We arrived in to Pam's good friend growing up, and the maid-of-honour at our wedding, Kathie Reece's house around 5:30 PM. We gave Kathie a call at her office (which is less than five minutes drive away from her house), as we had pre-arranged. Kathie showed up a few minutes later. David went and picked up a Chinese dinner for us all. He ordered way too much. It was good, though.
The next day we went to the Garden of the Gods and wandered about. Here's a family shot (thanks to Kathie taking the picture), at the rock that has the plaque thanking the donator of the entire park to the city of Colorado Springs:
After wandering through the park and driving around in it, we went to the visitor centre (as we typically do). It was interesting to learn more about the history of this beautiful area.
Next we drove just down the road (immediately adjacent to the Garden of the Gods) to the Navigators world-wide headquarters, Glen Eyrie:
This location has a retreat facility as well as a main administrative building. Apparently, Billy Graham had been instrumental in helping negotiate the purchase of this property for Dawson Trotman and the Navigators back in the 50's. The property and the buildings are quite spectacular. Reba particularly like wandering around and exploring. Here she is in the great hall ready to perform (her future career of music and singing):
We came back to Kathie's house so she would be there for her conference call with Microsoft. David went to the grocery store to pick up some things. It was there that he got the first inkling of the Columbine High shootings. The woman at the check-out said 'have you heard about what is going on up in Denver'? David did not know what she meant. That night we found out as we checked out the local news. It was very sad.
The next day David took Heather Lynn, Reba, Daniel, and James to the Focus on the Family world-wide headquarters. This facility was across the street from Kathie's work, so it was very close to where she lives. Here we have James coming down their fancy slide:
The Focus on the Family welcome centre (which is where we were visiting) was actually very nice. It told a lot about the founding by Dr. James Dobson (Heather Lynn and David watched a short video presentation on it), as well as having a number of displays. There were multiple places for kids to play (probably more geared for kids a little younger than the Sigler four). The kids searched the building for various items in a 'find me' type game that was handed out to them when we arrived. We were even able to watch a Vegetales episode in their multi-screen kids video area.
We had a nice Lasagna dinner that night which Kathie had wisely prepared in advance. Pam, HL, Kathie, and Reba did a Personality quiz that evening (that David had bought on a trip with Pam and Reba to Barnes and Noble earlier that afternoon .. anyone wonder what Reba bought?)
We were able to stay an extra day at Kathie's (very nice of her), since her parents did not arrive the day they were expected due to problems back at their condo in Phoenix (they winter there). They were on their way back to Ontario for the summer and fall (as is their custom) when their above their unit neighbour had a serious water leak that came down through the ceiling in to their unit. They had to make sure everything was properly cleaned up afterwards so they were delayed by a day (their misfortune was our fortune). This is when Dan and James had their hair cut (check out future pictures of them).
Well the last night at Kathie's has finally arrived. Unfortunately, Heather Lynn woke up in the middle of the night (not feeling well). It caused David to wake up and sit with her. Soon after Kathie was also up (she was having trouble sleeping anyways). Pam even joined the action briefly. We all noticed that there was quite a bit of snow that had already falling and it was still coming down outside. We did get about 4" of snow that night. After a while we all went back to bed.
In the morning we watched "A Bug's Life". Kathie stuck around (and watched, too .. after shovelling her driveway). Well, all good visits do come to an end, so here we are ready to head off from Kathie's on our way to checking in to a hotel for a night (we had hoped to camp that night .. but for obvious reasons changed our minds).
That evening we visited David's cousins (also living in Colorado Springs), Charlie and Betty Tewell. They took us all out to their favourite local restaurant, Fargo's. Here are a couple of pictures of our very enjoyable evening out:
We had a funny incident at the Holiday Inn Express where we were staying. A couple of US Army guys had moved our trailer from where we had originally put it. Fortunately, David just happened to have disconnected the extra brake (it is usually on), or else they might have damaged something. They did a good job moving the trailer so they could make room for their rig. Here is a dual-purpose picture, showing the US Army vehicle (our trailer, which used to be about where the middle of their truck is), taken from the third floor window where we were staying. Notice that we had another big snowfall overnight (second in a row). Probably about 5" of snow this time:
We had some trouble hooking up the trailer in the morning (the cold and the small amount of grease for the ball were affecting things). We decided to head east after watching the weather channel like crazy to avoid bad winds / cold down in the Santa Fe direction .. unfortunately this resulted in us not getting to see David's cousin Barbara and her husband Jim .. nor visit the neat town of Santa Fe (or have Heather Lynn call her friend Karen Campbell from Albuquerque). Betty and Charlie were planning to head down to Santa Fe as well that week and were hoping that we would get to see some more of their family. Unfortunately, none of this happened as we had hoped. The call east was too loud.