Trust the Gene Genie

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Rocky Mountain High

It's almost October. Wow, am I a slacker. We've got a lot of business to take care of. Summer vacations to report, goals to cover and music to talk about.

Let's start with trips. We've traveled across Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, been to two family reunions and spent countless hours in the pool. And we were smoked out of our own town a couple times (I wish I had photos of that). And since pictures are worth a thousand words, I shall simply post pictures rather than write about it.

This is Claire and Leigh in front of Vanderhoof Elementary in Arvada, Colo. I did kindergarten through sixth grade there. It looks exactly the same.



Here are the girls with their cousins in front of the Arvada house, my childhood home. It's always weird going back. 'Cause you go back, but you really don't go back.



This Claire, walking across the Bonneville Salt Flats. She was convinced she could walk to the mountain there in the distance. And she tried. And then we brought her back.



A lovely summer rain storm in Winter Park, Colo. and an accompanying rainbow. Aren't rainbows pretty?



And here are the girls keeping themselves entertained. From Redding to Denver, round trip, it was a total of 44 hours of driving. We were all going insane by the end.



See?


Okay, moving on. Part of the reason it's been difficult to blog lately is, well, lots of traveling this summer. We attending my family reunion in Colorado and then Becky's family reunion in Washington three weeks later, for a grand total of six western states visited. Not bad.

Sometime in August, near the end of it all, I was called to be an early morning seminary teacher. For those you out there not of the Mormon faith, high school kids in the church, from ninth grade on up, take daily religion classes. In most places those classes are held before school. My class, 11th and 12th graders, meets at 6:30. Which means I'm up at 5:30. It's pretty intense.

The curriculum this year is the New Testament and every night after the girls go down I sit down to prepare my lesson. I'm loving it. I'm finding it to be surprisingly fulfilling. Akin to experiences I had on my mission. But it's intense. Kinda like my mission. And I've got seven more months of it in front of me.

How about another picture? This from our trip to Washington. I'm in a relay race with my brothers in law. Notice my socks:

We'll do one more picture. The last day of summer vacation the girls and I put on a lime-ade stand. It was awesome. The girls made nearly 20 bucks and we were only out there an hour. Not bad:


And now that summer's all caught up, we can check in with my goals and talk a little music. In the meantime, here's some light reading (another reason I'm not writing as much):

Rob's little newspaper column project

3 comments:

Thom Gabrukiewicz said...

I likes it when you blob, but I've been catching your columns as well. Good stuff. You still need to participate in 3WW, now that 'm doling out the words. Good words, too.

Stephanie B said...

Did the people at the colorado home think it was weird you were taking pictures outside their house?

I love your column. You're the new reason I look forward to Thursdays.

Uncle E said...

Dang Rogers, 'bout time!
Speaking of music, I'll have about 18 hours of travelin' time (Scripps training in Knoxville this week) and I figure I'll give Sky Blue Sky another listen, totally uninterupted. I've been in a Wilco mood as of late, so's I got me some high hopes.

Glad you're back.

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