Friday, February 24, 2012

Sweetheart Retreat, 2012

We are so grateful for our good friends that we get to spend a weekend in February with!  We look forward to it every year...fun stories, lots of laughs, tons of good food and treats, and plenty of gossip to go around!  We have so much fun and we especially want to thank Holli Leslie for including us every year!  We left for Leslie's cabin on Thursday about noon, stopped at a little Chick-fil-A for some lunch and then got up there in the early afternoon.  We were the first to arrive, right behind Holli and Derek.  We took our projector this year, so we set that up and broke out the treats, and started "Shanghai Noon" and soon the others were pouring in!  By 8:00 or so, everyone was there.  We stayed up until after 1:00 in the morning talking and laughing and telling stories.  The next morning we were up and eating sourdough pancakes and getting ready for our ride!  This year no one had any major accidents...and all the sleds ran great!  (It won't be a memory year for any outlandish stories!) 
It was great to be with old friends,  
Craig and Dorie...
 Jennifer and Troy...
 Derek and Holli...
Bart and Candice...
 AJ and Kristie...
And great to meet some new friends and get to know them!  We had a lot of fun!
 Jennifer and Corey Gunter...
The guys ended up on top of Jefferson by the end of the day...us girls went back to the cabin!
It was a fun day of riding and fun to get back and have a great "Cafe Rio" dinner that Holli had prepared for us...complete with Mint Brownies, by Jennifer, and Cheesecake!
 On Saturday, it was a little stormy, and we decided not to ride, but to go over to Hungry Bear where they were having the Snow Cross races.  It was a lot of fun to see the little kids race, and even better when the fearless teenagers raced and would jump so high!
 
Great time, great friends, and just plain fun!!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Blah, Blah, Blah...

January really does bring about the blah's...but it has been a good one.  Back to some catch up...We spent Christmas again this year in Clarkston with Trisha and Danny and kids, and Jake and Janelle.   We had a great time, and loved having fondue for Christmas Eve, and we also had an "ugly sweater" night!  FUN!  I won't post all the pics, some people commented about Brent's photo on facebook that they thought he looked "special"!  So I will just put my ugly sweater pic here!  I think I won anyway!!  
We also had a super yummy Christmas dinner with Crab legs and Rib Eye Steaks!  Christmas is always so much fun with the kids too!

We got a day to go up and visit Jake and Janelle and see their apartment and also visit U of I and see some of Jacob's projects!

I know!  I'm such a MOTHER!!  I really am proud of all that he has accomplished and what marvelous work he does!  It's always fun to go and see him in his element and ooooh and awwww!!
Then it was back home to celebrate Corgin's birthday this year a day before the New Year, of course, I had the stomach flu, so Brent went to Texas Roadhouse with them...and then they came home to open presents.  Corgin was soooo excited!  I got a kick out of it!  
 I decided that it's just too hard to always post about birthday's anymore, and no one seems to care anyway, so for this year, I might mention Birthday's if it is something we're involved in, but it's hard to remember them all and not forget someone, so I won't be posting about them this year!  Happy Birthday in advance to all of you!!  
Then I was excited to book a trip to Texas to see Tess and Jake's new house and new location!  It was nice and warm in Dallas, and so great to be with the kids!   They have all grown up so much!  And little Pierce is getting to be such a Q T pie!!  All grown up at 6 months!!


 Their new home is really gorgeous, and I loved their neighborhood and everything!  It wasn't especially pretty this time of year...very BROWN...but I can't wait to see it in the Spring or Summer when all the trees and lawns are green and pretty!  We had a good time, they took me to the Dublin Dr. Pepper bottling place, which was a fun day excursion...and some yummy food and drink!!

We also celebrated Jake's birthday with him!  We went to a cool place called "Babe's Chicken" for his birthday dinner!  It was an experience also...with great food and a fun ambiance!


Little Pierce and Brielle were both sick while I was there.  Pierce especially was having a rough time.  Come to find out, he had fluid in his lungs and a double ear infection!!  So they got him on medicine and they had to give him breathing treatments every 4 hours (which he didn't like much, but was really good about having)
Poor little guy!  We thought they were helping so much, we wanted to have Brielle get one!  That was not a pleasant task, for her or for us!  We all laughed at this picture!
Could she look anymore tortured or held down against her will??  lol

Once again back home for it to be FEBRUARY already!!  Glad this blah month went so fast...and it really wasn't blah at all!!  We got to go to Buddy's for dinner when I came home!  That was cool!
  
I still had never finished up my cruise pictures...so here's some more of our cruise in December.
Huatulco, MX 
We really liked it here...and had a fun catamaran cruise!  


Manzanillo, MX
 Most beautiful views ever!!

 Great bananas and fruit!
 Yes...we ate the food there!!
Guatamala...and zip lining through the coffee plantation!



It was a fun experiece!  We want to do more now...and longer and better ones!!
Beautiful building in the town square!
Nicaragua...we spent my Birthday in Nicaragua...I loved it!  So natural and untouched, and we met some awfully cute kids at the mud pots that we fell in love with!
 This is one of the oldest Cathedrals in Central America...in the Colonial City of Leon.
 We climbed up on top and could see the entire city!
They also took us through this huge street market that was very interesting!
 These were the mud pots where we made a ton of friends!


Again...Thank you so much to my Mom and Dad for taking us on a month long vacation of fun and relaxation!!  We enjoyed it so much and were spoiled rotten!  And thank you to Trisha and Danny for such a fun Christmas!  You guys rock and are so good to us!  Thank you to all of my kids for the wonderful new KINDLE FIRE that you gave me for my birthday and Christmas.  I love it!!  And Brent loves his new tools that you all went in together to get him for Christmas!  We were totally spoiled!  Thanks to Tess and Jake for the fun vacation to Dallas...man...I am a LUCKY lady!   Yeah, yeah, yeah...I can hear you all now going....."BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!!"   Eat your hearts out!