Winter Get-A-Way

Don't ever eat yellow snow!! :)

The girls and I ice-skating

I'm glad this wasn't my car!!

DeeDee and C

Mi familia es mucho frio!

Gotta love snow icecream

Shopping

Uncle Mike And The Tubers

Winter Games 2014...watch out!

Dressed for a blizzard!

Girlies outside our cabin

Last Friday, we took the girls out of school and headed to Cloudcroft, NM, for some fun and relaxation. We say we want to go skiing every year, but we never do. Well, this year was the exception. We had so much fun! Mark's sister, DeeDee, and her family joined us at the cabins. Their company is always enjoyable, so they added to our fun!

Since we live in south Texas, we rarely see snow. So, this was a new experience for my girls. They loved everything about it, but eventually concluded that they wouldn't want to live in a place that got tons of snow. I concur! It was a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to hassle with the white stuff day in and day out. Also, I get scared driving on ice. Oh yeah, the one time I drive the Expedition, I get it stuck! A nice man helped me out. After about 15 minutes of him trying, I offered to get behind the car and push while he pressed on the gas. As I made my way to the back of the vehicle, I silently prayed that he put the car in forward rather than reverse! I hunkered down and pushed with my hands (like a school girl), trying not to slip on the ice, while he was giving it some gas...nothing...I turned to my youngest and said, "Pray!" Then I thought to myself, "Come on, you're stronger than that!" Thankful that I had just eaten a spinach salad, I leaned my body against the car and pushed with all I had (kind of like childbirth but using different muscles). Woohoo! I did it...ahem...well, I guess we did it (the helpful man, me and God)! :)

I've always said I'd never ski. Ever since I was in junior high and one of my friends came back from a skiing vacation with a broken leg (she had hit a tree), I never had wanted to ski. I had always envisioned myself hitting a tree as well. The thought of that had always haunted me. Well, I don't know what came over me. I guess I'm blaming it on the YOU CAN DO IT book I bought last summer. It gave me the encouragement I needed to step out of my comfort zone. Realizing bunny slopes don't have trees, made my decision a little easier too! I fell twice and concluded that I ski better without the poles. We just stayed on the bunny slopes. That ski lift is a whole other monster to tackle! Mark, Manna, DeeDee, my nephew and I were the skiers. Manna was a natural. She skied circles around me! I had a lot of fun though! My younger two didn't want to ski this year, so Uncle Mike took them tubing next to the bunny slopes.

The next day we went tubing a few miles outside of town. The hills were pretty high and steep and there was some room for error! One kid had to be air-lifted while we were there because of an accident. Fortunately, none of us were injured!!

All in all, we had a great time! We always do on vacations. Mark is a great vacation dad and the girls are easy to please. Now, I'm looking forward to our next adventure...I'm thinking someplace tropical where it takes about 2 minutes to get dressed!

The Riverwalk

After a few days of being away, I'm back to the real world. One of the perks of Mark being on the school board, is the school board convention every summer. I probably get the better end of the deal because I get to do whatever I want and he has to go to class. The past 6 years we've stayed at the Marriott on the Riverwalk, but this year we stayed at the Hyatt, right across the street. Poor baby, I had to walk across the street every time I wanted to go to the mall. I had so gotten use to the mall being connected to our hotel! See what a little urban living does to a country gal, it makes her a little spoiled!

My itinerary is usually something like this:
Wake-up whenever I want (usually 7:00), walk down to Starbuck's in the lobby and grab a bran muffin, a banana, & small coffee, read by the pool, in the room, or by the river, get dressed and go shopping at the River Center Mall, have lunch, go back to the room and read or watch t.v. Then, Mark arrives and we usually find something to do, have supper on the Riverwalk, & go back to the room and watch a movie. Aaahhh...life is good on the Riverwalk!

Although, I added something new to my itinerary this year. I took advantage of the "oh so cool" gym every morning, and I didn't eat every meal like it was my last. I tried to incorporate these two new habits into my little vacation. You know how it is, when you're on vacation, it's like calories don't really count. Well, I'm here to attest that they do! Unfortunately my stomach is the by-product of this myth!

Last year Mark couldn't make the convention in San Antonio, so he went to the Dallas TASB Convention in the fall. Of course, I tagged along. Dallas was great, but I'm a San Antonio-kinda-girl. I like familiarity, and I don't like having to drive to get to the place you want to go. That's why the Riverwalk is ideal for a person like me. That being said, now I'm going to contradict myself. With the help of a new gadget in our lives, I ventured out of my little world to find the nearest Target. Come on, I like deals and I just wasn't finding any at the mall! So, with my keys in hand I made my way to the parking garage. I HATE those kind of places. I always feel like some body's going to jump out at me. That's why I hold my keys like a weapon. I would actually kind of feel sorry for anyone that tried to "jump" me. I would probably embrace my inner "psycho" and open a can of crazy on him. Needless to say, he would probably run like mad, holding an eyeball in one hand and holding his crotch with the other!

Well, anyway, I made it safely to my car. I jumped in it and locked it right away. Then I pulled a dear little friend out of my purse. Her name is Meg. No, she's not an imaginary friend. I was never into pretend people. She's our GPS! We are finally moving up in the world. I typed in Target and pressed go! I was secretly wishing she'd drive for me, but, hey, I can't have it all! As I made my way out of the parking garage, I wondered which way I should go because Meg wasn't talking to me. Then I realized, it was a one way street, so I could only turn right. I was off! I'm like, "O.k. Meg start talking to me girl. I'm not sure where I should go now! (insert crickets chirping) I almost called her something that a nice girl like me should never utter! Then the unimaginable happened! Meg said she needed to be turned off and then restarted! So, I drove a little further and found a place to park. After saying a quick prayer, I restarted it and prayed that it'd work this time. It wouldn't stick to my windshield, so I held it on the dash with one hand and drove with the other!

I've got to admit my relationship with Meg is a love-hate kind of thing! One minute I hate her and the next minute she pulls through and is the greatest invention for a directionally challenged girl like me! Although, I questioned her several times. I came to the conclusion that she probably grew up in the hood and wanted to revisit her old stomping grounds because the back roads she was taking me on would make Jackie Chan a little nervous! I love the way she "dings" when you do what she says. After several minutes, which seemed like a lifetime, I finally arrived at my destination...TARGET! I was still a little concerned about the hood I was in, so I found a parking place right up front! I stayed in Target for over 2 hours! It was nice. I had no time limit. I love to window shop. My life will never be the same after buying the things I purchased: a t-shirt, 5 marshmallow skewers, a band-aid kit for my purse, a cute little journal and a sticky pad to put on my dash for Meg to sit on.

Meg worked perfectly on the way back and I did a pretty good job at maneuvering my SUV through S.A. traffic. We finally started to "jell" and made a pretty good team (with the help of a few savvy angels).

This is the part that's pretty amazing. I was indecisive about telling Mark about my little rendezvous to Target. Well, when I pulled into the huge parking garage downtown, my exact same parking place was available! I know this was God. He knows my sense of direction gets a little off at times and if I had to park somewhere else we'd probably still be looking for our car! Of course, I ended up telling Mark about my expedition into the urban jungle. Amazingly, he didn't ask any questions, but I told him all about it anyway.

When I got to my room, I pulled out my new little journal and entitled it, "My Dream Journal." I answered a few questions from the YOU CAN DO IT book to get my "juices" flowing. Yeah, I know it's a little corny, but it has got me dreaming and planning new things for my life! It's exciting to think that we can all do anything we set our minds to do, with the help of Christ! The first step is getting it down on paper. I'll talk more about this later.

Although we'd like to have stayed one more night, we had to cut our stay a day short to get back home. The girls had a rodeo on Friday night. Oh well, we'll always have the Riverwalk...