The all American Roadtrip

My spirit soars and leaps within me as we pass one extraordinary view after the next...
"I can understand why they call this "Big Country"", I say to Amanda as yet another awe inspiring mountain covered in snow passes in the distance.

The snow covers everything blurring the boundaries put in place by man made fences and roads and unites a landscape into one beautiful white woolen blanket.
It doesn't matter what lies beneath, all that's seen is the beauty that was deposited on the ground by heaven itself the
night before reminding me of that awesome scripture where God says to his people, "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."
Last time one of the things that I mentioned was that we were not to let what was wrong with us stop us from worshiping what was right with God. If we could raise up our eyes and see the landscape the way God sees it we would live differently. We would ski over the boundaries that seem to hinder us and snowboard over the mountains that seem so unfriendly knowing that God has washed away the boundaries placed by men (Mt 19:6, "with God all things are possible.") and has set us free to live a life of adventure with Him (Jn 8:36, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.").

Our point of departure was from an awesome family in Colorado Springs,

Andie and Wendy Ingram, who gave us their beautiful basement apartment to stay in for a couple of days.
TIME TO KNIT: I have been wanting to knit for ages, I dont think Leon has ever seen me knit in our 12 years of marriage! I went to the Wal-Mart and bought some needles and funky wool and knit the girls each a scarf. I can only remember Pearl & Plain so the scarves are various versions of that. I think the internet is amazing, I couldn't remember how to cast off my stitches so Leon googled it for me. Making pom-poms to sew onto the scarves took me back to my primary school days. The girls laughed when they saw me knitting and said I looked like a cute little ol' granny!

As we left, Andie lent us his Christmas present - A GPS!! without which we would have had many needless headaches. This gadget was soooo cool!!! It even listed hotels and places of interest as we travelled so that we didn't have to drive around asking prices. All we did was ask it to list the hotels in the town with their phone numbers and once we decided on one we would hit the "Guide me" button and it would take us directly to the front door. Sweet!
They also lent us some skiing equipment which came in handy.

Mands posing in her ski clothes.


















Yip we're going skiing!!! Yay!!
A friend of our's (Seth Jnr.) uncle (Whom we've never met may I add) said that we could spend a weekend at his condo near a ski resort called Winter Park.
Well lets' just say that it's not as easy as those good looking models make it look as they carve up the mountain side with those frozen smiles on their faces ;-) The sad news is that I didn't want to get my camera ruined on the mountain so there's no pictures of Amanda's petrified face as she came careering down the bunny slope or of the kids showing their folks how it's supposed to be done or of me plowing face first into the rather hard turf...
The good news? Here are some pics of afterwards ;-)













After we spent a couple of days in the mountains we headed towards none other than the one, the only, the ever elusive.... (Drum roll here...) Disneyland!!

What was so exciting about this was that it was done entirely in Faith.
Let me explain... we were expecting some money to come in but it hadn't arrived yet and we couldn't wait any longer or else the timing wouldn't have worked out. So off we went.

The trip was part of the experience which made it absolutely exciting.
Amanda said something that I would like to put in here... she said, "Families need fewer holidays and more adventures together"

Selah.

So with Andie's trusty GPS on board and a sense of adventure in our hearts, we decided to brave the back roads of the "New Tame West"... and set a heading for Anaheim California. It ended up taking us three days to get there but it was three days well spent. Our first port of call was Steamboat Springs. (A tourist trap of note with an awesome ski hill in the background). But not without first stopping in the mountains to frolic in the half meter deep ice cold snow.













It was snowing out so we being the tourists we are went for walk ;-) Met up with Abe Lincoln also enjoying the fresh fall of snow.

After that we headed into the desert in Utah...

No American road trip is complete without going through Las Vegas. With it's miriad of chappels and bright lights... This city truly is Sin City and to be honest Mandz and myself couldn't wait to move on.

Next came Los Angeles, Anaheim and the reason for our trip in the first place... Disneyland.

We decided to go scope out the land the night we arrived to make sure we got the most of our stay here. The price of the tickets were shocking! While we were in the queue contemplating how we were going to afford this, a lady walked up to us and asked if were going to Disneyland? We said yes and she then handed us 2 tickets to the value of R1500.00!!
Being the true South African's we are we immediately thought that this was some sort of scam ;-) But it wasn't, it truely was our heavenly Father wanting to just bless us.
Yes we all know that God can bless us but we sometimes struggle with the fact that He WANTS to. It was exactly what we needed. Without that blessing there would have been no Disneyland.
Do we serve an abundantly generous God or what?
So without much further adu, they say a picture speaks a thousand words...

We sapped Disney Dry... 15 hours later...

The next day we went to the Beach... much to Talitha's dismay. "BUT why we're here so short?"

The way back was rushed, but we did manage to pop by that big gash in the ground called the Grand Canyon... It was VERY impressive!!

To see more of the photos that didn't make it onto this blog head on over to Facebook and see there. www.facebook.com Look for Leon Laubscher.
(We also name our pics there as well as coment on what they are etc.)