Our Colorado trip in pictures *photo heavy*

Ok so here's the much promised Colorado trip in pictures and some words...

We left California on a Monday morning and everything seemed to have gone as plan. Went through Vegas and its heat, passed by the beautiful St. George Utah and saw a glimpse of the temple and then hit some rain by Beaver...


We didn't know at this time that rain will be a constant companion for most of the trip.


stayed at a friends house in Manti. They own an Alpaca ranch. These creatures are very cool to look at but just from a distance. Thank goodness for my new zoom lens. *wink*


here's my beautiful girl. See the bags under her eyes? that's a direct cause of allergies to cats. We had to discover it the hard way. Our friends had cats and as soon as we got there Maddie started sneezing and rubbing her eyes and before I knew it, her eyes were swelling. Thank goodness our friend has a stock of Benadryl.


Then Tuesday came and the bad luck started to shower on us. Our Expedition's transmission got crazy on us near Green River. We limped it to Grand Junction and got it to a transmission place but didn't get any rental cars so we can continue our journey. We had to pay a hefty price for a one night room rental at the nearest hotel. So much for a view.


But we made the most of it, by using their indoor pool and Mitch and I got to run on the treadmill in their exercise room. We have to get the most out of the "arm and a leg" price they billed us.


Then the following morning we finally got a car to rent. Just cost us another "arm and a leg" for it.


It was a mid size Chrysler Sebring. It's so small compared to our Expedition. No leg room at all. By mid day, we were already missing our big SUV.




Mitch commented that after being SUV owners for so long, we can't go back to a midsize car. There's just no way.


Because of our events in this past two days, we figured on investing on a GPS system. During our trip to Grand Junction on Tuesday, I called my sister in Virginia just so that she can go online and search some Auto repair shops for me. With a GPS, if in case we get stuck in a problem again, we'll have an instant yellow pages in our hands.


As soon as we got to Colorado Springs we went house hunting. For two straight days that's all we did. Finally on Friday we got some break while waiting for our bid to be accepted so we went to Garden of the Gods. It was an awesome sight, minus the cars!


me and Ms. Maddie while on a trail to go see the Siamese twins rock formation.


and here's the twins...rock formation that is!


I brought my new lens to this day trip and I loved the results. The only bummer about it is that because it starts at 55mm, I have to stand back pretty far from my subjects. But I sooo love the aperture it gives me. Here's some fun shots of the kids.


another one of Ms. Maddie.


more of the rock formations


here are our boys


and then as our luck would have it, it rained again on us and this time we were stuck on the rock formations, miles away from our car. So what did we do? Well we waited out the rain under the rocks.


we only sat there for about 45 minutes hoping that the camera won't get wet! Yeah that was somehow our luck in this trip. Every bad thing that can happen, happened!


I have to get use to the Colorado weather because after that rain, come Saturday, it was bright and sunny and pretty again. Here's our quick trip to the park near our friends house.


here's my beautiful husband that rarely gets photographed. Gosh I love my lens!


Marcus enjoying a fun ride down the slide.


On the second week of our trip we had to stay at a hotel. The last week was a little bit more stressful being that we were narrowing down the choices and making bids were not the funnest thing to do plus the people seemed to have been showing their emotions too much on their sleeves.


and finally a rainbow! We saw this on our way back from Colorado Springs near Manti, Utah.


and here's me, the official photographer of the trip.


and here's pretty much our view for two weeks- never ending roads.


and finally on a sad note, Mitch's hot rod is no longer ours. He sold it yesterday (Saturday). So many memories of this car, about it and in it! Oh well another thing we are saying goodbye to. Seems like that's the theme of these past weeks, saying goodbye to people, routines and to things. Another sad truth in our life right now.

Till next time,
Grace