Blessings and Joys: Day 9-The Lord's Day

This morning we worshiped in Ridgway, CO! It was only a short drive, maybe 12 minutes away. They meet in an old house, but have an auditorium, bathrooms, a small kitchen, and I think a classroom/fellowship place, but I didn't actually look in there. They meet at 10:00 for singing, communion and a sermon/bible study. It was wonderful. The majority of the 17 people there (us included) were Texans. The man who led songs and spoke drove himself and his family from Montrose (30 minutes away?) every Sunday to "keep the doors open" as they said several times. They have been doing that for 13 years. One man did the Lord's supper and had a wonderful thought and Bible reading beforehand and we sang wonderful songs. The offering was actually separate and apart! It was by the door and you could put it in when you wanted to. I'm writing all this detail because I just loved every second of it. They all wanted to be there and were so happy to see each other and so welcoming. A nice lady asked if Zane and Rachel would like a Bible class during the sermon, but they were a little shy, plus we like for them to be in worship. But it reminded me of the church in ND where my mom or another lady would offer the same thing, except that we had a designated Bible class time. And then, a lady there wrote a really nice poem on a bookmark for visitors to take with them. It was so encouraging. Just really friendly people and definitely the Lord's church.

After worship, we were going to go eat, but no kidding-Zane ate at least 5 eggo waffles, 3? sausages, and a half of an english muffin so he wasn't hungry as you can imagine, so we parked in front of the True Grit restaurant and walked across the narrow street to the park where there was an arts and crafts festival going on. There was a playground, so Jeff watched the kids while I walked around. I talked with a couple vendors, they were so nice. One lady from Norwood with the last name of Wood was sitting there spinning the wool, that they got off of their alpacas, into yarn and she made different things out of it-warm things. She did have some little mug rugs, but they were pretty thin and I didn't think they would hold all of South Texas' condensation our glasses put off. There is no condensation here on our glasses. Pretty nice. I also visited with a lady who made garden totem poles. They were really unique and I loved them, but they were also out of my pricerange-in the hundreds! She made all the parts-houses, birds, all sorts of things, and then put a hole in them and put them on a metal pole. Really unique. She was really gracious. She introduced herself and I just was honest with her that I couldn't buy one, but she was so nice and said, let me show you how I do it in case you want to make one! :) So nice.

I bet he learns how to cross the monkey bars by himself in 1st grade!

There's Zane! And guess what? He got off the swing head first!

Oh yeah, sister wants to do it too! He even got another little girl doing it!

Off to go eat!

After that and more playing on the playground, we went to True Grit restaurant that featured John Wayne. We didn't have to wait long and we had a wonderful spacious booth on the second story with a fan. It was really enjoyable. The kids split a chicken strip meal which worked out perfectly, I got a grilled chicken breast sandwich and Jeff got an open faced roast beef sandwich with gravy. All was really great! And I'd never seen this before-they gave the kids wiki sticks to play with instead of colors. They are sort of like yarn dipped in wax so you can makes stuff out of them or stick them to stuff. The kids liked them.

Jesus dying on the cross.

A mountain!

An avalanche, complete with sound effects!

We opted to go to Family Dollar to buy one child underwear and the other socks instead of washing them, (I'm washing a couple things by hand)-and then we headed back to our great cabin to change. We then went to Baby bathtub trail. Funny name, huh. It was supposed to be an easy hike but it was alot of uphill. I must say, today is the first day Rachel did really great at walking. She didn't stop talking even once I think-we have no need for bear spray because Rachey's voice is loud and clear the whole way. We spent a long time up in a stream-all with our socks and shoes off building dams and pools and all sorts of fun things. Well, mostly dams and pools. But still cool.

Then we went to what we thought was going to be upper Cascade Falls. The sign said .4 miles so we thought we could do that. It took awhile because it was a really upward climb. Then we got .4 miles up and there was another sign...I think it would have been 2 more miles to the falls? I'm not sure that's right, but that sign down there was so deceiving. We weren't the only ones that thought so either-another group of hikers were contemplating the same thing. Boy, after that we had had a day and it was after 6 pm. So we came home and had chicken strips, baked beans, apple slices and Betty Crocker mug treats! Those turned out good and they were a hit!