A Long Awaited Update...

Hello Family,

I find myself feeling unstressed for perhaps the first time since last December, and realized that I have not written anything for the blog lately. There is much I have wanted to post, so I won't share it all now, but I will give the more interesting updates.

First, here are some photos of mine and Andrew's (does anyone know the correct order for that chain of possessives? Is it Andrew and mine; Andrew's and my; Andrew's and mine?) adventure up Pike's Peak, in Colorado. This was in early August, right after Grandma Lila's Celebration of Life.

I could give captions for all of the photos, but there is really not much more to say than, "This is a picture of part of the mountain."

You may notice that there are trees in most of the photos, which means that most of my photos were taken below the tree line. I didn't do this consciously, but as we got higher and the air got thinner, I think we were just too exhausted to care about pictures any more.

The last three pictures were taken in the cog train on the way back down. The tour guide said that many people believe the second to last picture looks like a seal, though I can't see it, and the last picture looks like a turkey. I agree with the turkey description, but I think "Peep," as in Dad's favorite candy, is much better.

In case you are interested, here is a chart showing the details of our trip. It took us almost 6.5 hours to go 11.66 miles, a time which we were both fairly pleased with. Another interesting thing to note is that the time of our last .66 miles was almost double that of the first mile. This was due to the high altitude, and our need to stop every 100-200 yards to breathe. Perhaps Andrew can comment about his own experience, but I was shocked at the way my body reacted to the thinner air. I wasn't heaving and out of breath like I imagined I would be. Rather, my body just did not work right. I have thought about it several times, and there is really no other way to describe it than that. I did not feel out of breath, I just did not seem to be able to go on at all.

Moving on, I have been busy writing applications for PhD programs. I won't hear back about them until mid March, so until then, please pray that I grow in holiness and love for God and ya'll. I am not too worried about where I get in, or if I get in (yet). For my writing sample, which the applications require, I recently wrote an paper on a theme from Wisdom of Solomon, and some of you may be interested in reading it. It is 17 pages long and has lots of footnotes though, so if you think it would be boring, you don't have to read it.

Regina recently moved to a different office within the same company, and the move seems to be suiting her well. The biggest improvement is that she works much closer to home, so we get much more time together, and she gets less worn out from driving around all over the place. The downside is that she has more city driving to do, which is stressful in itself, but she still logs fewer driving hours per week, and it is never fun to drive up here anyway, regardless of whether you are in the city or the country.

I will attach some more photos below, but they are just of nice fall leaves. I will leave the other personal updates until later.

Love,
Dan and Regina