Fall begins!

My favorite season is here!!! And in honor of my first autumn in Colorado, I wanted to head into the mountains to see the infamous yellow-leaved Aspen trees. So after church and lunch today, Jess, and I headed west on I-70. The scenery was just as beautiful as we'd heard about and hoped for, in spite of the cloudy sky and scattered showers. Enjoy the pictures...and enjoy the season! :)

great new music

one of my favorite musicians, sara groves, has a new album coming out november 6th. it's going to be great!

in the meantime, you can hear her newest single, "when the saints" on her myspace page...after listening to that, click on her music video "i saw what i saw." (but be prepared to get goosebumps and maybe even tears)

http://www.myspace.com/saragroves




also another great artist, chris rice, has an awesome new song called "lemonade." listen to it at his myspace:

http://profile.myspace.com/chrisrice

enjoy! and after you listen, leave a comment and let me know what you think. :)

"marry your best friend"

interesting commentary on marriage written by a friend of a friend:

http://www.xanga.com/PaPaTevia/602290716/25-years-of-learning---marry-your-best-friend.html

Baby Thorne!

Caleb Rock Thorne was born very early Monday morning...Congrats, David & Jess!!! He's so handsome!

Sarah Pullen's visit: 8.31-9.3

One of my best friends, Sarah P, came to visit over Labor Day weekend. We had a blast galavanting around Colorado. We tried to pack as much in as possible in 3 days. Here are the highlights (you can see tons more on Facebook!):


Friday evening in front of the state capital building.

outside casa bonita, the amazing mexican restaurant-adventureland, where we celebrated sarah's 25th birthday. (thanks, Randy, for the awesome suggestion!)

Saturday we headed south to Colorado Springs area. First stop was Garden of the Gods.








then we began our drive up Pikes Peak ("America's Mountain")













Sunday we headed nothwest to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day of hiking.





Alberta Falls.









our final destination: mills lake. elevation: 10,175 ft. 5.8 miles round trip.

it rained off and on all day; by the time we reached the lake it was thundering really loudly (plus it was chilly!). we were a bit nervous the sky would open up and drench us. but thank God, we made the entire hike without more than a sprinkle. :)

resting and taking in the view.





we met up with janet (a friend of mine from VA) and nichole (janet's good friend) for dinner in boulder...a fabulous way to close our day!