Angel Fire

We just got back from a wonderful family vacation in the Angel Fire, NM mountains. I have gone to these mountains all of my life but we hadn't been since Princess was one year old. That was too long!! Once we were there, I realized how much I missed going and now that my kids have gone, I see us going back sooner than later. It was so nice to enjoy the cooler temps, family laughter and just take a break from our busy life for a few days. We golfed, hiked, explored and created many memories. On the way we stopped to explore the infamous "bear cave" along the road. I have seen, looked in and admired this cave many times but I had never gone all the way in. After some coaxing, the whole fam went all the way in and realized that it's not that bad. :) At least it wasn't full of snow like many times I've seen it!

Thankfully my brother had a flashlight and the water was way down so we could really take time to hang out and look around.

Once we arrived at the cabins, one of our favorite things to do as a family was to sit out on the decks and visit. We usually started the day at my grandparents cabin talking over coffee and ended the day at the cabin that was hosting dinner that night.

There was 19 of us in all (20 if you count the one in my sisters "oven"). I am so very blessed to have a family that gets along and enjoys each other. We laugh, tease and goof off all the

time. God is so good!

One day we went into Taos and visited the Pueblo Indian reservation. It was my way of getting "school" in during vacation. :)

The next day we went for a hike to see three waterfalls. I've been going on this hike for about 20 years and it was fun to go back with my kids and see them experience it for the first time.

Jerod's back was hurting him badly this day (that's what 2 days of golf does to a bad back) but he was a trooper and went with us anyway. He used a good sized walking stick and had lots of help from the other men getting up and down. But this did mean that he didn't chance walking down the steep hills to get close to the waterfall which meant I didn't either because I didn't want him to be alone. I did get some good pics from above though. :)

My brother was so good to help my kids so they didn't miss any of the experience.

Papaw and Little Man enjoying the second waterfall.

Always the spider-man monkey!

They made it!!

Even the smallest guest had a good time!

The last night we went driving around hoping to see some wildlife. We came upon this huge herd of elk walking the golf course. Just what we were looking for.

So now we're back and thankfully came home to some rain clouds in the sky. Cross your fingers and pray hard that those clouds produce rain for our very hot and dry city!! I very much enjoyed our vacation but I'm glad to be home and ready to get back into some sort of routine. After a few very busy weeks, we have a little time to get our feet under us before we're off to the mountains again for camp. I hope all of you are having a great summer!

The Men in My Life

Today is very special. Not only because it is Father's day but because every 7 years, it is also my anniversary. We are celebrating 12 years of marriage today and I am very excited about that. Here is a picture of us on the day we got married. (The quality is really bad because I don't know how to scan pictures and so I took it with my phone.)

We were so young!! He was 19 and I was 20. Just babies really. But we knew that we were meant to be together forever and wanted to get started as soon as possible. :) We have had a crazy year this year...6 months of some of the worst and 6 months as some of the best. Fortunately, we are closer right now than ever and really have grown as a couple and as parents through all the ups and downs. We are really excited about the journey God has us in right now and look forward to what He has in store for our family in the future.

I love you honey!! Thanks for being my best friend and help mate. You are the best! I am lucky to call you my husband and our kids are so lucky to have you as their dad!

And in honor of father's day, I'm placing a picture of me and my awesome dad on my wedding day. He was so supportive and calm for me. I can't believe how young he looks too!! It really doesn't seem like 12 years ago. He's always there for me and my family and loves us with his whole heart.

I love you dad!! Happy Father's Day!

So here's to many many more years of celebrating two of the favorite men in my life. And without my heavenly Father I wouldn't be blessed with either of them so I thank Him above all. If you have someone that God has blessed you with (don't we all?) go love on them tonight!

Good night!

Dancing Princess

Ok...I've been anxious to post these all week because Princess looked just absolutely beautiful for her ballet recital last night. It started with dress rehearsal on Tuesday night and then the recital was Thursday. Since they only give us four tickets for the actual recital my parents came for dress rehearsal. I love this picture of them with Princess after giving her flowers. :)

She didn't mind giving me a few poses before we left last night...so pretty and graceful!!

She is growing up so fast

Part of the girls in her dance class...the others were watching a movie

If they weren't watching a movie then they were keeping themselves occupied by playing their video games. Our group was the quietest and best behaved of all the other classes there if I do say so myself. :)

And following dancer tradition...here is her stash of flowers given to her for doing such a great job. Can't wait to see how much she grows and improves by next recital! :)

Catch-Up

I finally looked at new pictures on my camera and decided to do a little re-cap by pictures. First, on mother's day I received a wonderful breakfast in bed of toaster strudel and coffee. :)) I was left some really "sweet" love notes with it as well.

Then we have ranch day pics...getting ready for a night time ride to go see stars.

Eating watermelon by hand after swimming...so refreshing!

So that's a little catch-up by pictures...I'm gathering up all the pictures from the ballet recital last night so I'll share them in another post.

Rant and Rave Time

We had a great evening last night....we took the newly groomed doggies for a walk to the park and let the kids play awhile. The wind was blowing about 30mph, but we went anyway. We can't stop our lives just because it's windy because it looks like it will always be windy here...forever....always...with no rain....pout, pout. But seriously, it was our only night this week to not have other commitments so we went for it. Soon after we arrived there were two other little guys join the playground and the older one (who quickly told us he was 7...and a 1/2) started talking to the hubs and I. We must have something about us that draws kids to us...on any one occasion when we're home we have at least one to six extra kids at our house. They seem to come out of the woodwork....we had an extra one with us last night....that's just life around here and we love it. (Unless the kids slowly show their true colors and we have to ban them from playing with our kids but that's another story) So anyway, this kid starts talking to us and tells us that he had just gotten out of the hospital with pneumonia the night before. We knew he was telling the truth because you could still see the tape marks and bruising on his arm where his IV was and the more he ran around the more he coughed. Now, I may offend at this point but what parent in their right mind allows their 7 year old to walk to the park by themselves with a younger sibling? My daughter is 7 and I can't imagine letting her walk a younger sibling to the park by themselves, especially at dusk and especially if she was just getting over pneumonia!! I mean good grief parents! Just because your kid isn't in the hospital anymore doesn't mean he is fully well...it means he is not critical enough to be watched by 24 hour nurse care. And with the wind blowing like it was? Really? It was warm but it was very dusty and he was coughing all over the place...around my HEALTHY kids who really don't have time to get pneumonia. I mean really. I felt very sad for that kid as we walked away. I didn't like leaving him there by himself with the two teens who had shown up and I hated to think what kind of night he had after being in that wind. But he had told me that his house wasn't far and that his parents say they could see him from home. Ok well that makes everything better. No! Maybe I'm too protective....maybe I'm too judgemental.....but I just could not believe what I was hearing. I just keep thinking "poor kid" and found myself worrying about him all night. There are just people in this world who don't need to be in charge of another human being. But God blessed them with those children and it's not up to me to question that.

OK I'll stop now...I have to go take care of my little blessings....we have a dance recital tonight and I will be showing off pictures of my beautiful ballerina tomorrow. Little Man is also finishing football camp today so rest is definitely in order for this afternoon. Summer is beginning slowly for us but at least we're following instructions about staying busy! HA!