"Good job, God!"

Phew! The past two days have been fairly exhausting yet mindblowing! As Matt and Bob already posted, the Rocky Mountains National Park was pretty amazing! For those of you who have been to Glacier National Park in Montana, Matt and I put it this way: RMNP is bigger than Glacier for sure and has more trees. Not at ALL to diminsh Glacier because we still LOVE it but it has less to look at, if you can believe it!

It was great to spend some time walking around Estes Park and shopping and eating lunch before we went up in to the RMNP. I had been pretty confused all along -- this whole time I had thought Estes Park was the name of the Rocky Mtns Park. I was so confused when we got to Estes and it was this very adorable and pretty shopping and eating area. Hm. I'm all straightened out now!

Karen's cousin Ivy was with us of course, and we loved having her with us! Faith warmed up to her pretty quickly which is great. ANYway, Ivy took us on a very short and very level walk around a cool lake called Bear Lake. Faith was excited because she got to put her hand in the water. "Oh, Mama, it's so COOOOLD!" Eventually we made our way up to the highest point (about 12,020 ft). Karen and I had some issues with it -- the usual shortness of breath and headaches -- but it was SO SO worth it!j

The drive today up and through the Rockies was pretty awesome. Matt and I had driven through it eastbound on our trip in the summer of 2003. It was cool to come the other way this time. Matt and I agree that it seems like once you finally get over the Utah border, the scenery seems to change pretty quickly. Think desert, HUGH caynons, mountains, red, red rocks. Just so cool.

At one point Matt and I were in the back of the rv with the girls and Matt, who has always sort've had a special fondness for the Utah scenery since we drove through in 2003, looked up to see some pretty awesome rock formations. He said, and he is very spiritual but not usually overly vocal about his spirituality, or well much of a lot of things really, "Good job, God!" I laughed but totally think that that statement sums up this trip so far really well! We feel so blessed to live in this glorious, geographically blessed nation of ours. It is just beyond words and since I'm not the best at words, I'll just let Matt's pics do justice for themselves.

By the way, as I type this, I'm sitting at the dining table/bench in the rv and Mari's in her pack 'n play across from me in the "kitchen". She's supposed to be sleeping but she keeps peeking her eyes just above the top of the railing and cracking up then falling back on her tummy. Aye. I hope that she sleeps in past 5:45 in the morning since the younger of the 4 Specters share a bedroom!

Love you all and miss you all! Steph