A picture Album of our trip

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Here are the pictures I took up at Holly Lake Ranch near Tyler, Texas. they are in no particular order since they have changed the picture thingy and I can't cut and paste anymore!

Three Valentines on valentine weekend!

Two Valentines!

The four grand valentines!




Steak dinner for Valentines Day

Holly Lake. Notice how foggy it is with a nasty cold and rainy wind! No self respecting alligator would show his teeth in this weather!

Alyssa's quillow bed

Samara's jacuzzi bed

Natalie's and Samara's beds in the bathroom

Working on a puzzle. I love the light on this picture!

Below is my wet and cold butt after our artsy picture! See later golf pics.

Just before the ladies came to take their pictures standing on their hands (see the last blog)

LOOK AT THOSE PRETTY GOLF BALLS!

The artsy golf picture of us laying on cold and wet carpeting

Nice putting everyone!

Water hazard on the golf course. There were swans on this pond but they were camera shy.

Alyssa shows off her decorated cookie at the coloring contest.

Samara is decorating her cookie.

The coloring contest winners with their prizes and pictures.

Alyssa, Samara, and another little girl

VView out our bedroom door with several inches of snow on the patio!

Valentine's Weekend Getaway!

Last weekend we took a little trip to a timeshare of Micah and Kim's near Tyler Texas. It was called Holly Lake Ranch. Due to Kim having class until 4:30 and Alyssa having gymnastics after school on Friday we didn't get away until 6:30 Friday night. It was a 6 1/2 hour drive so we didn't get up there until 12:30 that night.

As we got nearer to Tyler we encountered what looked like a lot of snow on the ground!!! It was cold but not snowing and the roads were pretty much dry except in spots. There was about 3-4 inches of snow on our steps going up into the condo. I was really surprised at how snowy it was up there. It is in a woods and quite beautiful in that area. There are several lakes and a river. there are cabins all around the property and some very beautiful homes along the lakes and golf course.

The next morning Micah and Kim had to go to an informational meeting which took 4 hours so Alyssa and Samara and I went to the Activities Center for some fun! ( It was very cold, wet and snowy outside) They entered a coloring contest and each won first place in their age group . Then they had fun decorating Valentine cookies provided by the center. We decided we needed to explore a little so we took a walk up to a small lake and fountain on the golf course--still covered with snow and water! We had to avoid deep puddles and lots of mud. Anyway, we were on the way back to our cabin when some young women stopped and wanted to take pictures of Alyssa and Samara standing on their hands. I thought, " Whoa, what is going on here!", but they were fun loving types and they explained that they were on a scavenger hunt! As they left they said, "We're off to find a girl in a wedding dress!" Sounds like a fun kind of a scavenger hunt to me.

After Micah and Kim got back we went over to the Activities Center and played games. Grampa came over at 5 for dinner. They had live music (a man singing and playing his guitar--not bad, either) they had a catfish dinner special for the whole family and we got it. After we got home, we watched some olympics and then the kids went to bed. Erin came about 10:30. Here are some pictures of the kids' sleeping arrangements.

The next day continued to be cold, foggy and a bit windy. We drove around the area looking at the lakes and lovely homes nestled in the woods. We had lunch at the condo and then watched some more olympics. Finally we thought it had cleared up enough to go out and play some mini golf with the kids. Kim had to do school work and Bob chose to stay in but the rest of us played! That evening, Bob made steaks for us and we had a great dinner. The next morning we left early to come back home. It was a fun time and I think this would be a great place to go in spring or summer. There is swimming, boating, fishing, golfing and tons of hiking trails through the woods! It is not quite what I would call a romantic setting for Valentines day but definitely a very family oriented vacation spot.

The picture posting button doesn't seem to be working today on this post so I guess I'll have to post them on a separate blog!

Ash Wednesday

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and I was thinking about the good old days at "Jefferson Jailhouse". (The elementary school we attended through 6th grade). Our school was very near a private Catholic school (St. Mathias) and the community we lived in was predominately Catholic. On Ash Wednesday as I recall it, our Backwoods neighborhood kids (6-8 kids) and the teachers were about the only ones there for a couple of hours in the morning! Around 10 AM all the other kids came rolling in with ashes on their foreheads. I even remember some of them still had those ashes on their foreheads a few days later!!!


We had some real doozies at that school! No one wanted to have their desk near those kids, you can be sure! The girls in that family even had pierced ears with hoops in them!!!! Horror of horrors! In those days the only people we knew who had pierced ears were gypsies! Really, no one had pierced ears and it was considered dirty and "bad" to have them. (I'm guessing that the dirty part was very local due to this family). Now even I have pierced ears but not before a lot of coaxing from my children and because I do like just a small diamond stud in my ears. My dire predictions about how my ears would become infected and fall off were partially true. I did have lots of infections and finally had to have them redone before I got rid of the infections.

Tomorrow I will be talking about our Valentine weekend trip to Holly Lake Ranch so today I want to post a really cool picture we took to pique your curiosity. Also to try out my new computer's possibilities for pictures. ( another story for this blog).

Making my valentines

I'm making my valentines the easy way ! I love Smilebox. It is so easy to do and they look so good when I finish. It is also free for the basic one. Sometimes I do pay the $3 for the premium one so there won't be any advertising and you can make it full screen and the person who receives it can save the pictures. My only problem is I can't figure out the music very well. I have a feeling it has to do with copyrights, though. Now I seem to be having trouble with this smile box that I entered on the blogger! I can't write anywhere except here and I can't change the color or underlining either! Oh well, here is what I am sending to all the family. Oh, I changed the music to a jazzy version of Daydream Believer for the valentines I sent.

Make a Smilebox greeting

This and That

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Wow! It's Wednesday already! I have been busy doing little stuff I guess and haven't had a real inspiration for an article so I guess I'll talk about a few different things that have been going on here.

First the weather........ cloudy and cold and windy. We had 2 1/2 days of beautiful weather, Friday afternoon after some big thunderstorms in the AM, Saturday and Sunday. Then the winds came on Monday. Today seems to be less windy--I hope so becuse I do NOT like wind!

Maisy had her surgery on Monday. She is now officially spayed. She seems to be doing great except she wants to jump up on the couch and sit with Grampa. Yesterday she did get up and proceeded to throw up on the blanket on the couch! I had to wash it but no damage done to Maisy.

Samara and Maisy

Gymnastics-- Alyssa was on the regular height balance beam yesterday and I took some pictures which I will add. Samara climbed the climbing wall in her gymnastics room all the wall to the top. She has always loved to climb rocks. I can't take pics of her in gymnastics because we have to watch through a tinted window.

Alyssa on the trampoline

Doing the splits

The girls are dangling

Alyssa just jumped on the spring boards

Alyssa don't look at the beam!

Alyssa is getting back up on the beam!

Shopping -- We did a lot of shopping over the weekend and are going to Target today to do some Valentines day shopping. This weekend Kim and Micah were looking for a new bedroom set. Grampa went with us and even found a set of living room furniture for us but they don't have a store in Colorado so we didn't get it. Kim and Micah looked in about 4 different stores and finally got it narrowed down. We went home to think about it. Yesterday Kim and I went back and got the set and it's going to be delivered tomorrow. They also got a really good deal on a comforter, 5 fancy pillows and a bed skirt originally $500 reduced to $97! After it is set up tomorrow I will take pics for tomorrows blog!

Baking cookies -- This afternoon we will be baking Valentines Day cookies for Mothers Day Out Party tomorrow. I made the dough early and it is chilling while waiting for Alyssa to get home and help.

Samara is licking the cookie dough bowl

Making valentine cookies!

See what a nice floury mess we made?

Super Bowl Memories

Super Bowl Day. We have been invited to a Super Bowl Party. It is the first one I have been to since my Mom used to have them. Bob just liked to stay at home and watch the game so we never went anywhere to watch it. Oh, maybe once we went to the Rainbow Casino to a football party when we lived in Wendover but I don't think it was the Super Bowl. We are going today because Micah does not have TV. My favorite part of the Super Bowl usually is the commercials unless the Broncos or Green Bay Packers are playing and that doesn't happen too often!

When Mom had her parties or even just when the family was watching the game we always had a pool. We drew cards from a deck. I think it went like this ( but someone will need to correct me if I'm wrong): At the end of each quarter we took the score of the team that was ahead. Whoever had the number of the score (if it was 1 digit) or the last number of a 2 digit score won. I haven't done it in so long I'm not sure exactly how it went. I guess I didn't win that often! Mom would call all her relatives who liked football and included tham in the pool along with the neighbors who usually were there to watch too. One time we were in Florida at Mom's and my friend Annie was there too. She had neighbors who happened to be in Ft. Lauderdale so they came over for the game too. I remember that her friend really got into the pool part and he and Mom had a bunch of side bets that went on too. Annie and I just laughed because they were so funny about their betting. Mom tried to get us all into the betting spirit but we didn't know enough about football to even know what they were talking about. Mom had a rule about her football pools. You had to watch the game and be interested in football or you couldn't get in it. She didn't want someone to win that didn't even know what the score was! That usually eliminated Lynn and Bill because they weren't that interested and usually did something else during the game.

The commercials are usually good and I like to see what they are. I'm thinking at a party I'm not going to get to see them, though. There will be too much visiting and getting of refreshments. Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see. I think the Budweiser commercials are some of the best. I even saw them filming one of those commercials with the Clydesdales when I was in Boston a long time ago. Doritos has some funny ones. Then there are usually some really funny ones by other products but I don't remember them now. I suppose they will all be on Youtube so I can see them after the game.

My last memory is the time we actually went to the Super Bowl! A good friend of ours in Denver who was a doctor and owned a ranch neighboring ours had season tickets for the Broncos. He had 4 tickets to all home games and we had gone with them several times to see the Broncos. This particular year, we were at the stock show in Denver when the Super Bowl was going to happen. It was the very first time the Broncos went to it and it was in New Orleans. Dr. Granberg was so excited! AND he invited us to go with him! We flew out early Sunday morning. We had quite a bit of time to kill before the game but the package deal we went on just took us to the Superdome so we spent the whole afternoon there with thousands of other fans. It was very exciting and fun. The Broncos played the Dallas Cowboys and got soundly beaten but the experience was great. After the game we had a very scary experience. Everyone was exiting at once and they had long escalators to go down to the ground floor. As I got on the escalator I could look down and see that the whole lobby was full of people and there was nowhere to go when you got to the bottom. It was crowding up tighter and tighter with nowhere to get off! I was beginning to panic a bit. We got down and squeezed out to one side but I was sure someone was going to get hurt very soon. Luckily they turned off the escalators right after we got off but it was scary!

The next part was not scary but not fun either. The bus took us to the airport where our plane was supposed to leave in about an hour. That did NOT happen. Remember, Dallas was playing? Well, many people flew in on their private jets and they had them parked all over the big runways for the game. All those small jets had to take off before we could go. There were many big commercial jets in there from Denver and we all had to wait. There was no food left nor anything to drink either. It was wall to wall people, many sitting or trying to sleep on the floor since there was nowhere to sit. We finally got back to Denver about 5 AM. Almost 24 hours after we had left. It was a great time but I'm not sure I would want to do it again. You get a much better view of the game on your TV! However you can't experience the atmosphere and excitement of the game in your living room!

I think I will root for New Orleans since they have never been to a Super Bowl in their history and I like an underdog team! Have a great time everyone and enjoy the game and commercials!

Gymnastics

Today is Friday and we have been here for over 1 week!  I have gone with the kids to gymnastics every time which is 4 times so far and will go again today.  Actually Samara only goes once a week, but Alyssa goes 3 times a week because she is on the gymnastics team.  There are 4 girls on her team and they are all in first grade!  It is amazing to see what they can do at that age.  I am impressed with their teacher.  She has great patience to deal with 4 little wiggly and giggly girls for an hour 3 days a week, plus all her other classes.  She keeps a pretty tight rein on them but the other day when it was really stormy, every kid in that gym was squirmy and sort of out of control!  It didn't seem like any of them could stay focused!  Then on Thursday they all seemed to be much more settled down and focused.  It was still very rainy but they didn't act like kids do usually when it is stormy.
 

 Alyssa gets help with her back walkover

 A

It has been interesting for me to see how they teach all the skills we see at the Olympics to little girls and boys.  The gym has all kinds of equipment to help the kids.  The staff is very safety conscious and the kids are never put up on high equipment without a teacher to spot and help them.  There are several classes going on at once in the gym each with a separate teacher and also some of the bigger classes have helpers too.  They have 2or 3 balance beams that are just inches off the floor and the kids work on them before they ever are allowed on the regulation height beams.  The bars are not as high as regular ones either and they put mats and pads underneath them.  There is a climbing wall in the gym and some ropes to climb too.  The kids are not allowed to climb unless it is part of their lesson.  They also have trampolines that are kind of built into the floor so you don't have to get up onto them.  The students bounce and do their aerial somersaults and tricks on them.  Some of the older kids (teenagers) flip and land on a pile of mats at the end of the trampoline.  I really like to see all the different age groups and how quickly they learn their skills and how the teachers work with them to have good form.

 

 Alyssa on the trampoline

Samara's class (4 year olds)  meets upstairs in a separate room with even more miniature equipment!  They learn some very basic skills like somersaults, dangling on a bar and some exercises to help build their strength,  Very interesting,  I think they start kids at age 3 at this gym.  The people that run it are very interesting too.  The family is Hungarian and originally were circus acrobats.  They have a lot of memorabilia from the Ringling Brother's circus displayed in a case upstairs.  I think most of the teachers are part of the family.  In summer they run several camps and one of them is teaching circus acts!  Acrobatics and high wire are some of the features but they also have pictures of kids learning how to do clown makeup!  Wouldn't that be fun!  I'd like to go to that camp!

Svetlana spots Alyssa as she does her back walkover

Well, I'm off to take Alyssa to gymnastics.  I'll try to get some more pictures, today.  Oh, the sun finally came out today after a week of pouring rain!