Colorado Craziness, Adventure Madness
Can I just say that I don't want to see another Airport for a very, very, very long time! I spent almost 28 hours in the Denver and Atlanta airports (or on a plane) on Sunday and Monday. But I can't start there, so let me hit some highlights of the weekend.

I arrived in Denver late Thursday night, and Amber and I stayed up really late catching up on each others lives. By the time we went to bed, it was 4 or 5 am North Carolina time, so I was exhausted.
Friday we leasurely got up and ready, and hit the road to Colorado Springs, CO which was about 45 mins away. The scenery was breath-taking. From anywhere in the city, you can see the 14,000 ft snow-capped peaks (including the famous Pike's Peak) that trim Denver. Pic Here (this was found on the internet). When we hit Colorado Springs, we stopped of at Focus on the Family which is based there. It was interesting to see it since I have read much by James Dobson, and have watched many of the Adventures in Odyssey videos. We ran through Witt's End which was set up for kids. :) From there we went to the Glen which is the property of the Navigators. Awesome rock formations everywhere (Here's a PIC). Wild animals roam the property. One of the coolest things we saw there was the Castle. There is a really cool love story behind the Castle you can read here. Anyway, Amber and I sat out on the terrace and had a picnic lunch. It was a bit chilly, though. We also meandered through the bookstore. The book I just finished (Pursuit of Holiness) was a NAVpress book, so I wanted to look for more by Jerry Bridges. I found The Practice of Godliness which is supposed to be the sequal to Pursuit of Holiness. From my inquiries I found that Mr. Bridges lives in Colorado Springs, and actually goes to Amber's brother and sister-in-law's (Tim and Susanne's) church! Unfortunately I didn't get to go and meet him. :(
After leaving the Glen, we went to the Garden of the God's and took tons of pictures of the awesome rocks, though pictures will not do them justice. That night we went to hang out with Tim and Susanne. Grabbed some mexican food and then headed back to Littleton.
Saturday we got up early to head to Loveland Ski Resort. On the way through the mountains it started snowing. I know I keep saying this, but it was beautiful! Amber and I spent the morning on the bunny slopes. It was quite frigid. The base was quite icey. I spent A LOT of time on my butt. Busted my knees up pretty bad, too. All in all the morning was pretty fun. We took a break for lunch and then hit some a regular green slope with Tim. This is where the craziness starts. I didn't know this before, but Slope grades are not standard, they are relative to the mountain that you are on. So a green on one mountain, may be a blue on another. I don't know if that was the case here, but there were a few factors that I will blame.

#1 The frigid conditions (estimate of 0 degrees on top with the wind)
#2 Altitude (about 12,200 ft high)
#3 Blizzard like conditions (I couldn't even hardly see the mountain I was on!).

I won't tell all the mishaps that happened on that mountain, they are embarassing, but let just say it involves Joyriding the Chair Lift, Lift jumping, Break Dancing down the mountain (not really but that's what it felt like), and the Ski Patrol. Anyway, the snowboarding adventure is over, and I've learned a few things from it.

#1 Put hand warmers in your boots
#2 Don't ski when it's blizzarding
#3 When you miss the lift drop-off, push the emergency stop
#4 Wear knee pads when snowboarding

Driving back to Denver was messy. Snow was everywhere. Denver even got about 8 inches. The trees were all uniformly standing on the mountains, perfectly covered with white. And, yes, it was BEAUTIFUL!

That night Amber and I met up with Matt Tracy and David and Julie Tucker. All really good friends from college. We all shared things that the Lord was doing in our lives and reminisced of crazy college stories. Hanging out that night reminded me of the get togethers in the early Tally years with Amber, Amy, Lisa, Dale, Ben, Sarah, me, and other PCC-ers passing through Tallahassee... Man, college seems like a different lifetime.

So that brings me to Sunday. The day I was supposed to leave. Notice I said SUPPOSED to leave! In short, I missed my plane, spent the night in the airport. Flew to Atlanta Monday morning. My plane there was LATE. Spent another 3 hours in THAT airport, and after a bit of a turbulant flight, left the Raleigh airport at 6 pm. So that's approximately 28 straight hours in airports or on planes.

It's GOOD to be home!