Tucker's awards

Tucker had class awards on Friday and came home with straights A's and star reading awards. Yay!!

Spring 2014 Soccer

Today was Tucker's first soccer game of the spring season. He played defender the whole game and did fantabulous!!! I love cheering his name so loud that everyone catches on and cheers his name with me when he plays like the superstar that he is. It's so much fun!

Girl Scouts - Bean Boozled

Every girl scout meeting we do an opening activity. I try and incorporate something really fun or crazy when I know Ms. Christine will be running a "business" meeting that night. Shelby had tipped me off to a youtube video that we were rolling on the floor laughing at with something called the bean boozle challenge.  I ran by World Market on the way home from work and bought 10 boxes. I'm sure the lady at the check out that I was crazy once she looked at all the flavors.

 

 

So I had the girls sit down and pair up. I provided a water cup and a spit cup to each girl. I videoed each one and caught most of their reactions. You can hear Tucker in the background in some of them. Some he's whining, some he's playing and another one he's discussing his boogers. It is safe to say that even though this was totally gross, the girls loved it! Here are 5 of the 10 videos.

 

Lime or Lawn Clippings 

Rotten Egg or Butter Popcorn

Moldy Cheese or Caramel Corn

Peach or Barf

Juicy Pear or Booger

 

 

 



Tucker's 1st Hunting Trip

Tucker went on his first hunting expedition over the weekend on a private lot that had hogs. He didn't capture anything. He said it was nothing like he expected and it was very boring. Poppy Charlie commented when he brought him home that he's not ready for hunting. Said he doesn't have the patience. I figured that.



Shelby's New Room

While we were away on vacation Lonnie came by the house and repainted Shelby's room. No more Chuck E Cheese multicolor room for her.

Here are photos of the old paint right around 2007.

 Here was her room in 2011. 

  And here it is today.

 Still a work of cleaning in progress. Will be getting rid of the train table at the next neighborhood wide garage sale unless I can think of something else to upcycle it to.

 Can you believe she sewed most of the pillows herself??!!

I've got a few things out in the garage that I painted this weekend to hang up on her walls but with the rain and humidity it's taking forever to dry.

Roswell, New Mexico and Carlsbad Caverns

Friday was our last full day of sites to see. First we went to Roswell, NM to the UFO museum. I really expected Tucker to love this but was proven to be wrong quickly. He kept calling it "boring" which really meant he was not comfortable. Shelby proved to be just like her dad and had to read everything. I think we would have been there for 3 days if I didn't push her along.  

 So after we left the UFO museum, now believing in aliens, we headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park  in White's City, NM. This place was the exact same from when I was a kid and went there, except this time they had railings along the path. Shelby thought it was really neat. Tucker on the other hand would have liked it a lot more if he was allowed to touch and not have to stay next to an adult's side the entire time. Poor kid. Telling Tucker he has to stay next to me when all he wants to do is run and explore was not cool. But he managed. And I think he probably snuck in a few touches when we weren't looking.

The caves were under all this!

 Once we were done here (after having to wait in a line for 45 minutes to ride the elevator out of the cave) we got back on the road and headed to Texas. After a very long, not quite dirt road, but definitely not a highway, drive, we make it to Fort Stockton, TX where we stayed the night.

Saturday morning we were up at 5am and on the road by 6am for home. 10 hours, a million pump jacks and oil rigs, and rain later, we were home.

Best vacation ever.

(Can you tell how tired they are??)

Royal Gorge Train - Canon City, CO

Thursday we were in Canon City, Colorado to ride the Royal Gorge Train. The kids really enjoyed this. The only train they had ever been on was Thomas the Train and that was more like a 30 minute ride to nothing and back. This train went down the river where we saw people rafting, a few wild animals, and what Tucker claims "a lot of civil war artifacts." The ride was about 2 hours long and we sat in a dome cart where we could see everything and we were also able to enjoy lunch.

 

After we were done with our train ride we hit the road heading south towards New Mexico. Our spring break vacation was slowly coming to a close and we were on the homeward bound track. We crossed the New Mexico border and ended up closing our day down in Las Vegas, NM.

 

 

Breckenridge, Colorado

Breckenridge was on the agenda for day 5 of our Colorado adventure. It was also our final day with Kerri. That morning we said our goodbyes and loaded up our suitcases. Remember how it was snowing the day before in Estes Park? Well, it apparently snowed A LOT more in Breckenridge. The drive the Breckenridge is nearly the same as the drive to Keystone, which we did 2 days before. The drive was NOTHING the same. There was ice and snow EVERYWHERE. Then there was a wreck in one of the tunnels so we were stuck on the highway for a solid hour. We were already layered up which was a great thing because it was FOURTEEN degrees!!!! You did not read 40. You read 14!!!

This was definitely a white knuckle of a drive. I think I drove 10 mph most of the way. We eventually found our way into Breckenridge but all the signs we needed were covered in snow. The kids were yelling in the backseat putting boogers on each other and mom was gripping the door handle the entire time trying not to state her opinion. I was ready to throw my hands up in the air and say screw it, let's leave. But somehow I ended up in a parking lot and a lady appeared out of nowhere and asked me if I was lost. YES!!! HELP ME!!!! And holy cow did she! She sent me to another parking lot that was across the street marked "closed" and told me to ask for Vince. So I followed her directions and found Vince who guided me into a parking spot right next to the gondola that we needed. THANK YOU!!!!! We got out and on to the gondola and rode over to Peak 8.

Peak 8 is apparently the peak to be. It is packed full of amazingness! Mom found her a place at the grill on the patio so she could watch all the snowboarders and skiiers doing their crazy jumps and flips off of snow ramps. I think she had enough excitement from the morning ride to do much else. LOL So the kids and I headed up the mountain to the alpine slide. It was soooooooo much fun. I bought us the all day ride pass and we did just that. We rode ALL day.

Once we were done for the afternoon the kids decided that we most definitely need to go back next year and they want to go to the kid's ski school and learn to snowboard. I didn't do that this time because I was afraid Shelby would chicken out on the ski lifts, but no. She said she was 100% ready to do this. So hopefully next year we can go back.

Luckily this time nobody got any sort of altitude sickness. I gave both kids advil before we even left that morning and we drank a lot of water that morning too. If I remember correctly, we were at 19,000 feet elevation.

Once we left Breckenridge we headed to Canon City for the night. The kids once again fell asleep before we got out of the parking lot. The drive took about 2.5 hours where the first hour was again, white knuckle driving.

Estes Park, Colorado

On day 4 of our Colorado adventure we drove up to Estes Park where the Rocky Mountain National Park is located. This was the cutest town ever! We shopped in a few shops and had a great lunch at a quaint little restaurant. After that we headed up the moutain further until we entered the National Park. What was amazing was this place barely had anybody there. It was like we had the entire mountain to ourselves. It was great!!! The further we circled up the mountain the more it would snow. The kids claimed that this was like dipping dots falling from the sky. We played in the snow for the entire day. It was actually quite cold this day because of the wind and the snow fall. I would say it was in the 20's on this day.

We saw elk and deer all around the park. Not as many as we were expecting, but we still saw quite a bit.

 

 This was where we had lunch. Tucker actually ate sauerkraut!!