itching, leaking and streaking

We're in Gatlinburg, Tennessee attending the Timothy Barnabas retreat with Pastor Johnny Hunt from First Baptist Woodstock. We had a great drive down and thankfully that was uneventful.

Last night, we checked in at the conference and they had hors'deurves set up on a long table. It was almost time for dinner, so we only sampled a few. Turns out that one of the small quiche things that I chose had seafood in it. I don't like seafood, but not wanting to have bad manners, I chewed it a few times and swallowed it, followed by something that tasted a whole lot better. The only problem was, as it turns out, I have a slight allergy to shellfish (in this case it was shrimp). Since I don't like seafood, I hardly ever eat it, and had never had a reaction before. Thankfully, the kitchen staff had benedryl that they gave to me and the itching and red spots began to be less noticable throughout the course of the evening.

After the conference, we went back to our room and being somewhat doped up from the benedryl, I was tired and headed to bed pretty quickly. Laurel was watching something on TV and I was drifting in and out of sleep. Suddenly, the air conditioner kicked off and we both heard something that sounded like water running out on the floor of our room. The culprit? Water running out on the floor of our room. Long story short...the AC had issues and wasn't draining outside as it should. It was draining on the floor of our room. The solution? They moved us next door to the suite, which has a king bed, jacuzzi tub, and fireplace.

Overall, it wasn't quite so bad I guess. Especially compared to the guy we sat with at dinner last night. He got to the conference and realized that he had forgotten all of his clothes at home. Since streaking would obviously be frowned on a pastor's conference, they ran to Wal-mart and bought a new shirt and pair of jeans for him. After checking out, he went into the restroom to remove the tags and put the clothes on. The only problem was, that as he was changing, he heard what sounded like a couple of youngs boys talking in the bathroom stalls next to him. Then the reality hit home. Four stalls is a lot of stalls in a men's bathroom. Turns out, he was changing clothes in the woman's bathroom!

garden of the gods

It's pretty much a given. Every year when we're in the Springs, at some point, we make our way over to garden of the gods to walk around. It's beautiful and it's free, so it's pretty hard to resist. Not to mention...it's the only place that I know of where you can see "kissing camels".

John and Rose both really enjoyed walking around and climbing on some of the smaller (and not so small) rocks. We spotted some guys climbing with ropes on the really big rocks and the kids wanted to try it, but I tried to explain that it was not an option for us. John wanted to know when he is a few years older, if we can get some equipment and a rock climbing permit so we can try it. Hmmm...it sounds like fun, but as someone who is scared of heights, I'm not too sure.

an inside look at station #1

It's not everyday that you're invited to see things up close and personal at a fire station. While we were in Colorado Springs on vacation, we had the opportunity (through a friend) to do just that. Richie, one of the fireman at station 1, invited us down for a personal tour.









We thought it was pretty cool that they let us get into the fire truck and put on the headsets so we could hear each other talking, and could even hear stuff that dispatch was saying. (We can only assume and hope that they couldn't hear us talking to each other).

After that, they even let us suit up in their fire gear. John wasn't sure he wanted the whole outfit on, but he did like the hat. They dressed me up in the full gear and even strapped on the 40 pound tank of compressed air and had me breath through the mask. The kids thought that was pretty cool, and to be honest, the big kid inside of me was pretty excited too.











As if that wasn't enough, they also let Laurel and I each go on two separate 911 calls with them that came in while we were there. We strapped ourselves in the truck with four other firemen and off we went with sirens wailing and lights flashing.

talk about a lot of hot air...

This is the first in a series of posts about our recent trip to Colorado. Although we went out primarily to visit with Laurel's grandmother and to help take care of her during our time there, we were also able to sneak in a few really fun outings here and there for an hour or two. (Laurel's grandmother broke her hip about 4 weeks before we arrived and ended up getting out of rehab the day before we arrived. We saw a big improvement in her during the 10 days that we were there).

The following are some pictures from the Colorado Balloon Classic in Colorado Springs, which takes place every Labor Day weekend and is one of the largest in the country.

At night, they have a "balloon glow" which is pretty amazing. They inflate the balloons and fire them, but don't actually take off.

7:30am on the other hand is a very different story...

Balloons of all colors, shapes and sizes take to the Colorado blue sky in flight. We were in utter amazement at the size of the Energizer bunny balloon.















Although Rose really liked to look at all of the balloons and watch them take off, her personal opinion was that the "firing" of the balloons was too loud. (Especially when you are surrounded by them on every side).


One of the long standing traditions at the Colorado Balloon Classic is to dip the baskets of the balloons in the lake at Memorial Park just after takeoff. It looked like some of the passengers actually got a little wet, but I'm sure the cheers of the crowd must make it worth it.