifically. She has a great personality, and you can tell she sincerely cares about people, both the clients and the volunteers. I am looking forward to getting to know new people and also getting the hang of what I will be doing.

Well here are some pictures of my last day, and then after work when my co-workers took me out to dinner.
Lynn and me towards the end of the day.
John, on the rare of occasion that he sits at his desk.The happy couple, Chris and Becky
Charlie...a.k.a. ladies manThe whole gang at Fox and HoundMe...just happy to be done.

Ok folks, thats all for now. Ben will be home soon, and then we are going to see the Royals vs. Yankees at Kauffman Stadium. Maybe you will get some pictures of that later...we'll see. Adios.

I Got The School Blues

Ok, this Amber guys. Its Monday evening, 7:45, and I am sitting in class with 2 and a half more hours to go. I am bored out of my mind, and I thought, what the heck, I might as well update. I don't really have an pictures to go along with this, and even if I did they would probably bore you. So I will leave you with some other fun, random pictures.

This is my best friend, Mindy, and me. We were bored at who knows what time in the morning and decided to try on her husbands military gear. Interesting...

While this picture is hard to see, it has a very funny story behind it. Right after Ben and I moved to KC, one of our lovely neighbors drove their car into the man-made pond in our apartment complex...right outside our building. It was December and it was iced over. They couldn't get the car out at first because it kept catching on the side of the pond which was concrete. It was awesome to see all the wonderful neighbors out there snapping pictures of this guys misfortune.

This is a picture of Mindy and my mother-in-law Judy at one of the infamous Holy Terror Softball games in Manhattan, KS. We were the best cheering section in all of Annaberg Park!

Ok guys, break is over...back to the grind.

Amber

The Whole Gang

In case some of you didn't know, we have expanded our family since getting married. No, no, no, its not what you are thinking. Ben so "graciously" accepted Ambers cat, Chloe, into his life when we got back from our honeymoon. He now loving refers to her as "your cat" whenever she does something ridiculous or bad. Amber calls Chloe his step-kitty.

In May we decided that our family needed to grow once again. We adopted a terrier-chihuahua mix puppy from a shelter in Chanute, KS. Oliva is a black spindly legged dog with a TON of energy. Of course we had the wonderful opportunity to housebreak her, teach her not to chew on Amber's socks (seriously, only Amber's...what does that say about Ben's?), and that going into her kennel really wasn't worth whining about. All in all she has turned out to be a very well adjusted, loving dog. She is now seven months old, and we love having her around (except for the occasional "excited" accident). I have posted some pictures of both below so that you can be formally introduced.

Chloe lounging around the house, her favorite past time.

This is one of Amber's favorites of Chloe, and once again, one of her favorite spots

Here is Olivia...this was before we got her a new red collar with spikes on it. Ben refuses to let Olivia be "fru-fru"

This is Olivia in the car on the way home from our vacation. She stayed with Pat and Judy, Ben's parents while we were in Colorado, and during that time she had a visit to the vet to have her lady parts removed. Despite the bad experience, Olivia still loves visiting her "Grandma and Grandpa Weyrauch'

Please Accept Our Sincerest Apologies

Ok, ok, ok...we are sorry that we haven't gotten back to you. REALLY SORRY. We were experiencing some technical difficulties, then school was looming on the horizon, and Amber seriously forgot about all else. Now school has begun and we have trashed the old computer and replaced it with the new laptop (yay!). So there is really no excuse. We are posting vacation pictures on this entry, only because those were what was promised, however, there should be more pictures to come from here on out.

This is us just starting out on our trip (literally, we were still in Lenexa going through the McDonalds drive through).


We switched drivers after lunch.

This was the first shot we had of the mountains. Usually you can see them from far off in the distance, however because of the unusual amount of rain Colorado Springs was getting we couldn't see them until we were right on top of them.

This is of our first night in our tent. When we got to the Springs it was pretty damp but it wasn't raining at the moment. When we pulled up to put our tent up a guy from the campground told us that the tents in that exact spot had to be evacuated the night before because of flash flooding. THAT is exactly what you want to hear as you put up your tent.

This is our humble tent. It literally fit our mattress and a suitcase in it, so not much extra space.

On the first morning we were there is was crystal clear so we decided to take a drive up Pike's Peak and take advantage of the weather. It was appropriate for us to stop at Crystal Lake Resevior for a photo op. This was was crystal blue, and on the way down from Pike's Peak it was so still it was like looking at two mountain ranges. AMAZING!

This is us at the Summit of Pike's Peak taking the "typical" Pike's Peak shot.

On the way down from Pike's Peak there is a check point to see how hot your brakes are, and if they are too hot you have to stop and let them cool. Well, we were TOO HOT, so we took a 20 minute break and took some pictures.

By the time we made it down from Pike's Peak the clouds were beginning to roll in, however our day wasn't over. We wanted to make it to the Garden of the Gods while we still had decent weather since Ben had never been there before. We found the clouds actually made a pretty awesome back drop for the scenery.

This is us on the observation deck at Garden of the Gods. The mountains and all of God's work is AMAZING.

Unfortunately we did not have as much luck the rest of the trip with weather as we did the first day. The next day we were supposed to be going white water rafting....and we woke up and it was POURING!

The campground we stayed at had some pretty awesome facitlities, so the morning before we went white water rafting we spent some time playing pool and hit the indoor hot tub. Then it was off to Canon City to raft the Arkansas River. Those pictures are not on our digital since everything in the boat ended up soaked (including us), so we took a disposable. Those have yet to be developed, and since you know how fast we are getting things like that done, you can count on those being up in time for NEXT years vacation pictures.

...Moving on...

By Sunday, our last full day there, we were just tired of being wet, so we spent most the day dodging the rain, shopping the Old Colorado City, and resting and playing games in the tent.

Just so you know that when I say rain...I mean RAIN.

And of course the morning we are to leave we wake up to SUNSHINE!

But all in all it was a good trip and we really enjoyed it.

Well, until next time, and who knows when that will be, adios.

Love,

Benny Boo Boo and Am-bamber