See the Good

A little bit of wisdom from my sister Kristie, who is currently serving a mission in Finland:

"Over the past few weeks it seemed as though nothing was going our way. Sister Bruce and I just laughed it all off and kept working, but deep down it was still a little hard, then I realized a few things. First of all, things can always be better then they seem. When you are just waiting for the next thing to go wrong, and focusing on the negative side of things then of course it will seem like everything is going wrong!! So this week I started to focus on every good thing that happened, no matter how small it was and I realized that there are so many amazing things and little miracles happening right before my eyes every single day that I had been missing. This is the Lord's work and I can truly see his hand in things. Everything that I thought had gone wrong started making so much more sense, we needed to be in certain areas at certain times for certain people and if things had worked out the way I thought was right we wouldn't have been. We just need to trust in the Lord and try to see the big picture. "

So proud of that girl! And our brother Jason who is serving in Mexico right now. Can't wait to get them back but I know they are where they need to be right now.

Hiking in the Rain

Yesterday for FHE, we went hiking in the beautiful Red Rocks Canyon Park.

Except... we did it in a thunderstorm with rain pouring down. Believe it or not, it actually made it more fun haha. I wish I'd snapped some pics, but you know, I was trying to keep my cell phone dry. :)

A few of us decided to camp out under a tree for a while in a vain attempt to stay dry. From there we ran back and hid under the Red Rocks for a bit, before finally making a mad dash back to the parking lot.

We ended up hanging out in a car for a long time, using the heater to dry off, laughing and goofing around and waiting for everyone else to come back. It was really fun. Maybe I'll have to do rain hiking more often (although, maybe only when there's not so much lightning!).

Dog Stroller

So today, I became the semi-embarrassed owner of a dog stroller.

I know, I know. If you're like me, you've seen dog strollers in the store or out on the sidewalk somewhere, and you've been a little weirded out. Aren't strollers for babies? Isn't the whole point of walking your dog to, like, let it walk?

But my poor sweet little puppy is now a very elderly 15. He still wants to go on walks, but his body just isn't up for it anymore. It seriously took him half an hour just to walk to the end of the street the other day. For some reason, he's perky at home, but walks wear him out fast.

So... I caved. A dog stroller seemed like the perfect solution. It took me forever to find one that was cheap. It came in the mail today--fortunately in a camouflaged box so the mailman wouldn't think I was crazy.

Yeah.... I'm pretty sure my mailman thinks I'm crazy...

Shauna and I may have gotten a little bit too excited about it.  I took a break from work to help assemble it. As soon as we had it up, we woke Max up (um... not a great idea, in hindsight) and off we went!

I think we both had visions of Max being thrilled that he could go on a walk again. That's... not quite how it went down. At first he was looking around with an incredibly confused expression. What is this thing and what are we doing? But he stayed put, until I said, "I think he must like it, otherwise he would be trying to jump out." Yeah, he totally understood that because he immediately started trying to jump out.

So, we stopped, and let him out to stretch his legs. Immediately the little guy took off at a dead run. Our little dog... the one that took half an hour to walk down our street... running as fast as he could go. I took this as, "I don't need a stroller!!! I have four legs!" Eventually, though, he tired himself out, so we stuck him back into the stroller... until he got his strength back and we let him out again. It seemed like a pretty good system. He'd run, get tired, we'd stick him back in the stroller...

So, the jury is out on whether or not he likes it. I think it will grow on him. :) It better!