Courtney B. Giles

Since Courtney is usually the one posting on this here blog, there are seldom stories proclaiming her greatness. So I, her loving, handsome and Mr. Universe-esque husband, have decided to highjack cyberspace and make it known how freakin' awesome she really is!

The picture to the left is Courtney dominating an 70 foot rock climb called "the Itch" which is rated a 5.9+ (editors note: I realize the vast majority of this blogs readers have no idea what 5.9+ means. Just say to yourself "WOW, that sounds hard! Courtney must be a tremendous climber!). So far, she is the only member of our wilderness staff to complete this climb clean (again, let's not get bogged down in climbing terminology. However, it means she didn't fall or use the rope in anyway). That's right, this girl is the mother of two and has not climbed anything in two years. And still she out climbs our staff. Including the writer of this post, which I would like to remain anonymous please.

This week she is out camping and leading one of our three groups. She is overseeing over 55 people camping, hiking, rock climbing, rappelling and rafting. And still has time to "never ever let me forget I'm a man. Because she is a woman." I don't know what that means it just used to be a TV commercial and got stuck in my head. She pretty much does everything for the ministry of Compass, she is an incredible mother to our sirelings and is the best wife a man could ever ask for. All this and she cleanly climbs a 5.9+ after a two year layoff! Unbelieveable this woman!

Anyway, I am getting tired and should go to bed. The bed that is in the condo that I am in right now while Courtney is out camping in the wild wilderness.

The Condo

Some of you may have heard about how lovely the condo is that we live in. Now don't get me wrong, we are blessed to have a place to stay for the two months. This is the only place in Cascade (where we keep our groups) that lets you rent monthly. That said the place is NOT the Taj Mahal. We have one room for the all the girl staffers (5 of them). Another room for all the boy staffers (another 5). One room for the married couple, one room for Lance and I, ane 1 room for Nash & Beck. It is tight quarters and the decor is what really takes the cake. One of the big motifs in Durango is the Southwest theme, and this condo fully embraces it. I will let the slide show speak for itself.

Now in the main living room, the mantle decor is just large rocks and what some would call a "flower arrangement". Upon closer inspection the vessel that holds the "flower arrangement" is actually an orange juice container with the handle cut off. I think that sums it up , no more explanation needed.

Brotherly Love

Nash is really starting to like Beck now. He keeps asking to hold him and hug him. The holding is ok, but the hugging turns into more of a tackle. I got this picture this morning at breakfast when they decided they loved each other. It pretty much melts my heart.

Seriously

For most of you that have visited or lived in the mountains you know that it is somewhat common for it to rain most afternoons in July. It really is known as the rainy season. That being said this year is insane. We have had rain almost every day for two and half weeks. This week has been the worst. Usually the rain come in during the afternoon and stays for an hour or two. Today it started raining at 9:30 in the morning and has been off and on next day. As we consult weather.com we see that it is supposed to keep raining until at least next Saturday. Yeah!! We have two camping groups next week. We might never dry off.

Mini Golf

We found out this past week that Nash loves mini golf. We went to play with the Giles family while they were here and he has asked every day since to go play again. He does kind of make up his own rules though. He takes the golf ball, walks to the hole, and sets the ball down somewhere close to the hole. He then uses the putter for the first time to hit the ball into the hole. I'm pretty sure he is the next Tiger Woods.

Cad and Vicki - I guess this means that we are ready for the mini golf outing.

The Bar D

You must say "The Bar D" with the thickest country accent you can muster to really get yourself in the proper mindset for this post. On Monday night (yeah I'm late) the Giles family went to the Bar D Chuckwagaon show and dinner. As most of you know I am not really a country girl but I love the Bar D. That said I can only go every 2or 3 years to really appreciate it. What is the Bar D you might ask? Well the Bar D is a dinner and show all set out under the stars down on the outskirts of Durango. This summer they are celebrating their 40th year of entertaining families. You go and have a chuckwagon meal, which consists of some kind of BBQ meat, beans, potato, applesauce, biscuit, and spice bread. You can either drink water or lemonade. I think you are already getting the feel of the place. After dinner the Bar D Wranglers all play their guitars, fiddles, or bass and sing cowboy songs. Some of the songs are funny, some are gospels, and some are just country. The entire time we were there I had this feeling that one of my friends would fit in great here and after a while I realized this is the place for Lindsey K. Dowdy. (I mean I can totally see your family hanging out here.) I had a great time even if I did stick out like a sore thumb.

This is our attempt at being country. Even with the hats we still fail.

Hiking with the Giles family

Lance's family has been here on vacation since the 5th so most of the week we have spent with them. This worked out really well because we only had one Compass group this week and it was 14 people. The family members that came are Linda & Gary (Lance's mom and dad), Brent, Dawn, Benjamin, and Matthew(Lance's oldest brother, wife, and kids). We have had a great time with them. They have wanted to go hiking almost everyday so of course we happily oblige. Here are some pictures of the Giles' family on their many hikes.

July 4th

On the fourth we always go to Silverton to watch the fireworks. Usually we do not have groups in town the week of the fourth but this year we did so they just came with us. Silverton is the town north of Durango and is best known for being where the train ends. That is pretty much its whole existence. Needless to say Silverton is tiny. It has a population of around 300. That said they have the best fireworks display ever (next to Disney probably) so we keep going. The town gets packed with people and it is so cool to see everyone with their friends and family. It always makes me a little home sick, but instead of wanting to go home I want everyone to come to Silverton. Here are just a couple pictures of the boys during our time there.





The last reason that I love going to Silverton on the fourth is because of this picture. How many of you got to dress like this to watch fireworks?

Compass Ministry Part 2

So we have had two more weeks of groups since I talked about the ministry side of things. After coming off two awesome weeks to start the summer we had high expectations. Things did not go as well as we had hoped. The hard thing about running a ministry in which we only see kids for a week is that sometimes we do not see the work that the Lord is doing. These past two weeks were like that. We know that the Lord was working and that things were changing in these kids hearts, but we did not see the fruit or even any outward expression of things changing. It gets discouraging for our staff in these so called "dry spells" but we have to be faithful and keep doing what the Lord has called us to do. We might never know the impact we had long term for these kids. All that to say we would love some prayer for the next four weeks of groups that will finish off the summer. We have a group arriving as I type and then three weeks after that. Please keep our family, Compass, and our students that we minister to in your prayers.
Courtney

Back to the Eighties

My sons might never really know what the 80's were like, but they sure looked like it the other day. On Saturday some of the staff were bored so they decided to use their video camera to make some music videos. They used the clothes they had to make some lovely outfits and went down to the parking garage to dance their hearts out. Nash wanted in on the action so the included him too.



Not wanting to leave Beck out, when they returned they gave him one of the bandanas to wear. Here he is with Alyssa.



In a rare instance of playing together here is Nash and Beck in their bandanas.