What a treat!

We escaped to the mountains of Ruidoso for a long weekend and had a blast! C man finally had his wish fulfilled and we all really enjoyed the down time. There was a ton of eating, lots of driving(could have done without a little of that.don't get me wrong I LOVE a road trip), some movie watching, oh and some skiing and tubing. Cohen had a ski lesson on saturday morning and did really well. He and Jay stayed on the slopes until about 3:30 and I think Cohen could have kept it up although he fell asleep before we were down the mountain. Em and I had planned on dropping them off and then hanging out in town or going to see a movie but ended up just hanging around so we could watch Cohen(by the time you head down the mountain and back up you have lost a couple of hours of the day). We took a cat nap in the car and before we knew it the boys were back. The next day we got an early start and went tubing..That was fun!! Em wasn't so sure and continued to get more and more fearful each time we went but I had a blast;) Then we headed to cloudcroft for lunch and back to the big O to pick bitty baby up. She enjoyed her quiet time with MoMo and Ya Ya and Paw but was excited when the chaos that is her family showed up to get her! Oh and Chacho was spoiled too by the Beards..He probably played more fetch over the weekend than he has all year with us..Poor thing use to get all our attention until #1,2, and 3 rocked our worlds.

Fun on our balcony

Helping sis

Cheesy caption follows..Smore Please

With Mr. Al his ski insstructor

Cohen and I tubing..he IS behind me

See..

Going up the magic carpet with dad

Staycay

A month ago we had some time off from work and tried to work in a little R & R. We started the week off with lots of family fun and tried to work in some things around town that have a hard time fitting into our weekends. Like going to the childrens museum...... Here are C and E cooking up a storm on the grill.

Stuffing a "pinata"

our 3 man band...Is she singing or shushing?

A lesson in cow milking..reminded us of an intersting set of questions from Cohen recently.

The kids in the craft zone...There are tons of little recycled items to choose from to make whatever your little heart desires.

Then we headed to Barton Creek Resort to check in and get ready for a quiet dinner.  I can't figure out who Jay was talking to in this picture but he sure does look relaxed and ready to enjoy a few kid free days eh?

This was the view from our room.  It really did feel like we were out of town.

We went to a beautiful Italian restaraunt in the hill country wich is just a few miles from our little plot of land;)

We pretty much just ate and slept for several days and I don't know if I am good at that anymore.  It is so strange to not have short needy people around me that I almost don't know what to do with myself.  I suppose that is why we should do things like this more often?  On the last day of our stay at the hotel the kids cam up to swim with us.

Somewhere in there we threw in a trip to the ranch to check out the new animals...

Like Lemers and monkeys...and the main attraction the tigers..(I forgot to get a pic of those)

And then things got back to normal for us!

First Family Vacation 09'

Off we go! We headed out for our first Family Vacation a couple of weeks ago...We left one day at lunch after work so once we finally arrived at our first stop in a tiny little town in AR we were all a little pooped. Of course at the time had we known that our trip back would take 12 hours we would have been extatic about the short drive up!
I know what some of you are thinking...that looks just like Jessica...


Here are the kids vegging in front of the tube in the tiny town of Hope AR..where a former president grew up. There was nothing to do or see here so we ate and slept in preparation for our first big day.

On Thursday when we pulled into town we walked around and tried to take in as much of Hot Springs as we could before the kids and the dog told us it was time to go. This is a picture of Cohen in front of the visitors center where there were a couple of fountains that had the water from the springs in it. I don't know why but it actually suprised me that it was HOT. It was just chilly enough that you could see steam around most of the springs in town. I bet it is quite a site in the winter.

Checking out one of the springs.

This was an old bath house and the beds that Cohen and I are laying on is where people use to cool off after their long hot baths.

Emery really enjoying her lunch at this quirky random spot upstairs in an old building in Hot Springs. We had to really be patient at this place...the "waiter" was a tenant in the building that worked there on occasion when the owner had no one else to help. There were no straws, no kid firendly cups, half frozen corn dogs(that the kid gobbled up), and no toppings for the "loaded bake potato". You had to be there but it was fairly comical that anything that we wanted to order or asked for they were "out of" and the "manager was at sams".

The kiddos enjoying their breakfst together before a big day of fun!

On Friday we went to a great place called Garvan Gardens. There was a 1.5 mile trail that lead us to a Koi pond, waterfalls, many different bridges, a childrens area that had a bridge made out of trees, and a miniature town and train station. Oh and a gorgeous chapel made all out of wood and glass. What an awesome place to get married for some lucky brides! After what turned out to be quite a hike...we were all exhausted. We would love to go back some day when the kids are a little older to see the Christmas lights along the trails that they were just starting to put up.