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Wow…  As if I didn’t have enough to write about already, I can count on good ol’ John XXIII to give me more inspiration to process my thoughts over my blog.

In an effort reconcile and move forward, I have begun attending student activities at J23 again.  Since my resignation from Spirit Fire last December, I only went to a handful of TNT’s (Tuesday Night’s Together – our weekly event) and basically disconnected any involvement with the student group.  I was still active within John XXIII – (by playing in choir at Saturday night Mass, being the chairperson of Pastoral Council, and serving on UMAC), and I have been active in Campus Ministry (through my involvement in NCSC), but this has been my first attempt to get involved in Campus/University Ministry at John XXIII.

I went to TNT for the first time last week, and tonight was my second time. I also went to an event called “Reel Justice” which examines Social Justice issues through film.  TNT is…  well it’s not your father’s TNT – definitely different, but I’ve been sticking with it. The potential exists and I’m anxious to see where things go.

Then there was tonight, which got pretty interesting to say the least.  A discussion that was a long time coming finally came full circle, and it was brought out in tonight’s TNT.  With of the commotion surrounding our church’s building campaign and identifying the student needs.  This was related to my posting a few weeks ago about the UMAC emails that were floating around in regards to the "student representative" and the survey that he alleged to have taken. 

Originally I had no intention of speaking.  The group has gone through a lot of turnover (even more-so over the last year) and I can count on less than my two hands how many people there actually know me.  This was my second time this year and I didn’t want people to ask "Who does this guy think he is?".  Also I don’t want people to think I have an agenda.  At the same time, when people starting making statements that were inaccurate I couldn’t help but jump in.  I ended up speaking a lot, which I’m not sure was well-received.

The building committee presented what they were planning to do in Phase I (expansion of our lounge, entry area & bathroom renovation), then briefly talked about their following phases in the 5 phase project.  This building renovation has been a long time coming, and it’s still going to take at least 10-15 years (if ever) to happen.  I appreciated the plans that were presented, they were well-planned with the intention of still allowing the church to be fully functional throughout the construction process, to continually demonstrate that progress is being made, and to not disturb the worship space until the final phase (with the construction of a new worship space from the ground up, then converting the current space to a Church Hall).

What made it hilarious is at this point everyone wanted to talk about was concerns with us not touching the worship space in the first phase, then offering feedback regarding specifics in the worship space – specifically whether or not to have kneelers.  For those who haven’t been to J23 – we don’t have kneelers.  We’ve never had them at the chuch for various reasons:

• We don’t have much space and multifunction our worship space for many different activities (Thanksgiving & Student dinners, Dances, Extra Classroom/Meeting space, etc).  Because of our limited space we use fold-up chairs
• Even if we had mobile kneelers we would have no where to store them because of our limited space/multi-function area issue
• We have concrete floors and brick walls which makes our church very live – kneelers hitting the floor would be extremely loud

Throughout our church’s 36 year history we’ve stood during Mass.  The collective community has always done this (we’ve always had a few random people that are a exception during Mass), but the "to kneel/not to kneel" question has never been an issue.

Until last year when FOCUS came.  During the fall semester people primarily stood during our TNT & Sunday Mass, again with a few exceptions.  Then semester break came and 40-something people went to the FOCUS Conference in Denver.  When the Spring Semester started, all of the sudden people began kneeling during the TNT Mass.  It completely caught me off-guard when it began.  In some ways it was funny – some people knelt at the wrong times (kneeling at one point then standing after the Sign of Peace), which to me showed that people were likely doing it trying to fit in.  At this point this began dividing the community to the point that 4/5 of the students at TNT kneel, while the remaining students stand (namely those who were around prior to FOCUS’ arrival), along with virtually all of the other parishioners attending Mass – it’s almost like all of the kneelers are to the left of the alter while all the standers are on the right.

I’m not against kneeling during Mass.  I think if a church has a tradition of kneeling and has kneelers in place then they should kneel.  What I’m against is that students are defying the tradition of this specific church (and it’s 35 year history), and kneeling while it’s completely impractical (for the reasons I’ve stated above).  It’d be one thing if we were liturgically wrong, but we’re not.  Looking at the General Instructions of the Roman Missal (or GIRM), sections 42, 52 & 53 to be exact, and I paraphrase, if the environment doesn’t permit everyone to kneel, then standing is just as reverent, but the important thing is that everyone is doing the same thing in unity:

"A common posture, to be observed by all participants, is a sign of the unity of the members of the Christian community gathered for the Sacred Liturgy: it both expresses and fosters the intention and spiritual attitude of the participants."

During the discussion a member of the building committee asked students for the reasons in their desire to kneel.  When he posed the question there was a period of silence.  At that point I wish I had the ability to throw my voice, because I really wanted to yell, "Because our FOCUS brainwashing tells us we need to!"

Finally a student brought up the reason that he thought kneeling was more reverent and should be done.  While I cannot disagree with whether or not this individual thinks this, I can disagree with what the church teaches about his premonition, which is when I spoke up.

At this point the discussion continued and involved the various issues including many people going back and forth about whether standing was reverent, the history and circumstances of standing at our Parish, and the logistical problems preventing kneelers from being incoporated into the worship area.  I probably spoke up on 4 seperate occasions, but each time was to offer a correction based on my interpretation of the GIRM (I knew all that studying I did to train Eucharistic Ministers would come in handy), one time was to state my personal wishes for the church (regarding the "live" setting for music & proclaiming the Word), then finally to attempt to bring closure to the discussion.

What’s funny is when I say "everyone" chimed in, I actually mean primarily the FOCUS missionaries, the new University Ministry staff, 2-3 students who felt passionately about kneelers, a few building committee people (namely one other person besides the facilitator), and myself and another guy sitting at my table that were making challenging statements.  Out of the 20+ people who stuck around for the whole conversation most people were quiet and took a lot in, and I was surprised how much the FOCUS/UM staff were speaking "for the students".

One of the ending comments was one of the University Ministers suggesting we simply agree do disagree, and "pick our battles wisely".  He suggested that people should kneel if they wish to kneel and stand if they want to stand, it’s up to everyone personally.  Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I would have brushed up on my GIRM before going to this, because I could have debunked his suggestion a quote from section 42 in the GIRM: "Therefore, attention should be paid to what is determined by this General Instruction and the traditional practice of the Roman Rite and to what serves the common spiritual good of the People of God, rather than private inclination or arbitrary choice."

In the end I’m not sure if anything was resolved in our conversation.  The good that came from our 1 & 1/2 hour discussion is that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.  It obviously is an issue that has divided the community – and I’m frustrated that the Pastor has done little to address the issue.  He was present during the entire discussion, but did not offer any form of personal feedback, nor did he offer any liturgical or theological clarification.

However, this incident has again exposed issues that I have with FOCUS.  Namely that their program is driving this change, yet they can offer no concrete reasons for doing so.  Their premonitions are based on false assumptions that differ from the GIRM.  I’m sorry, but "because the Bishop wants it" is not a good enough reason to arbitrarily institute this change on an individual level.  I struggle with the fact that the main participants in the discussion/debate were either FOCUS missioners or University Ministry staff.  I felt this perception that the FOCUS students were somehow unwilling or unable to state their opinions – maybe because they haven’t pondered this issue, which leads to a bigger problem.  Are you kneeling because you truly feel this is reverent, or are you being peer-pressured by the FOCUS staff?  If these students are unable to express their beliefs now, what are they going to do when they graduate and leave FOCUS?  Is FOCUS really developing leaders for tomorrow?

Please forgive the randomness of this posting.  I have so many thoughts going through my head and the hour is getting late.

I thought I probably should reflect on Chicago, before too much time passes by…

Chicago overall was awesome!  We got a lot of good NCSC work done – 26 pages of minutes for our 3-day meeting.  We went through the discernment process and have chosen the next National Chair – Ross Gruebel.  Along with that we went to down-town Chicago to meet with the Conference Host team, which was productive and energizing.  We got a chance to tour the hotel which we’ll be staying at.  It turned out to be really nice!  After watching all of the hard work that the student host team has been putting into Conference, I left Chicago feeling more excited and pumped about what’s planned for December.  I’m really excited to bring this excitement and enthusiasm back to my region as well.

I was pleasantly surprised by the City of Chicago as well.  Chicago seems a lot like New York, but smaller, less busy and cheaper.  Their Millenium Park was really pretty.  One of my favorite things were these big pillars that were 5-7 stories tall, and were actually water fountains.  The pillars themselves faced each other and cast these large images through light.  Some of the images were pretty landscames, but most of them were these large images of faces (like the one pictured right).  I really like this pictures because the shadows of the spectators gives you an idea of just how big these structures are.  The area between the pillars was a concrete pond, that really seemed like water over-flow.  The ground was slightly slanted to allow 2-3" of water between these structures.  It was really pretty!  I’m anxious to go back in the winter to see what that area looks like.

While we did do a lot of work, there was still a lot of time for fun.  Some highlights include:

• Learning how to play Bean Bag Toss…  I didn’t realize it could be a structured and fun game
• Dance Dance Revolution – Maureen is amazing at that game. – Josh going "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom"
• The Youth Group kids at St. Bede’s that hosted us.  It was so refreshing to be around a dynamic, vibrant group of kids that really enjoyed being at church.
• Playing that funky ice-cream eating game!  It was funny to see everyone chowing down on their sundae’s with no hands (picture below).
• "Bop It! Pull It! Twist It!"

Some pictures below:

The National Team with the Host Team right after dinner

My good friend Erin & me

Ice Cream!

• More pictures on my Shutterfly site

<edit> This post was started about a week ago, and has been sitting on my hard drive.  With things being as busy as they have been I haven’t been able to update my Xanga as often as I’d like. </edit>

While I was away at my “weekend at Dave’s”, it seemed that the world did, in fact, turn while I was away.  Not just turned, but spun, and I don’t think anything spun as fast as the latest University Ministry Advisory Council (or UMAC) drama that took place.

So much has happened, I’m really even really sure where to go begin.  It all surrounds a meeting that took place last Thursday, where a small group of students, faculty & parishioners, raised some questions about a memo written by the “student representative” on our building committee.  I quoted “student representative” because while the author of the memo claims as such, he has not been a student for 2-3 years.  While I personally did not agree with the motive, content, or message in the memo, the group raised some valid concerns about the credibility and legitimacy of the memo.  Specifically, we were concerned because the student claimed in the memo that a survey of 100 students had taken place, in which they stated the reason they are not involved with our student group or attend our church is due to the fact that our worship space is unattractive and needs to be renovated.

After a lengthy discussion, the members of the council agreed that we would send the building committee a memo that would highlight some of our concerns addressed, not stating any official stance regarding the issues in question.  Because we did not have all members present (and to be fair, no members of the campus ministry staff present), we decided that this would not be an official position statement, but rather highlight issues by some of the memos.   Additionally, the chairperson and author of the response asked to email his message to all UMAC members for comments before sending it on to the building committee.

Our chairperson drafted a very nice, straight forward and detailed response, one which I had felt was fair.  Unfortunately these sentiments were not shared with the University Ministry staff, and resulting in a scathing letter from one of the University Ministry letters.  I want to respect the privacy and opinions of all members of the council and therefore will not post any messages but my own on here, but if you’re interested in reading it, perhaps it will give you a sense of what’s going on with this issue, and where I’m coming from on it.

·        Read My Email

Since then, numerous emails have gone out, fires have been blazing.  The UMAC Chairperson sent out his own response to the message, one which I thought was fairly well-written.  Some other responses went out, and finally a lengthy and detailed email from the University Minister.

Since then the issue has tapered, but it looks like UMAC is starting off on another interesting year.  At this stage it’s pointless to break down the semantics of this specific issue, but I think these are symptoms of bigger problems:

Issue #1: A statement from the University Minister’s letter states: “In the meantime, I believe [the chairperson’s] statement about UMAC meetings applies to University Ministry as well: members of the council wishing to participate in the advising of University Ministry are encouraged to participate in its events and trust the decisions and programming made by the University Ministry staff.”

I think this is one of the central issues, UMAC in general doesn’t trust the University Ministry staff and the decisions & programming.  Frankly, by going through the issues UMAC had (the debate to bring FOCUS to campus, the University Minister Search Process, Director of Campus Ministry search botched and canceled), we’ve been given good reason not to trust the leadership and the decisions and programming made by which.  That, combined with the staff’s relative inexperienced (when compared to the previous staff), we’re more apt to second-guess decisions that are made.

I’m not really sure how to rectify this issue.  I think that trust needs to be earned, but at the same time, I’m personally guilty in not being giving with my trust in this particular situation.  There is blame on both sides, but I think this is an issue that we as a collective council need to work through.

Issue #2: One last excerpt from the UM letter: “Thank you for your hard work in the parish throughout the years and your continued patience and support for University Ministry.”

Someone who is very wise pointed out this statement and posed the question: Do these words describe a healthy, vibrant, collaborative ministry?

I don’t think so.  I think that the potential is there – it exists because we’ve experienced this type of ministry in the past.  I think we’re on the path back to this model, but I’m not sure how fast we’ve moving in this direction.  The passion is there, along with the desire, but I don’t think the experience and wisdom is in place to bring this program back to the prominence that it enjoyed.

That being said, I think UMAC is blessed with those two virtues and has the potential to gift the University Ministry staff with what it needs to successfully move forward.  The real issue is – what is the purpose of this council?

My personal vision would be that this group could offer the most accurate representation of University/Campus Ministry to our faith community – internally this can be done by gifting the Staff & Leadership with experience and advice to help run an effective University Ministry program.  The staff can take comfort that they are receiving the highest quality advice because the group is made up of students, faculty, and invested parishioners that are well-versed in University Ministry.

At the same time, because of the group’s diversity (with the above said, combined with the UM Staff & Leadership) this group would be the definitive source to offer an accurate “pulse” of Campus Ministry in our parish.  Various leadership groups (like the building committee) can come to UMAC and leave knowing they received a well-rounded opinion of how their initiatives will impact all the components of University Ministry.

In relation to the staff, UMAC could offer objective, constructively-critical feedback regarding University Ministry programming, as well as offer support and advice on any issues or situations.  The staff should not feel forced to take UMAC’s advice, but rather they feel comfortable in following what is advised, knowing that everyone has the success of University Ministry in their best interests.

However, my fear is that the staff looks to UMAC more like a support group, people who are seated around the table to provide assistance in whatever way they can (through affirmation, financial contribution, prayer, and volunteer efforts).  This group’s role is to implement the decisions of the Staff & Leadership have made.  The group offers feedback on current initiatives, but this the group does not have any visionary power, nor do they have the ability to speak for University Ministry without the guidance of the Staff & Leadership.

Their vision is not a bad vision.  While I disagree with their intentions (or more accurately my perception of their intentions), I think our greatest issue is the role and purpose of UMAC is not defined, or communicated amongst the various individuals within the group.  My hope is that in the coming meetings we’ll have an opportunity to ask “Why are we here”, and that we’re all on the same page with our answers.  At the same time, if the conclusion of the drawn and (my perception of) their wishes becomes a reality, I think the quality of the minds and hearts of the people sitting around that table will be wasted, and I think many members will leave UMAC, myself included.  This committee offers a treasure trove in wisdom and experience; please don’t toss this overboard simply because it’s too heavy of a weight on the staff.

Something really got to me yesterday that made me end up writing this big three page entry, then after venting a whole bunch, I decided not to post the entry..  But this is still really bugging me, so I figured I should at least get it off my chest…

As you may or may not know, I’m a bit of a web site design nerd.  Throughout the last 9 years I’ve designed or been involved with designing around 50 different web sites.  I’m not one of those sexy, flash-site designers, but I’ve always been proud in my ability to create functional, attractive and useful web sites.  It’s a gift that I truly enjoy…

One of the sites that I’m most proud of has been the design of my Campus Ministry web site…  That site was a long time coming and took two different re-designs, but after hours of work in color-coordinating, structuring and maintaining, we put together an awesome site, and probably one of the better campus ministry sites in the country..  

Well that all changed in the last few months, and now has taken a grave turn…  Last night I’m surfing around the net, when I came across my old Campus Ministry site, which I found has been redesigned by the new campus minister… Now I’m not some egotist that thinks my designs are the best, nor am I not willing to except the ever-changing nature of the Internet, but I can’t help but be offended when they’ve gone and taken something that I worked hard at for years, and totally discarded it – replacing it with something that frankly looks elementary and basic. It would be one thing if they weren’t able to update the site – but I went out of my way to make the web site easily editable – but I guess that wasn’t good enough.

And what’s going on with the web site is an illustration of why I’ve really struggled with the new leadership at my campus ministry, and ultimately at my church.  Here, likely because of youth and inexperience, the leadership has elected to throw out quality ministry/work, and has sacrificed quality (to the point of mediocrity) just so they can have full ownership and most importantly control.  They are unwilling to look to others that may have more skill and expertise – if it exists outside their inside group.

This happened before when Sean, Emily and myself felt so alienated that we had no choice but to resign from student leadership.  It’s why the UM Search Committee was forced to pass up quality candidates for a campus minister.  It’s the reason why I go to Pastoral Council meetings with few expectations in being able to make any real impact.

Before I was fuming mad, but now I would still say that I’m pretty pissed, but trying to turn this around, this is an opportunity for me to devote my web design skills more fully into some other projects (my friend’s web site, my cousin’s org she’s starting, and of course, the NCSC site), and this may also be an opportunity for the staff at church to figure out what exactly they want regarding their web site…

Once again, I am reminded of Matthew 10:14: "Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words – go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet."

Oh and if you’re curious, some links.  Like Fox New: We report: you decide…

• The original, unaltered Campus Ministry web site
• The new site they replaced mine with

Hey!   Remember me?  It’s that guy who used to post all the time and now dropped off the face of the earth…   Well now I’m back, and happy to be so!  These last few days, as always, have been really busy, but especially so because I have been exploring Northern Colorado with my friends from the NCSC!  These last few days have been a blast, and we covered a lot of ground.  Rather than writing this in a "Novel" version, I would like to hi-lite each day’s events and share some remarks & pictures from my experiences!

Wednesday, July 20th
Picking up Ross & Amanda, Getting Settled, Dinner

Dinner at Young’s Vietnamese Cafe – Always a good choice for lunch, Young’s was also exceptional at dinner.  Their portions are HUGE, but both Ross & Joel managed to down their whole dinners.  Geez!  I still have left-overs!  The appetizers were also really good – we had these awesome lettuce wraps, as well as grill-your-own meatballs with rice paper (Mmmmmm).

Old Town Fort Collins I – Coopersmith’s – Emily and Joel joined the three of us for a nice game of pool and some good home-brewed beer.  We ended up playing three games of pool.  Joel and I won the first two, then we did a guys vs. girls game where we almost won, but ended up scratching on the 8 ball (bummer!).  We were cleaning up before though.  Oh well

Thursday, July 21
Journey down to Denver, Pick up Maureen & Erin, Conference Call, More Old Town

Red Rocks Amphitheater – I’ve never been to Red Rocks when an event/concert wasn’t going on, so I wasn’t sure how fun this would be, but it turned out to be really cool.  The whole place is free to get into during the day (when there’s not a show that day), and it’s all open.  You can actually go onto the stage as well (although they were doing stage work the day we were there).  It’s quite a site to be sitting at row 1 and looking up to see all 9,500+ seats.  We then proceeded to climb ALL the stairs up to the Visitor’s Center, which is a nice AIR-CONDITIONED place.  Downstairs they had this thing called "Hall of Music" or something like that, where they had displays and plaques every year since Red Rocks has been opening, and showed who played there each year.  It was soooo cool!

Mother Cabrini Shrine – We only had enough time to drive by and stop in the gift shop.  But looking back on it, it was a mixed blessing that we couldn’t climb the shrine stairs, at that point it was over 100 degrees outside!  It’s a really pretty place, I wish we had more time to spend there.  Just going to the gift shop really didn’t do that place justice.

16th Street Mall – Denver – While we were down there something struck me – I really couldn’t think of any places along the 16th Street Mall that were "authentically Denver/Colorado".  We ended up going to Johnny Rockets, which was pretty good.  The shakes were awesome!  It was really too hot to do anything else down on the 16th Street Mall, so we headed up to rest up for the conference call.

Team America – One of the great ways to get ready for a conference call is to see a movie that will pump you up (also a great way to kill some time), so we popped in Team America…  Probably not the best way to prepare for a Catholic Student Conference Call, but it was pretty funny nonetheless.

"I PROMISE I WILL NEVER DIE…"

NCSC EB Conference Call – Doing a conference call with half the group physically present is harder than it looks.  We had to deal with a few technical issues, and we ended up having to send Maureen upstairs with the headset, which turned out to be a lot of fun.  She was up in my office, so we decided to "possess" my desktop computer with VNC on my laptop.  It was hilarious…  My favorite was "Help I’m stuck in the printer!", then sending the doc to print.

Old Town Fort Collins II – Old Chicago’s – One of the hallmarks of Old Town Fort Collins is sitting at a table next to the open windows at Old Chicago’s.  We got to enjoy the great happy our specials of $2.50 drafts and $2.25 personal pizza’s.  That spells great, cheap dinner (along with Italian Nachos as well!  During dinner we got to take some fun pictures as well!

Maureen, myself & Amanda

Maureen with her "crush" Josh.

While we were out there Erin decided to let our waiter know that "Maureen thought he was hot and would like to take his picture."  Josh was more than happy to oblige and it was funny how he introduced himself to Maureen I don’t think she left him her number though…

Friday, July 22nd
Mini-Retreat with an old friend, Beer Tasting, Dinner with Mom, Drive-In

Retreat at Pegge’s Cabin – Pegge, my old campus minister, mentor and great friend graciously offered a 1/2 day retreat to the 5 of us, so on Friday morning we headed up 287 towards the Wyoming border & Pegge’s beautiful cabin.  We had an amazing time doing some great sharing, practical questions & answering (we got some great advice), did some quiet reflection, and then ended it with an awesome Lectio Devina with seeds.  For me personally I received a lot of clarity on some things I’ve had questions about in NCSC and my life in general.

Being up there made me realize just how much I missed being up at the cabin.  I realized the last time I was there was May of 2004, and it was an awesome feeling to be back up there with student leaders once again.  It is such a quiet and peaceful place, check out these pictures of Ross & Amanda journaling to get a sense of the beauty up there:

Also a retreat up at the cabin wouldn’t be complete without a Student Leader group picture

Being up there and seeing this group picture makes me a bit nostalgic for the good ‘ol days of Spirit Fire Retreats…  Ahh  Spirit Fire VII…

Joel, Emily, myself, Gina & Brian

Anyway back to the retreat…  We ended with a lunch of sandwiches and then made our way home…  Not before driving a whole 2 minutes to Wyoming and taking a picture there (to say that the NCSC people have been in that state), then we headed back home for a nap and to prepare for beer tasting.

Beer Tasting at New Belgium Brewery – We unfortunately ended up missing the beer tour (I thought it was at 2 & 4pm, but it turned out to be at 1pm, 2pm & 3pm.  We went straight over to the tasting room and found the bar.  Now for those of you who live in Fort Collins and haven’t done this yet – you need to do this at least some point!  It’s a really fun experience.  You sit yourself down at the bar and they give you a menu where you can select up to 4 different beers from.  As you can see in my picture on the right I was straining my brain doing just that.  At that point you and all of your friends have this little goblets of different beers that you can taste!

Maureen, Amanda, Ross & I all tasted!  There were a few beers that Maureen and Amanda didn’t really like and ended up not drinking, but Ross was happy to take care of them   I’m not really sure if I found a favorite among that batch.  I really like the Abbey, but I would have to say that I probably enjoyed Blue Paddle the best.  We then went down to Loveland to have dinner with my mom who made Kabobs, and then we headed up to the drive-in.

The Island at the Drive-In – Great movie!  I will have to write more about it later on, but if you’re hungry at all for a conceptual sci-fi flick or an action film, go check out this movie!  More on it to come…   Bethany also came, and it was sooo good to see her as well! Before the movie we stopped to get some Sonic, which many people hadn’t been to, we got some shakes and ice cream, except they didn’t have the Cream Slush available ARGGGH, oh well   One of the things that I love most about summer is sitting out in the open night air of Colorado and watching a movie.  It was a beautiful, clear and starry night, complete with a full moon and a good time was had by all.  On the way home people had to be crazy with the camera (as you can see Erin doing here…)

Saturday, July 23rd
Taking Amanda home , Estes Park, the People’s Republic of Boulder

After getting up the next morning at 6:30am to take Amanda to DIA to make her 9:30am flight, I got home at 9am hoping to get a few more hours of sleep.  As it turns out everyone pretty much slept until noon, except for Maureen who took the morning to capture her thoughts on the trip.  I enjoyed the extra hours of sleep.  After we all got up and had the breakfast Ross made for us, we set out to explore some of the mountains.

Big Thompson Canyon / Viestenz-Smith Mountain Park – We stopped at this little Gem up the Big Thompson canyon to spend some time in the river and enjoy the nature. We had a blast taking pictures, we must have taken at least 30 pictures down there.  Here are a few…

Ross, Maureen & Myself

Ross, Erin & Maureen ( I haven o idea what they’re doing, but the background is pretty )

Erin having too much fun with the water bottle (the expression on Maureen’s face says it all )

After having all of our fun in the canyon we finally made it to Estes Park, where it really began to rain.  I love the feeling of rain in the mountains!  We then walked a little bit of Estes before heading to Mass at Our Lady of the Mountain, then after Mass we went back into town to get some Salt Water Taffy…  I don’t think anyone really had any before we bought it, but it turned out to be really good   We had a small snack and then made our way down to Boulder to meet up with a few of my friends on Pearl Street.

Pearl Street Mall, Boulder – We rolled into Boulder around 7:15 and were lucky enough to find some close-by parking.  We then met up with Leanne and Joel (and eventually Emily) and started looking for a place to eat along the Pearl Street Mall.  Along the mall we got to see all of the street performers, exhibitors, interesting shops and of course HIPPIES!!   We ended up at this "Lucky Dog" grill which was on the roof overlooking the courthouse.  The weather held out, and we were treated to some great live music and fun atmosphere!

myself, Joel & Leanne toasting to a night on the town

Me finishing off my second beer (no more after that)

Old Town Fort Collins III – Walrus Ice Cream – After multiple attempts in the last few days, we managed to make it back up to Fort Collins before Walrus Ice Cream before they closed.  Unfortunately because we made it in the last 1/2 of them being opening, they were already starting to close and it wasn’t as "Walrus-y" as it typically was   But the ice cream was still pretty good. 

Sunday, July 25th
Move along home

The morning was pretty much spent taking people back to the airport.  I got up at 5:30am to take Maureen and Erin back, and then a few hours of sleep later I left at 10am to take Ross back to the airport.  I had lunch with my friend Sam and made my way back up to Fort Collins.  We already moved the extra beds out of my apartment yesterday afternoon, and it’s amazing how easy it was to get them out, but also how much they transformed my apartment yet again..  Now just to get things back to normal.

Overall the trip was a blast!  You never really realize just how many cool things you have in your area until you get to show people from out of town around.  Thank you to Maureen, Erin, Ross & Amanda for coming and visit me!  I hope that your travels bring you back some day soon!  To everyone else on the NCSC NT that wasn’t able to make it – we missed you, but you are also always welcome to come and visit me!  Thanks again to Emily, Pegge, Joel, Leanne, Bethany, my Mom and all the other people who helped make this trip possible!!  You guys rock!

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p align=”left”>I have a Photo Gallery set up with all the pictures that we took during the weekend.  Check it out if you’re interested!
>>Colorado Trip Photo Gallery