I really am high on the Rocky Mountains. I have only been here like 2 days and they have been an amazing 2 days. Right now I am sitting in the living room of a family from church. They are out of town and letting me stay here. I am on the couch watching the Rockets hopefully win AGAIN, looking outside and just waiting for it to start snowing. I am warm and cozy and going to get some studying done. I just feel so content and joyful.

Church this morning was great. It is so nice to go to a church where when you come in people are happy to see you and have missed you. I do not feel that in Abilene. I LOVE this church here. I was so blessed to see all the people I love and to even have someone on the missions committee say that they are praying for me and my team. Wow! And Bible class was typical Colorado. It was on Christianity and the environment and what our part is in all of it. Things I have actually been thinking about a lot.

Saturday I got up early and me and Jeremy drove to Rocky Mt. National Park for a day of snowshoeing. My favorite thing to do in CO!! We found a good trail and got going. It was very cold but we warmed up fast. We met a nice couple who took our picture and said they would send it to us since I forgot my camera and Jeremy forgot his memory card. The trail started out easy but then we kinda followed a trail less traveled and it began going up and up. It was tough but good. The snow was beautiful, we had AMAZING views of the mts. around us and no one else in sight. I just soaked in all the beauty and tried to remind myself why I moved back to A-town. We had no idea what we were climbing, but when we got down and looked at a map we were actually climbing Longs Peak. Oops! Eventually I got tired and we turned around.

Going up on snowshoes is hard because it was steep and you would slide a little with every step. Going down on snowshoes is hard because it was steep and you slid ALL the way down! Jeremy had fun just running and sliding, but my natural reaction for sliding down a mt. is to sit so I sat a lot and my butt got pretty wet despite my snow pants. Also, I still with every little slip picture my poor knee getting tagled up under me and tearing my ACL again, so I am a little more cautious. But we made it down faster than up and it was so fun.

But the fun did not last. While hiking I would say, without a way to really know, we got up past 11,000 ft. I had my usual high altitude feelings of shortness of breath, my entire body feeling oxygen deprived and not having a huge appetite, but that is all normal!

As soon as we got down from hiking is when the real trouble started. I had an awful headache and as soon as I sat in the car I felt sick to my stomach. We drove for a bit, and knowing myself I just needed to throw up so I had Jeremy drive fast and curvy which always works. We stopped, I did my thing and got back in the car thinking it was over. Nope! As soon as I got back in the feeling came back and less than 5 min. later I did my thing again. Yuck! We quickly got out of the park and stopped for some headache meds at the store. Again, I got in the car and no less than 5 seconds and I had to jump out. We were getting no where. So, we walked to a restaurant and I got a sprite and tums and just waited. I was shivering, pale, my head was pounding and I felt awful. So we stayed there for about an hour and until I felt like I could make it. And I did and felt fine. Whew! Never underestimate the power of altitude sickness. I dealt with it in high school on trek but it had been a while. Stupid low altitude Abilene!!!

Despite all that, my trip has been great so far. The rest of the week is going to be spent hanging out with my friends, relaxing, and studying. I cant wait! I hope I can convince myself to leave. It might be hard!