Red River

My niece Ashy has a word she uses a lot.

It’s “Amazing”.

“This dessert is amazing, this smells amazing, my aunt Angel is amazing”.  Well, actually, I made that last one up.  She’s never really said that, but it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t.

It’s a bit ironic.  Her middle name is Grace and she was born under distressing circumstances, yet pulled through and has been our little miracle ever since.  My dad quickly nicknamed her “Amazing Gracie”.

So here we are in Red River, New Mexico, and according to Ashlynn everything is simply “Amazing”.  The mountains are amazing, the smells are amazing, the air is amazing.  And she’s right.

We’re vacationing with some of our good, best friends,the Hoganson’s (Matt, Jaxson, Revelle, and Gage) and enjoying it abundantly.

We’ve spent our day fishing and catching moss.

Then we rented jeeps to head “off road” and upward.

Of course like everything else at the beginning, the excitement and anticipation is high.   Everyone is all smiles.

But after two wrong turns, four hours, and three stops to pee in the woods we were ready to get back on level ground, or at least some smooth pavement.

It was a bumpy, rough ride I tell you.

At the end of it, our teeth were rattled, our bones were jarred and Matt is worried that Emma might be retarded now.

But boy, was it pretty.

Here’s proof:

I love this Aspen forest.  Isn’t it enchanting?  I imagine myself in a long flowing white dress sitting in its midst with butterflies and fairies dancing around my head and unicorns eating sparkly food from my hand.  I’m weirder than weird.  I already know.

But my most favorite picture is this one.

Isn’t it amazing?