Months ago, before we even knew that we were moving to Colorado, my parents had planned a vacation to Estes Park.  Then when we found out that, not only we were moving to Colorado Springs, but that we would be in our house during the same time they were on vacation, they decided to take a day to drive down and see us and our new home.

Even though the house was still a mess of boxes and half finished projects, it was so wonderful to have them come.  We had the most wonderful time with them.  They got here on the 11th and had to leave on the 12th, but we packed lots of great stuff into our day.  The highlights were . . .

VISITING GARDEN OF THE GODS

There is a beautiful park here, called Garden of the Gods.  It has lots of different trails, and awesome places to rock climb (If I was a rock climber.).  We took the "easy" paved trail.  It sure was beautiful!

The kids liked checking out the cool caves and crevices, but I did stop them from actually climbing up on the rocks :).

It was pretty hot that day – in the 90's, and so we often stopped to take advantage of the shade.  Plus, because of the altitude (6300 ft), we found ourselves getting way too tired on the 1 1/2 mile trail.  There is a reason they have the Olympic Training Center here in Co. Springs :).  But even with getting tired, we loved it, and my mom and I had lots of fun taking beautiful pictures of the rock formations.  (If you want to see mine, go to my photography blog.  I should have them up later today.)

PROJECTS WITH MY DAD

To say my dad is "handy" is a huge understatement.  The son of a plumber, but only does he know how to do that, but he is pretty good with anything of that nature.  He has even helped build houses before.  So having him here with my new house was wonderful.  I got to ask him all sorts of advice, and he even fixed some things for me.

One of the biggest things was help us change out our ugly (all-be-it new)  bathroom faucets for pretty new ones.  Since we have two sinks in our master bath, he used the opportunity to teach Kevin how to do it.  It was pretty fun watching them :).  And hey, after his lesson, Kevin went on to change out the faucet on another sink completely on his own.  Awesome!

PLAYING WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

The kids loved having my parents visit, and even though we had just seen them, there is something special about when grandma and grandpa come to our house.  Lily and Derek get them completely to themselves, and they take complete advantage.  They took the kids on walks, played games with them, read stories with them, etc.  Derek even convinced my mom to read to him out of the Legend of Zelda Strategy guide and then take a picture of it :).

The kids also got them to play Wii bowling with them, and they all had an awesome time.  My dad took it pretty seriously, and was quite happy with his second place finish to Lily :).

It was a short visit, but it was a wonderful one.  I am so grateful that they took time out of their vacation to visit us.  It is crazy to think that the next time they come through here, it will be when they are leaving on another mission for our church.  I am so thankful to have such wonderful parents!