Aurora Reservoir

We have been to the reservoir with Samuel three times now.  The first time, we took Brittany and Tessa with us.  Samuel didn't want to put his feet in the sand, and then when he finally decided to do that, it took quite a bit of convincing to get him to put his feet in the water!  But he eventually did, and we had a bit of fun.  Not a lot, but a bit!  Then the next time we went, some friends were with us, and although I thought it would be more fun than the first time, Samuel had a meltdown and it turned out to be not much fun at all.

 I was determined that we would redeem that last yucky day, though, and that we would go back and have FUN!  So on Wednesday we went out with just the 5 of us (Daddy was at work), and got there early enough that we were the only ones on the beach for awhile.  We had a GREAT time!  We walked up and down the beach, found a baby crawdad, saw some fish, built some castles, did a bit of swimming.  It was a very fun time.  :)

Keelan and Samuel like to throw seaweed at each other.

Caylie gets soooo dark!

Justin takes quite awhile to make his castles.

Love that blue Colorado sky!

Samuel and Caylie "taking showers".

Justin practicing his backstroke

Baby crawdad.

Faith Day at the Rockies Game

We are big Colorado Rockies baseball fans at our house.  It doesn't quite look the way it used to, as we've only been to two games in as many years, but we still are.  We used to go to twenty-some games every year, but life has a way of changing these things!

 This past Sunday was our first - and probably only - game of 2015.  We made it a priority to go to this one, as it was also Faith Day with a Michael W. Smith concert afterward.  Samuel was excited to go to his first game, and Caylie is always up for seeing Dinger!

It was hot, but a beautiful Coors Field Day!

Her Rockies shirt is a little bit too blue.  The purple hair bow is more of the proper Rockies color!

Me and Marlon Brando.

My cute Rockies girl.  Those glasses are the ones we got in China in 2013.  They are scratched, but still holding up!

Jim and Samuel.  First Rockies game!  He has a Rockies jersey, too, but decided to wear it over his Avs shirt.  Then he got too hot and just went with the shirt.  Oh well!

Samuel was mostly enamored of his Nolan Arenado bobblehead, and was very excited when Number 28 took the field! 

Michael W. Smith throwing out the first pitch.

The Rockies played the Reds.  I remember being a kid in Indiana, and the only baseball team I knew about was the Cincinnati Reds.  And I thought Pete Rose and Johnny Bench had funny names, haha!

Love a sunny day at Coors Field!

Rockies Win!!  

As soon as the game was over, they started setting up for the concert.  This time we were already on the right side of the stadium for premium concert seating!

I love Faith Day.  So far they've done 12 of them (Rox are 11-1 on Faith Day!) and I think we've been to most of those.  They usually have a player or two talk about their Christian faith before the concert.  This year it was catcher Mike McHenry and pitching coach Steve Foster.

We have loved Michael W. Smith since his first album came out in 1983, my freshman year/Jim's jr. year in college.  The next year, we saw Michael on his Friends tour at Reardon Auditorium on the Anderson College campus in Anderson, Indiana.  Ahh, those were the days.  :)  

I wanted to tell Michael that we'd seen him on his first major tour, 30 years ago.  I wanted to tell him that we were just kids then, and him not that much older.  And how we've done so much life since then, and how God has been so faithful to walk with us through it all.  Some day I will tell him.  We have forever, after all.  I am so, so grateful for the family of God!

Caylie loves music.  She loves dancing.  She loves worship.  I can't wait to see how God uses that. 

 Samuel wasn't so sure what was going on.  We try to explain worship to him as best we can.  We'll just need to be faithful to point to Jesus every single day and let God's Spirit work in Samuel's heart.  We KNOW God has a plan for this boy's life!

I LOVE Faith Day.  I love my Rockies and I love Coors Field, and worshiping our Lord Jesus with all these people afterward is just the best thing.  I look so forward to it every year.  

I am so grateful to God for this day.  It was a day that started out badly, in a very difficult time with Samuel.  But the thing God keeps speaking to my heart is that there is NOTHING that He can't redeem and restore.  There is nothing so deep and dark that it is beyond His reach.  And on this day He showed me those things yet again.  I must keep my eyes on Him and my heart in tune with His.  He is making all things new.