Silverton , Ouray...our weekend get-a-way

Well the weekend has come and gone. It never seems to be long enough. This has been another great weekend for our family. We got to spend lots of time hanging out with eachother and we got to see some pretty cool things. On Friday night we went to the local high school's homecoming football game. The kids really enjoyed it and I was able to try to teach them some things while we were watching, it's different when they are at the game compared to when I am watching the game on T.V. At home they don't seem to be really interested but they paid pretty close attention for the first half of the game. It was no surprise that Dayna started imitating the cheerleaders routines and by the end of the night Dax was cupping his hands around his mouth yelling "Go Football!" whatever that means, but at least he was getting into it. We left for home at half time, the kids were ready for bed, but the next day we got to play football in the house, we had huddles and plays, we were all on the blue team (Piedra Vista the local school here) and we were playing against the red team.

 On Saturday we woke up to another beautiful morning, I took the kids to the park down the street to let Janelle shower and get things organized for the day. Dax and Dayna took one toy each, they decided to play a game with the toys which involved burying them in the sand. I'm not sure why I didn't come into this game earlier but by the time I did get involved Dayna had buried her toy and she couldn't remember where it was. We looked and looked, I asked her if she had any idea of where it might be, she said no. I took off my sandals and drug my feet through the sand hoping to find the lost toy, Dayna started on her hands and knees dragging her fingers through the sand looking for the toy until she popped up and said "I have a better idea" she ran over by the swings and knelt down and said a prayer, she came over with a big smile on her face, and she told me that she had asked Heavenly Father to help her find her toy. I continued to look for the toy while she watched Alana on the playground. I was looking for quite sometime, I couldn't figure where else it could be. I kept thinking, Dayna said a prayer I have to find this toy, then I realized that I hadn't said a prayer to help find the toy, so I said a quick prayer in my heart, and a few minutes later we found the evil purple spider girl toy. It made me realize that there is a lot that we can learn from our children their thoughts and ideas are so simple, and we're quick to complicate things. So anyway it was a fun way to start the day.

This weekend was general conference, we decided to record Saturdays sessions and take the kids for a drive to get them out of the house. The colors are changing at the higher altitudes in southwestern Colorado, so we decided to go for a ride up that way.

  We went to a couple of old small mining towns called Silverton and Ouray (pronounced Ooray).  The town was really cool, it was full of old shops and some hotels, and saloon like restaurants. The town itself was nestled in the mountains, pretty isolated.

 We walked across town, Alana always wants to walk now, so we let her down and the three kids held hands and walked up the sidewalk, they were quite the crowd pleasers, all of the grandmas were so impressed. One older lady stopped me and said you have such a beautiful family, they made my day. We really are blessed with cute and well behaved kids.

  There is a narrow gauge railroad that runs between Durango and Silverton, we walked over to the train when we heard it pulling into town. Its an old locomotive with the smoke and everything. The kids thought it was pretty cool until it was departing and let out its big whistle when we were right next to it. Dax jumped out of his shorts pretty much and Alana about jumped out of my arms.

 There is a BBQ place that was featured on the Food Network called Thee Pits Again (whatever that means), it was really good.  I love how dax is pretending he is so full!!

  We walked over to a small park near the public library and elementary school in Silverton and the kids played there for awhile. Then we packed up and drove up to Ouray, the road is very narrow and windy in places. There are old abondoned mining buildings along the way. It was really really pretty. I stopped several times to take pictures, much to Janelle's dismay because I would wake the kids up everytime I would hop out of the car to take a pic. I guess the region was huge in the mining industry in the 1880s, they estimated that 1/4 of a billion dollars (in todays money) of silver, gold, zinc, copper and other metals were mined out of the region. It consisted of about 20 mines. Anyway, the kids enjoyed it but not as much as Janelle and I did. The colors were very pretty, there are a lot of aspen trees that turn bright yellow out here. The weather was perfect. We came back into town and went to Baskin Robins for ice cream. We all enjoyed a cold treat after a long day of seeing the sights.

Today we got to watch two sessions of general conference, its always great to here from the leaders of the church and receive counsel that is applicable in our homes in our day. We went over to our friends the Shepherds for dinner and the kids got to play with halloween costumes and now we've returned in they are all in bed so I thought that I'd get this email off before the days over.



Well that is it for our happenings this weekend, hope you're all doing great. We love and appreciate all that you do and have done for our family. I know that we've lived away from a lot of you for a long time now, but we always feel close to our family and blessed to be surrounded by so much love and support. Hope you all have a great upcoming week, and don't forget to count your blessings!



Jon, Janelle, Dayna, Dax, and Alana



P.S. check out our blog for additional pics, Janelle usually posts them sometime during the week, the web address is dadicksons.blogspot.com if you haven't seen the video of Alanas b-day cake its a must see.