Mountains, Gandalf!!!

As I was looking at my last few posts, I realized I hadn't said anything about Khyrstyn's and my road trip to Colorado. Sure, it happened almost two months ago, but it's never too late to share pictures of mountains. :D

Our family went to the Rockies two summers ago and once I arrived, I didn't want to leave. I left some of my heart in the mountains. I was watching the Lord of the Rings in December and when Bilbo is telling Gandalf about why he's leaving The Shire, he says, "Mountains, Gandalf! I want to see mountains again!!" And for the first time, I understood and resonated with the longing in Bilbo's voice. Khyrstyn loves the mountains too and last fall she had the opportunity to live in them for three months. Now they're home for her.

So, naturally, we talked about wanting to go back. And since we went on a mini road trip last year, we talked about where we could go this year. And then we started to think, what if we went to Colorado? Could we work that out? Would it be crazy?

The rest is history. We left Illinois at 5 in the morning, June 1, and that evening we were in Colorado. I'm not sure if I'll want to do it in one day again, but next time I'm going to get more than four hours of sleep the night before. I didn't get too tired until late Friday night, but even then my brain wouldn't turn off and I didn't get much sleep that night either. Also Nebraska will drive you insane if you do it in one day. We were counting cows. And roadkill. I'm glad we took two days on the way back.

Besides mountains, Khyrstyn got to see a bunch of friends from school and I got to meet them!! We also spent some time with Uncle Chris, Aunt Tonya, and the cousins, which was wonderful. We even continued our road trip tradition of seeing a movie at a random theater near our route. Solo wasn't my favorite movie, but I love our random tradition.

Other fun facts:

• I saw a bald eagle on top of a "mountain"!! (it was more of a foothill) 
• I sliced my finger open near the top of another foothill. It wasn't too bad, but it took several weeks to heal completely. I was proud of it. :D

And now that I've written that all out, I'm going to end it here and have a separate post for pictures. Because, I have a bajillion I want to share and it'll be the longest thing ever anyway.

I Survived (or a random update)

I got a job at Culver's earlier this month; I started the ninth! But before I did, I agreed to watch Eddie and his sisters while Khyrstyn was gone in New Mexico for a wedding. After watching the kids while she was gone for three months, I fill in sometimes when she's sick, has her wisdom teeth out, or is a bridesmaid. :) I like it, because then I still see them every so often. 

So I asked for three days off from Culver's, but that meant I had to work the other three available days. Which meant I was working six straight days. I'm pretty sure I've never worked that many hours in a week. Almost 50. Whoa. 

I was scared going into it, but it really wasn't bad at all. I had Culver's Monday, the kids Tuesday through Thursday, and then Culver's Friday and Saturday. I'm glad it was six days split up between the two. It would've been much harder to do six straight days of one thing. The jobs have different challenges and responsibilities so the variety and break from some was nice.

And I was able to do some other things besides work and sleep this week, which was more than I expected, haha. I saw A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare in the Park!!) for the second time, read a book, and watched Ant-Man and the Wasp with Katherine, Anna, and Mary Ann!! 

And tomorrow, Josiah and I are going to see some friends of ours in Newsies. On my day off, and then it's back to the grindstone...

Birthday Balloons

Khyrstyn gave me some super fun balloons for my 21st birthday and I asked Anna if she could take some pictures of me with them. I love how they turned out!!