This is the front of the mountain at Ski Apache. The run under the lift is called Capitan and I've always been terrified of going down it because it's pretty steep and always crowded. But this year I conquered it!! I think my dad and I went down it at least 10 times the first hour we were there.
Here we are about to leave Ruidoso (isn't the snow beautiful?!).
Wow, we have had such a wonderful Christmas break, and the great part is I still have 6 days left!! We celebrated Christmas 4 days straight. It was great to be with so much family, but I'm glad the craziness is finally over! The Saturday before Christmas we went to Amarillo to celebrate with my grandparents and cousins that live there. My grandmother had a really bad stroke in August so it made Christmas at their house even more special this year. I have always had a very special relationship with my mom's parents; they are both such strong Christians and have always been a great example of seeking God in all circumstances. Sunday morning we got up and went to church and then headed to my other grandparents that live here in Lubbock for lunch. Here are a few pictures of our day over there:
My family has a Christmas Eve tradition of going to Christmas Eve service at our church and then my grandmother always takes us out to eat afterward. This year our church decided not to have a Christmas Eve service so we just went out to eat instead. We usually go to Friday's (because it's the only place open late on Christmas Eve) but decided to try Chili's this year instead. It was my parents, my grandmother and Brice and I this year. It's so strange how our traditions are changing as we get older. My dad absolutely loves Christmas time and the traditions that come along with it. And he doesn't handle changes well at all! But he was a trooper and had a good time even though our whole family wasn't present. After dinner that evening we headed to big LA (that would be the Lazbuddie Area). We woke up Christmas morning and had a wonderful Christmas morning breakfast with mimosas! After breakfast we headed for Hereford to have Christmas with Brice's grandparents and cousins. We played a great game of pictionary and had some wonderful food as usual! Here are a few pictures:
Tuesday we came home from Lazbuddie. We did stockings with the girls and then headed over to my parents house to wait for my sister and brother-in-law who were coming in from Houston. They didn't get off as soon as they had planned so we decided to go see Night at the Museum. (Very funny!!) When Stephanie and Aaron finally got into town we had leftover Christmas dinner and opened presents with my family. Christmas was finally over! We got WAY too much stuff, but loved everything that we got!!
Another tradition that my family started a couple of years ago was going to Ruidoso right after Christmas to stay in this great cabin up in the mountains that my parents found. Because Brice started work after the first of the year vacation times were already staked out so unfortunately he couldn't take off right after Christmas. :( It wasn't the same being there without Brice, but we still had a really great time. We all skiied Thursday and then just my dad and I skiied on Friday because everyone else wasn't feeling very well. The snow wasn't great, but we had a really good time anyway!! Then Saturday morning we woke up to a foot and a half of snow!! It was beautiful! But not great for driving. My sister and Aaron had planned on leaving at 6am to head back to College Station, but since the roads to get down the mountain were so steep they decided to wait until the snow let up. At 8:30 my dad decided that he would lead the way down the mountain in his truck and they would follow. An hour and a half later we were finally down the mountain only to find out that the highways out of Ruidoso were closed!! So they got back in the truck with us and headed back up the mountain to the cabin. We waited it out a couple of hours and the highways finally opened back up so we headed home.
New Year's Eve we went to Stella's with a couple of friends. We had dinner reservations at 8:45, we got there around 8:40 and saw several people we knew who had been waiting for almost an hour for their reservations!! This should have been a sign to us that we should just try to find somewhere else to eat instead, but we decided to stick it out. They finally called us at like 9:15, but when we were seated we realized that they didn't even have the full menu that night and there weren't very many things on the menu that looked good to us at all. When we finally decided on something that sounded ok the waiter told us that they were actually out of just about everything on the menu except really strange things like seared duck (which none of us really cared for....even Brice!) So we called Outback and luckily they were still open (by this point it was already almost 10:00!) We figured that when we told the waiter we were leaving he would just bring us the ticket for our appetizer and drinks and we would leave, but much to our surprise he sent the manager over and he told us they would take care of the drinks and appetizer and he even brought us a $40 gift certificate to come back later!! Although it started off a little rocky the night ended great!
Sorry this was a kind of long update...in fact I will be very surprised if anyone is even still reading at this point! Hopefully Christmas Break part 2 will be a little less eventful!!
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! (Wow, I just can't beleive it's already 2007!!!!!)
I have SO many more pictures to post, but blogger isn't cooperating right now...hopefully I will be able to post them later!
I have been meaning to post about Brice's birthday all week but have been pretty busy, so here it is! Brice turned the big 2-7 on the 7th. We had his work Christmas party that night, so we celebrated the next day with a few friends at Texas Roadhouse. If you've ever been to Texas Roadhouse when someone was having a birthday you know that they really like to embarrass you, AND if you know Brice you know that he LOVES attention. When you put those 2 together this is what you get.....
Needless to say he had a good time. Afterwards we all went bowling. It has been a really long time since we've been bowling, but we all had so much fun!
Brice has been talking about wanting to see this movie since he saw the previews, but to be honest with you I wasn't too thrilled about seeing it. We had planned on going to see it last night, but the plans changed and we didn't. Since Brice came along to see the Holiday with me last weekend I decided it would be the nice thing to do to go with him this afternoon to see it. Without giving too much away, for those of you that are planning on seeing it, let me just tell you that it was one of the most eye opening movies I have seen in a long time. Brice said that it was based on things that have really happened in Africa, and some are still going on today. Basically it's about a civil war that was going on there where they were fighting for control of the diamond fields. The rebel forces use young boys as soldiers to kill innocent women and children so they can smuggle the diamonds and sell them to large companies in the US and England. Because there is such a huge market for diamonds in these countries these companies pay a lot of money for these smuggled diamonds, therefore funding the rebels in this civil war. It is just so amazing to me all the horrible things that go on in our world that we have no idea about. There were several parts that were so hard to watch, but it was an amazing story of survival and the bond shared between a father and his son.
So, if your looking for an eye opening movie to watch, I highly recommend the Blood Diamond. And if you're looking for a great romantic comedy, I highly recommend The Holiday!! (I could write a whole other post about that movie!!)
Man, being a first year teacher has been much more time consuming than I ever imagined! Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm doing (SOOOO much more than working at the bank), but it just requires a lot more energy than I ever imagined. It's so hard to believe that it's only three weeks until Christmas. Yay, I can't wait! And if the second semester goes as fast as the first summer will be here before I know it.
Christmas is my favorite time of year. I absolutely love decorating, the cold weather, the "Christmas" smells, basically I love everything about Christmas. AND fortunately I'm married to a man who shares my love for this holiday. It's funny because when we were building our house Brice's main concerns were how it would look with Christmas lights, and where were we going to put the tree! Our Christmas presents to each other were a new digital camera and a new laptop, so hopefully I will be able to post a lot more pictures and update my blog more frequently. Our old digital camera didn't take very good pictures and they were a pain to upload, and our old computer is WAY slow so, like I said hopefully I will be updating more often now.
Here are a few pictures of my favorite Christmas decorations!! (Ugh...blogger is being difficult, I will try to add more pictures later.)
By the grace of God I survived my first week and 2 days of school! :) The first couple of days were pretty rough, but it is getting easier and easier everyday. I got a new student the first day of school, so I now have 21 five year olds!! They are all so much fun, and I have had a blast getting to know their personalities. (I can already tell that I will have plenty of funny stories to tell!) I feel like I have such a huge responsibility caring for them all and I pray daily for patience and wisdom. They are like little sponges at this age and I just hope that I can be a positive influence on thier lives. I can see that God has a plan in all things and that His hand was definitely on my life when I was moved to Kindergarten. Thanks for all the prayers and letters of encouragement my first week of school!!
Wow, where has the time gone?? The second half of the summer was an absolute whirlwind. so much has happened that it's hard to even know where to begin. I found out three weeks ago that I will be teaching Kindergarten this year instead of 2nd grade. I was a complete mess when they first told me, considering I had my room finished, lessons planned and I was completely in the 2nd grade mindset. BUT, now that my new room is ready, my new lessons are planned and I've met all but one of my sweet little Kindergarteners I couldn't be more excited!! We had open house on Thursday where I got to meet all my students and their parents; they are all SO cute! Of course I can already tell that I will have a couple of stinkers, but I'm sure they will keep things lively. :)
To add to the craziness, we have been out of town for the past three weekends! While we had a great time everywhere we went, it's so good to finally be home with nothing to do!! Our first outing was with the Carrasco's to New Braufels to float the river. We had an absolute blast!! This was my first time to float the river, and I highly recommend it. It was so relaxing and just such a fun atmosphere. I have already been trying to plan our next trip down there.
Our next trip was to Dallas to visit Brice's cousin and their new baby, Austin. It was so good to visit with them, and of course I was in heaven holding the new baby!! We also met up with Brice's best friend Kevin and went to a Ranger's game. It was fun catching up with Kevin, but it was so hot at the game, we were all miserable! I think it was 103 degrees the day of the game with no breeze at all. I couldn't even tell you who they played, but at least the company was good! And of course we had to hit up my favorite place while we were in Dallas...the Allen outlet mall. I just love that place!! It's kind of far out there, but it's never too crowded and they have GREAT sales. I spent way too much money, but I got some much needed "back to school" clothes.
For our last shindig of the summer we travelled to the big city of Lazbuddie to have a garage sale with Brice's mom. We made a whopping $115, but thankfully we got rid of a bunch of clothes that were just cluttering up our closets. We sold everything for $.50 and were just glad to get rid of it.
Overall I couldn't have asked for a better summer. I got to do just about everything I wanted to. I loved all the time I got to spend at home by myself, at the pool with Ashley and Carley, and at the lake with my family. So long summer!
One of my favorite things about this summer has been getting to go to Lake Alen Henry with my family. My parents got a new boat a couple of years ago and they like to go during the week because it's not as crowded. Since I had to work during the week I didn't get to go that often the last 2 summers, but I think I have made up for it this summer!
Here are a few pictures from our trip last week:
My parents unloading the boat
