Starting off with the arrival at Alpine, AZ... after a GORGEOUS drive through the state of Arizona we arrived in Alpine to see the welcoming committee!
We had so many great adventures during the week- some calm, and some not-so-calm. We relaxed and enoed (if you look up this word it isn't found in the dictionary); we also scaled mountains and canyons. We loved our time visiting our family by blood and our family in Jesus (Grandview Camp staff).
So, I will now post pictures and walk you through our adventure. This will be a long post... here goes!
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| Jon and Benton... enoing. :) |
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| Hannah Sute... SO HAPPY SHE COULD COME! |
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One morning we drove to the New Mexico border and spent some time legitimately "hanging out"...
enjoyed time in the Word, in God's beautiful creation. . . JUST relaxing! |
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Funny story is that we woke up around 4:15am so we could get packed and to the canyon for the sunrise. We then
RAN from the car to the canyon as not to miss the grand event.
Did we see a sunrise? No. Apparently clouds hinder that gorgeous sight. :)
We still had fun, though, only to dash back to the car in a rain storm! |
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| Evidence of the rain... |
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| Couldn't resist... this about sums us up. |
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| So very thankful for him! |
We also climbed a few mountains while we were in AZ, one of them being Gobblers Peak in Alpine (close to 9,000 feet elevation... HARD to breathe!).
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We made it to the top of Gobblers Peak and got a gorgeous view of Alpine, AZ and its surrounding area.
You can see the remnants of the Wallow fire last year that almost burned the camp.
Incredible to see the burn and then the new growth- so much scarring yet new life poking through. |
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Such a strange thing. At the top of the mountain was a massive swarm of flying ants. You can see them all
above Jon's head... |
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| SO MUCH BURN! |
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| We were attacked by briers all the way up the mountain... it was an intense little climb! |
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| You can see the summit behind us... |
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| Jon carried Benton for part of the hike... he was pretty pooped by the end of the hike! ;) |
We also enjoyed visiting the new camp property. For those of you who might not know, Grandview Camp has been working on building an entirely new camp outside of Eagar, AZ and are hoping to be full-time at the new site by next May. It's been exciting to see the process take place and the buildings/location are just gorgeous!
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| Dad and Mom were able to come out to visit while we were there which was a real treat! |
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| Kathryn is growing up so quickly! Trying to break into one of the cabins... |
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| You can see the burn all around the camp site but the buildings were all spared from the fire (minus one cabin...) |
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This is the view of Escadilla from the multi-purpose building that is underway.
Can't wait to see this finished! |
WE ALSO got to visit Big Lake, AZ. It's about 10,000 ft in elevation which is pretty incredible for a LAKE. In fact, there are more deaths by lightning strikes here than anywhere else in the US. Pretty crazy how quickly the storms come and go!
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| Mom and Hannah |
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| (I know, you're probably getting tired of pictures of Ronnie and me... sorry!!!) |
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| LOVE these two!!! |
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| Proud to call them family! |
Man, there is so much more I could post right now but I'll leave it here for now. SO thankful for a safe trip to AZ and back and the time we could all spend together!
