Thanks for all of the advice

Thank you to everyone who left us advice, it will prove extremely helpful, I am sure. It is always best to prevent problems rather than deal with them as they arise. I really can't believe that we are going to be leaving in just a few weeks! This really is a trip of a life-time. Jessica and I have been talking on the phone, planning what to take, etc...it is a very exciting time for all four of us. When I have a hard time sleeping I think about all of the "things" I need to remember and I try to talk to Ari and he tells me to go back to sleep and stop talking! : ) I guess my timing is poor!

We have been busy this week, our neighhor kids are staying with us while their mom is in Denver for training...(she's my friend Christy that I mention from time to time, she works with Ari as a deputy.) Tenae is 13 and Sierra is 9. We have had a lot of fun hanging out together, doing homework when they get home from school in the afternoons, making bead necklaces, etc...

Tonight we rode the gondola down into town and I accidentally left my brand-new cell phone on it and some Hispanic guy tried to steal it! We got off the gondola, realized I had left it, ran strait back and rode up just two cars behind it. (The gondola has three separate stations where it slows down and you can get on and off it.) When it stopped next I ran ahead and asked the car if they had found a cell phone...they looked like an honest bunch, plus the gondola operators had already asked them, they denied it both times! I called my phone and the hispanic guy answered and when he realized it was the phone's owner, he promptly hung up. I called back about twenty times before he finally answered it again, plus I had all of the gondola workers on the look out for it...he hardly spoke any english, so I did my best with the spanish and figured out that he would bring it to us with in five or ten minutes. I had already called the local police to report the guy after he first hung up on me, and they showed up right after he told me he'd return it, so I felt really stupid, especially because this officer knows Ari, etc... So, we waited for about a half an hour, the nice police officer said he doubted if I'd ever see my phone again. I called Ari and he called my phone and talked to the guy to find out where the heck he was...I called the guy back, again and asked where he was and then I asked what he was wearing so that I could find him when I found him and he told me that he was wearing a "blue car." No joke! : ) Talk about a language barrier! Ari finally tracked him down about two miles from where he said he was and got my phone back, thank God! The End!

We finally got to go eat dinner, and boy was it good! I have been craving a "diner" burger for a while now...something like an "old fashioned maid" or "top burger" sounded so good, so I found a little place in Telluride called "The Sweet Life" and boy was it ever! Yum. So, a happy ending to a stressful few hours. I am suddenly really glad that Ari's mom doesn't have means to read our blog because she is the one who bought us the phones and I would feel really badly if she knew that I had almost lost her gift. : )

Well, that's all folks! Thanks for sticking with my long story...it felt very dramatic as it happened, but not so much when I re-read what I wrote, sorry! : ) Hope all it well in blogger land.