Hello Mountains!

Yes!  We have moved to Colorado Springs, home of the US Air Force Academy!  We are now The Rocky MounTans and looking forward to a lot of adventures here.  Our road trip out here was a lot of fun.  We drove to Phoenix and got treated to a sumptuous Mexican dinner by our friends Dave Weitz and his lovely wife, Jane.  On the next day, we stayed at a beautiful hotel in Albuquerque and the kids got to gorge on their first sopaipillas.  We rolled into town on the third day.  While we were originally scheduled to stay on base in temporary housing, our reservations were cancelled because of the Waldo Canyon fire.  Thank goodness for wonderful friends!  Our buddies, The Andersons, were kind enough to take us in, cook us a delicious barbecue Fourth of July dinner, and give us much needed room to rest.    The kids got to reunite with their black lab, Bosco, and we all got to meet their adorable children.  During evening beers, Jeff lamented giving up his carefree civilian ways.  He garnered very little sympathy from our Army friends who quipped, "It's the Air Force!  It doesn't even count!"

House hunting as gone well and we were able to take a break today.  We went on a hike on the Falcon Trail at the Academy.  Alex and Kieran particularly revelled in the enormous ants, bubbling streams, horseback riders, and loads of mountain bikers.  Halfway through our hike, we pondered how much longer to go when we heard an ominous clap of thunder.  Kieran practically sprinted all the way back to the car, "I don't want to get wet!  Quick, the lightning is coming!!!"  We made it back to the truck just in time to see lightning bolts and hear extremely loud thunder.  As soon as we got back into our room, buckets of rain came pouring down.  Kieran exclaimed, "Good news it didn't storm on us.  What does it feel like when lightning zaps you?"