Traveling Traveling

First I would like to start off by showing you all what John's been up to. He had Sunday's off so he would hike & his friend made this video. (Warning: his friend curses twice)

So now to me. Sara, Lydia, kids, and I went to stay at our good friend Jessica's house in Denver for the night. It was a blast. We got to just hang out and chat while the kids all played with each other. We cooked out and had a nice time just laughing and being girls. Not looking our best, but here we are!

The next day I flew home. The flight was great, they had complimentary sodas and warm cookies and for a low price you could watch tv. It was great. The Denver Airport USO was nice as well. So I flew to STL and Melissa picked me up. I got to spend the night at Jared & Melissa's which was great since I don't get to see them or the kids that often. The next day my kind little brother Collin picked me up in Litchfield and drove me back to Springfield. It's fine being back and all, but I am definitely ready to see my husband now. We should be reunited on Saturday... hopefully.

We found a place to live! It's a two bedroom duplex in Dixon, MO (I think). We haven't seen it in person yet, so we're just kinda hoping that all goes well. John should be able to have time Friday to go check it out and get the ball rolling. Prayers that it works out this time would be greatly appreciated. 

And now... I am hanging out at home with the sister.

U.S. Olympic Training Center

It's my last day in Colorado Springs & we thought we'd do something fun that we hadn't done yet. We had originally wanted to go hiking, but it was kind of rainy when we left the house so we decided to take a tour of the U.S. Olympic Training Center. This is one of three campuses for U.S. Olympic training. This campus focuses on indoor sports such as swimming, mens gymnastics, wrestling, basketball, weightlifting, etc... and only has a couple outdoor sports training including triathlon and skeet shooting. This is also the training sight for all Paralympics. The tour started out with a video and proceeded throughout the campus. It was pretty cool to watch some of the athletes training and just walking around. 

USA! USA! USA!

Out front of the training center.

 "She's 12 ft. tall & her boobs are ALMOST as big as yours" -Joel

 The Olympic Torches

 This map shows where the Olympics have been held in the US and how many medal holding athletes have been from each state. 

 Illinois has the third highest number of athletes to medal in the Olympics at 120, beat out by New York and California.

Joel & Sara training for the Olympics in the Hall of Fame.

 Something happened to Joel...

 This is the training room for several sports including volleyball, trampoline, and mens gymnastics. Only the men gymnasts train here, while the women gymnasts train several locations and meet together only at certain times. The boxing gym was right above this and out the wood doors you see in the back is another gymnast gym. The tv screens you see is for playback of the athlete training so the trainer can have an instant video playback instead of just trying to explain what they want. Also, volleyball and trampoline train in the middle because the ceiling rises a few feet. The trampolinists can get as high as the flag you see hanging on the wall. Lastly, they have certain events here and this gym alone has bleachers enough to seat 3,000 people. 

 Then we headed to the shooting range. 

 The shooting range is the largest in the Western hemisphere and the third largest in the world. This is one of them, but there's another one or so in the building. There were a few guys in there training. It's pretty amazing how consistently accurate these people can shoot.

 One of the weight lifting rooms.

 This is a place any of the athletes, no matter the sport, can come and work with trainers to just tone and strengthen certain areas.

 We got to stand and watch the wrestlers train for a while. Some of them had really REALLY tight shorts on.

 Aquatic Center. We got to watch them training as well. Cool fact: the pool bottom is shaped like a V so that the middle of the pool is the "deep end" and that way it stops the waves from letting the swimmers in the center have the advantage.

 We wanted our picture taken in front of this, but there weren't people around. Then this athlete walked out of one of the buildings and I asked him to take our picture. He was really nice. We started laughing afterwards though because pretty sure he's probably more used to having people ask to take his picture instead of the other way around.

 Our day ended in the some Chick-fil-a. Happy happy.

Tomorrow Sara, Lydia, and I head to Denver to see our friend Jessica for a couple days! Can't wait!

Movies

So we have a lot of free time on our hands with Sara & I being stay at home wives and Joel being on leave for 10 days. We've decided to go through as many of the movies I've never seen as we could (out of the ones they own). So I thought I would share what we've watched so far. You'll probably be surprised at the things I have not seen (but now I have). 

Joe Dirt

Practical Magic

The Green Mile

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Bridge to Terabithia

Some Kind of Wonderful

Groundhog Day

Colorado to Arizona

How we spend our free time even when we're apart:

Colorado to Arizona. If only we were in the same place...

Miss you babe.

Helen Hunt Falls

Today Lydia & Sara got to go see Dave Ramsey at Ft. Carson, so we decided to go on a little adventure of our own. We were wanting some waterfalls and looked into Seven Falls, but heard that it was expensive and that Helen Hunt Falls were free and more fun. So the boys & I packed up the kids and headed to the Falls. We had a lot of fun, although I thought my heart was going to explode at times (I'm a bit out of shape). It was nice to see the other housewives out of breath going up. Although, those housewives were twice my size trying to climb the mountain so no wonder they were out of breath. Autumn rode up on Joel's back in her carrier and Noah did most of it himself other than the hard parts on Josh's back. It was a pretty easy hike other than the fact it was all uphill & it was very slippery with ice and gravel. Part of the walk was like a tourist trail with a sort of stairs heading up, but then became the part where we had to start climbing the mountain on our own accord. Heading down was definitely easier, but more slippery and I slipped and slid down it. No injuries thankfully except a bloody thumb and Josh took care of that with the First Aid kit. :) 

Getting Autumn strapped in.

Josh & Noah in front of the Falls.

 Joel, Noah, Autumn, & I at the top of the Falls.

View from the bridge at the top of the Falls.

 Some guys climbing up the ice.

 At one of the look out points.

 At the point where my heart started exploding.

 Helping Noah up the stairs.

I climbed up this... somehow. 

(this doesn't do it justice)

Climbing up.

 To the left you can see a group of kids unsupervised, the oldest about age 10.

 Kids playing on the edge of the cliff. The youngest was about Noah's age.

 Josh & the kids.

 Getting ready to climb down.

Fresh springs.

 Joel getting a nice drink.

View from how far up we got. You could see the city.

 A zoomed in view of the city.

 Me at the top.

 Hanging out with Joel discussing how long until the unsupervised children fall off the edge.

 Hanging out with Noah.

 The bloody thumb. Between the ice and the gravel, my hands didn't feel too well.

Video of Noah & Autumn's take of the hike.

 Got some wings & pizza and relaxed at home.

Update on my husband: He's doing amazing as usual. Can't wait to come home & I can't wait for him to come home either. He's done awesome on all of his tests and continues to amaze the instructors. I'm definitely honored to be married to him. :)