Moose. This was taken crouching about 40 feet away from this moose in Rocky Mountain National Park last weekend.

Fish Creek Falls, Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Nancy and I celebrated our 9th Anniversary by going to Steamboat Saturday and Sunday. We stayed at a guesthouse at a ranch and had a good time getting away. The falls were the last thing we saw while we were in Steamboat and they were breathtaking.

Emma (5 yrs old) took this action shot of Corben the other day. She gets some pretty cool shots. I'm going to have to make an art blog for all the stuff she comes up with.

This is a shot of a nice Bull Elk along Trail Ridge. I am posting this here because I posted a version to Flickr that had some color issues.

passion versus reality

I've been struggling and searching myself lately trying to reconcile the things I'm passionate about and the things I'm actually doing.

I could spend a lot of time going into the details, but that would only make for an excessively long post and dilute the basic idea. I'll try and highlight the whole dilemma.

I want to create a camp. A camp that embodies authentic community, service, faith, art, worship, a love for the out-of-doors and "the building-up of people." I have had a plan for six or seven years to get to that point. I am in the next-to-last part of that plan and am not sure how to move from where I am to what it is that I want to do.

I have fears that I will get stuck in this stage and not see the realization of my dream, or that my plan was flawed and I'm not supposed to be in this stage at all. I feel some pressure from life and people I know to pursue this stage of my plan -- because I told people and myself that this stage was important and part of the plan.

I'm afraid that I'll get caught focusing on the ladder rather than climbing it to where I was originally headed. I'm also afraid that if I fail at this stage that I can't realize my dream -- becuase this stage may be necessary in order to reach my dream.

Separately, I'm afraid that people will see me as a flake for not completing this stage if I bypass it (for me, this stage is only part of the process, not the goal).

So I feel stuck in a moment and I can't get out of it...

When I get to this place, I ask for Divine intervention. "God, give me some indication of what to do or which direction to head. I don't want to settle for where I'm at, but I don't want to waste my life pursuing things that take me away from what I should do. I'll keep on this path so I don't sit still, but could you put someone or some circumstance in my way to let me know if this is right or not?"

Wow, what a view! This is just out the driver's-side window as we drove along Trail Ridge Road.

Some shots of Dan and Bill from this past weekend. It was pretty wild to go from 90-degree heat to the snowfields along Trail Ridge within 24 hours.

Some fauna from this past weekend. Dan and Bill came out to shoot at my cousin's ranch. Yesterday we drove over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park.

This past weekend Nancy, the kids and I went to visit Nick and Jesse in Estes Park. We have known them for years, and they have been an importand part of our lives for a long time. They have an amazing home with an unbelievable view. They made a delicious lunch, then Jesse and we went on a walk. We had a great time visiting.

This is the view from their deck.

Click here for the fullsize version. (dial-up folks, don't do it)

Last weekend David and Becky flew out with their yougest son Lucas. Here is all of us hanging out in the living room. I think Lucas and Corben were already in bed.

I think I can, I think I can...

I feel like I'm just rounding the corner on the ride home from a very intense white-water rafting trip. The past month or so has been so crazy it's almost painful to think about, although there have been a lot of cool things happening.

This past weekend, my brother David, his wife Becky, and their youngest son Lucas came up from Atlanta and stayed with us. Nancy was putting together a baby shower for Andrew and Miriam and their new daughter Katelyn. Meanwhile, I'm neck deep in work, and we still haven't completely moved in to our new house.

Last weekend, we went to Nebraska to spend some time with family at the ranch. On Monday night we headed toward home amidst really bad weather. We got to Sidney, NE and decided to have dinner at Perkin's. When we left Perkin's our left-front tire was almost completely flat. We couldn't find a gas station with an air hose that worked or any fix-a-flat. I didn't want to drive home on the spare unless I absolutely needed to, since we would have no backup if anything happened to it.

I finally made it to the 24-hour Walmart in Sidney, bought some fix-a-flat, then got directions to free air at Sinclair on Hwy 30 in Sidney.

I thank God for allowing us to get the flat while we were in Sidney rather than out in the middle of nowhere. I thank Him also for letting us find a 24-hour Walmart, and of course I thank Him for getting us home safely.

We didn't get home until around 3am, about 6 hours after we had left the ranch.

We had cold rainy weather the entire time we were in Nebraska, which allowed us a really good opportunity to visit. The bad weather started as we headed out of Fort Collins, and as we drove back across the Colorado state line Monday night the sky cleared and we had decent weather for a few days.

Tuesday I was thrown immediately into a frenzy with several jobs that all came to a head last week. I went 2 days without sleep -- taking breaks from my computer to eat and occasionally stretch.

I worked until fairly late in the afternoon Friday, then shut off my machine and did not check email or look at it for any other reason until this morning.

I was able to spend some nice time with the family this weekend. It is always great to spend time with David and Becky, and when Andrew and Miriam and my folks and Rachel can all come we really have a good time.

Kim couldn't make it up from San Antonio or we would have had a full family reunion.

This weekend was free fishing weekend here in Colorado, and during the baby shower all the men went with their sons to City Park and went fishing. Emma came t since fishing sounded more fun than a baby shower. We all caught trout and had a good time.

I have a few loose ends with a few projects, then hopefully I can move into some new work that will be a little more sanely paced for the next stretch.

Dan and Bill are coming in less than 2 weeks to go to Nebraska. That will be my next big activity as far as I know now. The following week is our 9th anniversary, and I need to finish planning something for us to do.

So far July has several "maybe" activities, but there is enough going on between now and then that I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

In other news, we have pretty much committed to go back to Peak Community Church. We had been attending the Vineyard here in Fort Collins and really enjoyed that, we have definitely become close with our small group and will continue to be involved with them. We decided to go back to Peak because of the relationships that we have had there since my first weeks in Colorado right after high School.

The people that make up Peak are great. They have been looking for a Pastor for almost 2 years, and I think they have found him. He spoke yesterday morning at Peak and we met him briefly. Next Sunday we will have a vote, and I feel pretty certain that he will be called.

I think us going back there will be a big step in our overall Spiritual life since we have really been trying to get back into serving within the Church, and there are some really good opportunities there.

Well I'm off to draw. Monday night is the weekly life drawing class that I moderate, and we have a very pregnant model tonight, which should make for some cool drawings.

I'll post some pics from the weekend later this week.