Day 18, July 17, 2011

Today, Sunday, we headed to Breckenridge to church.  Nancy has a high school friend who lives there (he is part of the team of people helping to plan their 50th reunion).  Gene Pflum and his wife Mary attend the Father Dyer Methodist Church in Breckenridge, where we were warmly welcomed.  The church was full and overflowing as all the members came to hear the first service by their new pastor.  His sermon was about the importance of cherishing past events and traditions, but not letting them hold us back from obeying the Biblical command to change and move forward, having faith that all will turn out as God wills it.

After church we first headed over to a nearby church that partners with the Methodist church for mission work.  They were having a bake sale in benefit of their mission work in Honduras. 

The churches of Breckenridge have worked in villages near La Entrada, Honduras, just over the mountains from where we live in La Esperanza. (It's about 4 hours driving but that's only because of the roads.  The communities are really quite similar.)

We also enjoyed admiring the many colorful gardens in Breckenridge, full of poppies and columbine.

Next we went to Gene and Mary's lovely mountain home where they prepared a delicious lunch for us.  The kids enjoyed riding their grandkids' multiple wheeled vehicles, most of which were too small which made them all the more hilariously fun to ride.

We adults ate more sophisticated fare, but the kids ate hot dogs which they roasted themselves (aren't they always better that way?)

We were going to make s'mores before leaving, but we ran out of time because we had a theater date, so we rescheduled the dessert for after the play.  The play, a new take on "The Three Little Pigs" was absolutely wonderful!  There were only five actors and six main characters: the turkey buzzard who encouraged the gentle wolf to be bad also doubled as the farmer's wife who jeopardized his little pigs' safety by sending them into the woods to hunt for truffles.  One of the pigs was new to the bunch.  His name was "HAMlet" (get it?) and he continuously quoted Shakespeare, driving the other two pigs mad.  As you can tell by this very brief description, the play was extremely innovative and hysterically fun.

Abusing of the Pflums' hospitality, we headed back to their house after the play to partake in dessert.  We made s'mores AND they served us strawberry shortcake.  Can anyone say "restraint"?  Then we spent another hour visiting.  Here is a picture of Joel admiring the moose antlers of the giant Gene hunted in Alaska.

The kids especially enjoyed playing with the Pflums' gentle dog Greta.

Suffice it to say, when it was time to leave, they didn't want to go.  Fortunately, Nancy will be able to visit again, as an excursion to the Pflums' home is part of the activities planned for Gene and Nancy's high school reunion.

That evening we came back to the hotel, made dinner (can you believe we wanted to eat again?), and hung out in the hotel room.