Born Anew

Confession:  I am born anew in the groovy tunes of Earth, Wind, and Fire.  I am listening to "Let's Groove" and I really cannot get enough of it.  I'm pretty sure that I am in heaven right now, all I need is to have this song on my iPod and be walking up a mountain.  Which I will be doing in about 20 minutes (minus the iPod thing).  I am not much of a dancer, but this music makes me want to get up out of this computer chair and get my boogy on.  Actually, I think I'll get to doing that now...

Alright, I'm back.  Anyway, I know that my wonderful acoustic-loving husband will probably be embarrassed to have his name associated with this post, but I just had to get it out there.  Moral of the story:  go hug a friend, read your Bible, and groove to the sounds of Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Supersize Me

Recently I have really gotten into documentaries, and I've got to say that of a lot of them Supersize Me is one of my favorites.  It's funny, but most of all truthful.  It is based on scientific fact.  Granted, Morgan Spurlock was pretty dumb to put his body through all of the crap that he did, but I can imagine that his experiment (hopefully) stopped a lot of fast food junkies in their tracks.  

Now, I would be a HUGE liar if I said that I never eat fast food.  I mean, it's fast.  Duh.  But it never hurts to watch this movie every now and then to get a big reality check.  It is just amazing to me the lack of education in this country on something so important as taking care of your body.  Another thing that baffles me is the amount of people who actually are educated on the needs of the body, and blatantly ignore it.  When I was a personal trainer in Dallas, there were several people I consulted with who had been sent to the gym BY THEIR DOCTOR.  To me that's pretty extreme in and of itself.  There were several people who were/are on the fast track to an early death because of their lack of interest in healthy living.  The best (really not best) part about that is the fact that I told them they were on the fast track to an early death, and it did not phase them a bit!

When I was in my training to be a personal trainer, one of the teachers at the Cooper Institute in Dallas said this, and I must admit I have to agree:

"How many people do you know who grow old and say that they can't imagine getting to 

be 80+ years old?  I think it's because the majority of America has put itself into a physical

rut, causing them to suffer from self-inflicted medical problems.  The best way to guard 

yourself from that certain pain is to eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly.  I don't know

about you guys, but when I die, I don't want it to be from a preventable disease.  I just want

to go to sleep and never wake up."

Alright, so I know that's pretty morbid, but think about it:  so many things that people suffer from (i.e. diabetes, heart problems, many different types of cancers, etc.) are directly caused by lack of care.  Not all of them, but some.  I have to admit, I agree with my teacher.  When I die, I don't want it to be some sort of slow, painful death that could have been preventable.  What do you think?

Our Colorado Adventures (the first 1.5 weeks)

This is a great picture that Nate took of Boulder Falls...SO PRETTY!!!
And some pretty flowers on our hike...
And some pinecones...Bunker still doesn't know what to think of them...
And some more pretty flowers.
This is our first hike in Chautaqua with Ashley and Austin, and our new friends Robbie and Stephanie.  Robbie and Stephanie were amazing to watch when they just ran down the mountain like it was no big deal!
This is the view of our little hiking party from a little ways up the first Flatiron.  And Robbie says that this is an easy climb!
The city of Boulder from the Flatirons...VERY pretty!
Austin and Ashley...they are so cute, and so nice to help us out as much as they do!
I bet Nate gets a little mad about me putting this picture up, but that's what you get when you make faces in a picture!  Plus I don't look so hot in the one underneath this!

It has been quite some time since we blogged!  It was just crazy around Dallas trying to get everything together to leave for Denver and then the last week we were there I got really sick!  It was pretty wretched, I hate getting sick, but am feeling all better now.  I just think it was some sort of severe allergy to molds, but my mom thinks it might have been the flu or something.  YIKES!!!  

Anyway, just so everyone knows how this all went down, on June 1 Nate and I rented a HUGE truck from Penske (we totally recommend them if anyone is ever going to move themselves by the way).  All that day and a little bit of the next day we loaded and loaded and loaded, which helped me come to the realization that we have WAY too much stuff.  Anyway, we left on June 2 for Lubbock, Nate driving the huge 26-foot truck with my car being towed behind it, and Bunker and I in Nate's truck behind him.  We got to Lubbock around 5:30pm (I think) and had a wonderful barbeque dinner with my mom and dad, then I coughed all night, and they forced me to go to bed.  The next morning my dad had to teach summer school, so my mom hopped in Nate's truck with me and Bunker, and we went to the Lubbock airport to pick up Nate's dad, Jack.  From there we drove to Denver in about 10-11 hours.  That was a long drive!

The night we got to Denver, our friends Ashley and Austin brought us delicious enchiladas and some of the best chocolate covered strawberries I've ever had.  It was awesome, and such a great relief to see people we know who were so willing to give of themselves and bring us dinner at such a stressful time.  That night we unloaded a pretty decent amount of stuff (we had to in order to get to the mattresses).  The next day was pretty rainy, so my mom and I started unpacking boxes and stuff, and then that afternoon Nate and Jack unloaded the big stuff from the back of the truck.  I gotta say, I was pretty impressed because some of that stuff is HEAVY.  It was nice to have it all done though.  

June 6 (Friday) we took the truck back to a Penske location, and then that afternoon we went in to Boulder, which is such a cute city.  We had a great time and ate at the Lazy Dog on Pearl Street, then went hiking to Boulder Falls and went on some sort of exercise trail at the base of a mountain.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we were glad that we could let my mom and Nate's dad enjoy some of the beauty that we get to see all the time now!

Saturday we took our parents to the airport.  It was really really sad, so I'm not going to dwell on it, but there were a lot of tears (mainly from the Heather side of things).  It's just very weird and a little scary to be so far away from everything you've ever known, and we're not even that far!  Still, we were sad to see our parents go.  Then we went to Walmart and spent what we thought was an obscene amount of money on groceries.  We took Bunker on a walk and he made a friend named Rocky, a Lab-Rottweiler mix.  I don't really remember what we did that night...woops!

Sunday we met with our church for the first time, and it was such a great gathering of people.  Todd Wagner from Watermark Dallas was there with his family, and it was so nice to be in an intimate setting where we could really get to know his heart and his vision that he has for Watermark Dallas and be able to see the heart that we need to have for the ministry here in Denver.  It was a lot of fun to get to meet so many new people too!

Finally, the last two days before Nate started work we went hiking in Chautaqua (I think that's spelled correctly) with our friends Ashley and Austin and Robbie and Stephanie.  Robbie and Stephanie live in Boulder so they are pretty much expert hikers.  We had a great time and got a great workout.  Then Tuesday we did all of the boring stuff like switched insurance offices and got our driver's licenses, registrations, and emissions tests.  Woohoo.  

Since then we've had a great time.  I've taken Bunker hiking, and we've been hiking a few times.  We're getting used to the altitude and are making some great friends.  So far we really like being here, and are just so blessed that everything has worked out so well.  The Lord is truly amazing in the ways he cares for us.  We hope to blog some more soon with pictures of our place, but we still have a little cleaning to do before that!