Weekend Adventure

This is normally the time of year when people blog about how thankful they are for everything wonderful in their lives, due to the Thanksgiving holiday and all. I thought about doing that, even started a post, but I'm just going to skip over that whole blog. Why? Because I wasn't feeling it. I didn't want to force merriment and be fake about the whole thing. I spent pretty much the entire day alone. Chris worked the night before, of, and after Thanksgiving. We ate KFC. I missed my family. It was sad, lonely, and depressing. Don't get me wrong. There are so many things I'm thankful for in life, my husband, two homes, family, and the fact that I have a job and can bring money into our household, all the normal stuff. I just wasn't feeling it that day, or Friday. But there was something that turned the whole weekend around, which brings me to this:We drove up to Vail and Eagle to see Kelton this weekend!

My little brother was up in Eagle, Colorado for High Altitude Training with a couple crews from his unit. We drove up Saturday afternoon to see him, and stayed the night in Vail so we could see him again Sunday morning.

Vail is so beautiful! It's cozy and quaint and cute. I absolutely LOVED it up there. I could totally live there! Sadly, it's quite pricey :( And if I'm going to live there, I want to be a rich housewife who doesn't have to work, so I can snowboard whenever I want to...

Anyways, on Sunday morning, Kelton took us out to the Colorado National Guard Base in Eagle. We saw the helicopter he works on everyday! It was seriously one of the coolest things I have ever done. Who gets to go climb all over an Army helicopter?! Chris and I sat in the pilots' seats and looked at all the controls and radios. Kelton opened up the top and showed us the engines and all the cool stuff that makes them fly. He told us about his job and showed us the hoist. He told us stories about being in Afghanistan and on base. It was amazing to see what he does everyday. The number of lives his unit has saved and the amount of people they have helped is staggering. I'm so proud to say this, but Kelton's unit is THE most decorated unit in the Army! How amazing is that? They even won an award for Best Rescue of the Year earlier this year for a rescue when he was in Afghanistan (ask me, and I'll tell you the story). I'm so proud of him!

The firebird on the engine is their company sign or mascot or symbol or something. Please excuse Kelton's silly face :) He hates pictures... Yup, that's me in the pilot seat! You wouldn't believe how many freakin' controls those things have!!! Kelton showing us the hoist, and holy controls, Batman!The view from Kelton's normal seat in the chopper:

The trip was great, and I was so glad I got to see Kelton, especially since I missed him the last time he was home! But it really was a good thing we left when we did. The trip from Eagle to Brighton is normally about 2 hours and 20 minutes. I took us 5.5 hours to get back home! Wow, it was a long drive. It's really difficult to see it in this picture, but the line of cars in front of us (and behind us!) in both lanes goes as far as you can see. They ended up closing the road not too long after we got through! It was totally insane, but worth it to see Kelton and play on a helicopter :)

And this lovely gem was a sign we saw on a cattle truck we were behind. It was hilarious! We ended up getting stuck next to the trucker for a while, so we rolled down the window and talked to him. We told him we liked his sign.