Whew! What a journey this has been! We have all travelled just over 2000 miles from Oceanside, CA to Lakeside, MT. It was a bit more than we bargained for in many ways, but God has blessed us along the way. I'll try to hit some of the highlights with a few pictures to help out.

On the left is our truck and trailer. We packed everything we own into the trailer and we figure it weighed about 6000 pounds by the time we were done. Both axles had less than a 1/4" of clearance before bottoming out. The truck, as you can see, is massive. It seats 6 and is gets about 7 mpg when towing the trailer. It just has montana written all over it though.
Here again is our camp in Zion National Park, which I must admit was the best camp we were at the whole trip. Just beautiful. There was also a river about 100 feet away where we could swim. Canyon was all around us. awesome place.









After Zion we drove up to Bryce National Park. We dropped the truck and trailer off in Utah to save gas as we decided to go to Colorado and say hi to some family. (It's only a couple a hundred miles out of the way!) The camping in Bryce got a little cold, so much so that in the middle of the night I got the kids out of thier tent and brought them into ours. We had thought that we'd be dying of heat in these parts in the middle of August..I guess not.


Yes, that's us in the middle there. We hiked down into the canyon and loved it and regretted it all at the same time. We were all in flip flops which I don't recommend. It was about 2 miles and very steep both ways.













This is cowboy Jonny. His Opa gave him this hat and he takes to it quite well.


















Oma and Opa took us all on a horse ride once we got to Pagosa Springs, CO. Cowboy Jonny and I shared a horse.

We stayed in Pagosa for 3 nights because we were getting so spoiled there. Oma was cooking for three days just in preparation for our arrival. It was awesome to stay in a house after a few days of camping.







Sleepy Jessika.













Here is the clan at the grand canyon. Ruth, Jessika, Dave, Jonny, Matthew and Donna from left to right. If you didn't know, we were travelling with the Bells from Australia (throw another shrimp on the barbie!) They are going to Montana with us and Dave Bell and I are going to taking the School of Biblical studies together.







This is Jonny's happy time. cozy warm while we do all the cooking and prep'n for a days journey.













This is Heaven on earth for Jessika. Nothing beats a day of horsing around in her book.













This is Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. Lots of old indian ruins nestled in the rocks.














After Colorado we high-tailed it to Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately about 50 miles short of it, our truck decided that it was finished. Actually the transmission went out. Dave and I spent the we hours of the night waiting in the highway for a tow truck. This was particularly interesting because we were on a very steep uphill and the truck was completely in the highway. luckily we were a bit after a sharp turn and there was another lane to pass us. All the same I hope it never happens again. We got the truck to Bucks Auto Repair in Ashton, ID by 1am that night. I guess when you have to pay $2200 for a transmission you can't complain too much if it's in a truck that you paid $1000 for.....Speaking of Bucks Auto Repair, here is a shot of a buck in yellowstone.

You guessed it OLD FAITHFUL! there is so much awesome stuff in Yellowstone. boiliing mud pools, buffalo, deer, waterfalls. It's hard to decide what pictures to throw in. This is the coolest National Park ever. They even sell ice cream.










Yes, this is Montana. August 31st. It's actually hail covering the ground, but it gave us a good taste of what's to come.














Here is the house we are renting for the year. Unfortunately the Bells felt that God had called them to live on the YWAM base, and Ruth and I felt we should stay here. We didn't think God would be splitting us up, but sometimes things are different than you hope. We are still excited to be here and start moving in.

The kids started school a few days ago (27th?) and they love it. I have two weeks before I start my school at YWAM, so we are moving in and cleaning up for now.


Below is our first snowman. I think we'll have more of these.