The Great Escape

Last week we took a group of middle school kids to The Great Escape. If you know what CHIC is, then The Great Escape is kinda like that. A week of worship, a speaker, hanging out and having fun with the kids. This is a bit smaller, about 500 people in Gunnison, Colorado at Western Colorado State. We had 14 girls, 7 boys, with 3 female and 3 male leaders. It was a great time! I had so much fun with the kids that week. They are so great, and hilarious! To give you a bit of what I was dealing with, heres a story for you..... Robyn and Shaunalee both are married so the girls had them each tell their 'love story' of how they met their husband, how he proposed, their first kiss, all the way down to what kind of cake they had at their wedding. Well after they shared their story, I had to tell mine..... Well I'm not married obviously, so they made me make one up. HA! It was probably the best story I pulled out of my butt ever!  (If you would really like to know the story let me know, and maybe I will tell you hahaha)
Here are some pictures from the week. I did a horrible job at taking pictures during the week. So most of these are from us rock climbing, or rafting.  They are kinda out of order... sorry!

These are the awesome splash suits the rafting place had us wear.

 Rock climbing at Hartman Rocks.

Rafting. (yes.... I stole these from the rafting website.....)

Moonlit Monument Hike

For 3M (Monday Middle school Madness) we took the kids on a hike to the Colorado National Monument.

 I will be climbing this, the Colorado National Monument at some point this summer.

This is called the "kissing couple"

another view of the national monument.

beautiful sunset, and the kissing couple

the kids on the hike with us.

Some more Bouldering!!

We do love to boulder here! So here are some shots from a few different times we went bouldering.

Here is some night bouldering. Its so much nicer to go at night because its not as hot.... but now the gnats come out too....

Sheila and I after we climbed up on top of the boulder. 

High School Swimming

One evening for high school youth group we went to Jay's house to swim, fish, eat dinner, and just have a good night of fun. It was a great time to get to know some of the kids, and just hang out with them. So here are some pictures from that night.

oh! and there were peacocks!!! PEACOCKS!!

Real Quick!

So, I know I haven't updated in a long time. Sorry about that. But I wanted to put a quick post out saying that I will be leaving tomorrow with a group of middle schoolers to Gunnison, Colorado. We are going to 'The Great Escape" which from what I understand is like CHIC. Just on a much smaller scale.
We leave tomorrow right after church, and get back Friday night sometime. Its not a long drive, only like 3 hours.

Please be praying for the group that is going, that they will be open to what God is trying to tell them this week. That maybe some of them come to know Christ this week. Or that some of them grow deeper in their relationship with Christ this week. Also that I will be able to connect with the girls that are there. Hopefully this will be a good time for me to talk to them and get to know them more.

I will catch up with pictures from this past week, and this coming week when I get back from Gunnison.

Teva Mountain Games: Vail, Colorado

Friday and Saturday Bag, Brad, Teri (Brads wife), and I headed to Vail to watch the Teva Mountain Games. We left Friday afternoon, got almost to Vail and camped out for the night somewhere between here and Vail. Did some bouldering of course at the camp site, what would a camp site be with out bouldering. Then Saturday morning headed to the Teva Mountain Games. It was a great time. We watch the bouldering semi finals in the morning, walked around in the afternoon, then the bouldering finals in the evening followed by a Xavier Rudd concert. They had everything there during the day, bouldering, mountain biking, kayaking, fly fishing, trail running, dogs jumping, everything. It was a lot of fun. They also had a gear town, which is were there was a ton of stuff to buy, everything from camping, to rock climbing, to bags, to rafts, clothes. There were many things I kept saying I wanted to buy, but don't worry mom, I only got a fleece. Nothing too much. I did want a pair of Teva shoes, but maybe those will just be my first pay check! :) 

Other than a weekend at Vail and watching awesome bouldering. Both men and women competing, doing amazing moves, grabs, and somehow finishing some of those problems. Today was a full day at work. I spent the morning planning the photo scavenger hunt we had for the middle schoolers this evening. Then the afternoon I spent looking for a place to stay during our missions trip to San Francisco. So hopefully some people email me back tomorrow so I can get that planned out. But if you know of anyone that can house 30 people for a week in July in San Francisco, let me know I would love the help!

I will just leave you here with pictures from the weekend. I will try to put captions on them so you know what is going on possibly....

Bag bouldering at night. I just thought this was a cool picture.

some more bouldering, bare foot.

Im going to make the bouldering ones a bit bigger, so you can actually see what they are doing.  

Women's bouldering

 In bouldering they have to start with their hands in the white taped box, and their feet on the correct holds underneath that. Then make it to the top where the last hold is with the white tape. They have to have a hold on the last piece with one hand, and at least touch it with their other hand before they jump back down.  Men's and women's have different problems to solve. For this competition there were 4 a piece. So you get 5 minutes to try to solve it, then 5 minute break, then back to 5 minutes to solve the next problem. 

This is kind of a picture of  a few of the problems they have.

One of the women that got to the top. 

There were sooo many dogs there! I loved them all!!

Teri and I wanted to take home so many of the dogs that were there. 

One of the mens championship problems.

One of the women's championship problems. They had to jump from two of the holds two panels down from there. 

Another women's championship problem. This girl knew she was going to win it.  

And then she knew for sure she would win it. She completed all the problems. 

Then the Xavier Rudd concert.

These are the new Teva Gnarkosi shoes I want.....  :)

Bouldering, Frisbee, and Baseball

So we went bouldering again. What a surprise, right!? haha. It was fun, and I am hoping to be able to get my strength back to be able to climb harder boulders. 

we found this little guy on our way up to the boulders

This is just beautiful, bouldering with the canyons in the background. I couldn't ask for a better place to climb!

Wednesday was my first day at work. We cleaned two different rooms that were filled with junk from over the years, and cleaned out the youth room from the stuff left over from garage sale they had a few weeks back. We also got our office set up, which we are sharing with the other two Childrens Ministry interns. 

Thursday we filled out paper work, and were in meetings all day. Also Bag and I planned the first night of middle school ministry for next monday, they are having a photo scavenger hunt. Im really excited for that, and hopefully the kids are too. 

 WUF, or Wednesday Ultimate Frisbee, is our time on Wednesday nights were high school kids come and play frisbee. We actually only had two kids on Wednesday, which we normally have 30+, sometimes up near 80 by the end of the summer. But later that night we found out where all the kids were....

JUCO, which is the Junior College world series that is played in Grand Junction. Its a huge thing here for everyone around Grand Junction. So all the kids were hanging out here.
So Thursday night Brad, Bag and I decided to go to a game with some of the kids. I actually think this was the longest game I have ever been to, and it only went to 8 innings. One half inning took 45 minutes! It was horrible.... But it was nice to meet some of the kids, and hang out with them.



So now we got today, Friday off, and we are heading to Vail this afternoon to go to the 2011 Teva Mountain Games to see the World Cup Bouldering Competition. We are camping out tonight, then going to the competition Saturday night. There is so much more going on at the Mountain Games, so we will be going all over the place. I cant wait to go. It should be a lot of fun. Im sure I will have plenty of pictures to show you after this weekend.