The Hagen Family: Fifteen Days Away

We have had a VERY busy summer so far. Much busier than we had anticipated. Some of you know that we have been getting our house ready to list. So we have been doing some projects around the house. We added a window and a closet to a room downstairs and did some painting, and are currently working on some landscaping. We have wanted to do all of those things since we moved in, we just hadn't done them yet. Needless to say, doing them all at once is a headache! We get very little done while Tyler is awake, so we've been working until late every night.

Finally, on June 2, we got to take a very much needed vacation! We spent a week in Colorado with my whole family. Then everyone else went home and Tyler and I spent another week in Kansas with my parents. In all, Tyler and I were gone for fifteen days. We spent 40+ hours in the car and slept in 3 different places. We spent 2 nights in Kansas, 4 in Colorado, 8 more in Kansas, and one in a hotel. We were constantly around other people and napping and bedtime schedules kind of went out the window while we were in Colorado. The whole road trip thing was really making me nervous. That is a long time for a 14 month old to be in the car! But Tyler amazed us. He didn't sleep much on the way to Kansas or Colorado, but he was happy and content to play and talk in his carseat. And he LOVED being around people all the time. He is missing all that attention now that we're home!

Colorado Springs is my favorite place in the world. I absolutely love it there. My whole family does, which is why we went there for vacation even though we've been there too many times to count. The mountains are gorgeous, we all love hiking around in the them, and for some reason, I always feel like I grow closer to God when I'm there. It never fails. It's an amazing place.

The Navigators (the college ministry my parents work for) have their headquarters in Colorado Springs. At a castle in the mountains. Yep. It's pretty cool. And so growing up we went there often when my parents had conferences, or for spring break ski trips. We went to camp at Eagle Lake, the Navigators camp 9 miles up the canyon. And my parents directed a summer training program for two summers when I was in high school so we lived there. That is why we love it there. We have so many great memories of growing up from that place. And we love to go back and explore it all over and over again. It never gets old.

We did a lot in the four days we were there and since it's so beautiful, we took lots of pictures. I'm going to be putting some up over the next few days to spread them out a little. I wanted to start today, but I'm having computer issues. Of course. And I can't get to any of the pictures from Carl's camera. As much as it pains me to do this out of order, I'll put a few up from Kansas instead.