Collage Friday - Adventures in the West
Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 11:55PM 
Welcome to the "mobile" edition of Collage Friday.
Memories have been made, lessons learned, and I've been spotting God in every single thing we are doing.
While I didn't see much of Denver (I was in a conference for three days), what I have seen of Wyoming is breathtaking. We are also struck with the friendliness of the people and the slow pace of life. It is very refreshing.
Living in a suburb of a large city I think we often become jaded and cynical. We are used to a frantic pace. Sometimes that pace is even celebrated. I must say I don't want to go home!
I made a few collages from our first days in Colorado. I will have to post about Wyoming at another time. I'm posting this from our hotel in Cheyenne and it's been such a busy day and I'm fading fast! There's so much swirling in my head about the gorgeous countryside we saw and what we learned. I will need break it up into several posts I'm sure!
The next two weeks on the blog will be dedicated to the 10 Days of Reading Aloud. I'm so excited to report I will have a guest post from Andrew Pudewa (of The Institute for Excellence in Writing), which will also include FREE audio downloads of some of his talks as well as a giveaway from IEW. You won't want to miss the series!
When we arrived last Sunday we drove to Colorado Springs for an afternoon at The Garden of the Gods. The kids earned their Junior Ranger badges (now we have four badges - we're trying to collect them!). Poor Grant was fighting a horrible cold (which is loads better now) so we moved slowly through the rock formations. I love the picture in the bottom right. Yes, you can see the sun in top, but can you see the moon just above the mountains, too? Just beautiful. And no -- that rock climber isn't anyone in my family -- just thought it was a cool picture. It scared me just to look at this brave soul!
I love my husband so very much. He took three days while I was at the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ Conference and planned many fun things with the kids. They would drop me off around 8 a.m. at the conference center and pick me up at dinner time. I know they had fun together. I also enjoyed the time to be in communion with 1,000 other church members;
They toured Red Rocks, visited Buffalo Bill's grave, went to Hammond's Candy Factory, and also spent time at a transportation museum in downtown Denver. Needless to say, Denver has a lot of fun (and economical) things to do with children.
I've been Instagramming the whole trip; my Instragram photos are in my sidebar and you can follow me on Instagram, too - just look for musicalmary.
I'd love for you to link your homeschool collages! Please grab a button or text link back to this post. Then, visit others in the linky to gain ideas and offer encouragement. I love the community Collage Friday has become!
Reader Comments (15)
Mary I am so glad to read that you all are having such a wonderful time! It sounds like your kids have really enjoyed some Daddy time...how awesome that he was able to explore Denver with them while you were at the conference :)
I'll be back later on today or tomorrow morning to link up. I hope you continue to have fun on your trip, and you have a safe journey back home.
I have so enjoyed following your 'out west' adventures! Such grand things to do out there. And wonderful memories you are making together as a family.
What a fun and educational trip! As you can see, I actually made a real collage! All by myself this time! I haven't figured out how to remove the date and time from the pics though! LOL!
I have so enjoyed seeing all your Instagram pictures Mary. Looks like your kids and hubby have had such fun. We don't live in a huge city but still the pace can be crazy at times. I am with you, I celebrate and embrace long slow lazy weeks without a million places to go. Thank you again for hosting this awesome link. My favorite one out there. ;)
Mary, looks like you're having a wonderful time! Looking forward to your Read Aloud series!
What a terrific trip! I'm excited for you to post more details.
Also can't wait for the read aloud posts! And Andrew Pudewa--how exciting!
What a fun trip! Looking forward to hearing from Andrew Pudewa.
--Gena at ichoosejoy.org
What a grand adventure Mary! Andrew Pudewa is really good - I'll have to check it out :)
Glad you are having so much time together with family! I'm enjoying all of your pics on Instagram:)
What fun!!! I felt the same way when we went on our road trip, it was so wonderful to see America and part of me didn't want to go home to the routine.
Off to check out your pictures!!
What an awesome trip! I can't wait to hear more. The picture with the sun and the moon ~ AMAZING.
Blessings, Dawn
Love Andrew P!! Can't wait to read his post.
I am SO GLAD you had an awesome week! I went to Arizona for a week in high school, and I must say, there is nothing like the BIG SKY and beautiful rock formations that are out there!
(I am also pretty pumped to see you are hosting the writing series with IEW! We went to one of their conferences this past August, and I SO want to use their materials next year. Andrew is a GENIUS when it comes to getting kiddos excited about writing...)
Hi Mary! What a fun trip with lots of learning included! Thanks for sharing your fantastic photos - the sun / moon photo is so cool! I am excited to read Andrew's guest post. He is such an inspiration to me in teaching my children to enjoy the process of writing well! Have a great weekend!
Totally missed that you put up a collage Friday. Silly me, I thought you'd be taking a week off! Mea Culpa. I loved the photos ... and I'm glad you pointed out the one with the moon. How cool is that!