Felgers Go West!

Well its been a while since I posted last! We have been keeping busy with some new responsibilities serving in the youth group, Kevin is leading worship with Kari and I am head of the welcome/hospitality team and we both alternate with some other leaders to prepare and teach a message. I also recently led a Sexual Purity Retreat with my friend Lindsey for some young women and it was awesome to see these girls respond and open up to what God was laying on their hearts. These ladies left knowing they were valued by the true lover of their soul - Jesus and learned about Gods plan for sexual intimacy within marriage among many other  things. We got a great response from them so we plan on doing another one later this year. God has definitely taken me out of my comfort zone recently but he has done great things as a result! Yay God!

On to the topic of these post... Kevin and I went to Colorado Springs in October for our 3rd year anniversary and had a blast! This is the first time I have been out west. We arrived in Denver and drove about an hour away to Colorado Springs. I was a little worried because I was expecting mountains right away but when we landed it was completely flat! However we drove toward the mountains and I was giddy as they became bigger and bigger!

Our first Day we went to Garden of the Gods where there was some amazing huge rock formations! Pikes peak is right behind the Garden of the Gods in this picture.

This was called "kissing Camels" can you see them?

So beautiful! the rock was a deep red  color, we went in the morning this day but came back at sunset to get some more dynamic pictures.

yup I was a happy lady!

This was one of the smaller formations

throughout the park you had views of Pike Peak which the clouds were hiding most of the day. We also saw some interesting birds I think magpies? but they were hard to capture because they were so fast.

We got to visit a close friend of ours Emily. She used to live in Thailand as a teacher and lead teen missions trips in the summer. She moved from Ohio to Colorado to be close to her brother and nieces. She showed us around the city and we ate at a local favorite pizza shop! 

The Next day we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo which was actually constructed on the side of a mountain and had the most amazing views! My favorite part was feeding the Giraffes! We fed them lettuce and the gladly ate with their long slippery tongue!

At the end of the Zoo up the mountain a bit further was a memorial to Will Rogers it was neat! This picture shows the view from the memorial. (Kevin took this picture as he is scared of heights and was hesitant to go out on the overlook :) )

We Went to the Garden of the Gods again to take some more pictures and visit the giftshop at Balancing Rock.

The next day we picked up Grandma Coralie (from Jim and Tammy's house; Kevin's aunt and uncle that live in Colorado) and went to drive up Pikes Peak. This picture shows the damage from the forest fires a few months before we arrived; you can see the trees are burnt up charred skeletons now. right below this mountain was a small community they were saved by their local firemen who worked hard to prevent the fire from coming all the way down and destroying the town. There were signs up everywhere saying "Thanks for saving our town!"

 It took about an hour to drive to the top of Pikes Peak on a very narrow road without guardrails! it was scary for Kevin who was driving and Grandma could hardly look out the window without freaking out! I was enjoying it and snapping pictures the whole way up :)

Once we reached the top this was the breathtaking view; literally you got light headed up this high but you could see the Rockies waaaay off in the distance as far as the eye could see! So incredible!

Im stading at the top of Pikes Peak! Kevin actually climbed Pikes Peak a few years back so he has been here before but this was my first time! 

This was the cog railway up to Pike Peak but it would take 4 hours to get to the top and it was like $30 per person so we just drove instead

Here is Grandma! Oh yeah and it was super cold up top and very windy! I think it was 28 degrees up here but 65 down below!

Hehe!

 After Pikes Peak we went to Manitou Springs for shopping! I found a bead shop and bought some beads and such to make a necklace that reminded me of Colorado. We found an olive oil shop where you could taste the different oils and vinegars and fill up a bottle to take home so we got rosemary olive oil and it was yummy! 

The next day we went to the Air Force Academy to check out the chapel Emily told us about. It was gorgeous! the stained glass gave it intense color inside and the architecture was quite unique. We were able to witness I think it was a 5 oclock flag salute or something; all the cadets stopped in their tracts while the National Anthem played. Pretty neat!

I will upload more pictures on a picasa web album once its done uploading if you want to see more I will paste a link here.