Summer Vacation 2015

Every time I think, "This may be the last time."  And this time was no different, except this one really probably was the last time. The last time we will go on a "big" family vacation with just the six of us. Most likely next summer, at least one of the six won't be going.  Change is coming.  And though I may not like it, I know it will be okay.

So for this summer vacation, we went to Florissant, Colorado, which is just west of Colorado Springs.  We stayed up a mountain in this beautiful home found on vrbo.com.

When we look for a house to rent, price matters, but since we booked later than usual, we didn't have as many options.  This one cost a little more than we usually pay, but had everything else we/I wanted. I like a nice kitchen. It's fun to cook in and clean up a beautiful kitchen, for me, anyway!

It was especially helpful to have a nice, well organized kitchen because we are getting ready to remodel our own, and it gave me some ideas.

We also want plenty of comfy seating.  One house we rented was skimpy on the comfy furniture.  This one had tons of space and comfy places to sit!  This basement room was our favorite.  It was a basement, but also opened out in the front part to look like the lower level of the three stories!  It was a "rec" room, they call it.  We enjoyed it, immensely!

Another requirement is a place to eat outside.  We ate some evening meals out on the patio.  So nice!

We like outdoor things to do, but being on a mountain limits the things to do.  The homeowners did have a horseshoe place that Joe and the boys really enjoyed.  If it was our own house, we would put in a basketball goal!  But, for little ones, there was a baby swing and tire swing hanging from a tree, plus they had a few other outdoor games to play.  Our family enjoyed running and walking the roads and exploring the mountain a little.

The only thing we did as an activity was go up Pike's Peak on the Cog Railway.  This little marmot is the only animal that lives that high on the mountain.  They remind me of prairie dogs.

There was quite a bit of snow/ice on the road near the top at at the Summit this year.  And it was windy!!  Fifty-five mile per hour winds and 27 degree wind chill.

But we made it! And had their delicious donuts and hot chocolate!

On the way down the mountain, I was alone. The rest of my family hiked back down.  The youngest vows to NEVER, EVER do that again!!!  We thought he would decide to ride down, but he didn't.  Now he wishes he had, but some day (hopefully), he will look back and be proud of that HUGE accomplishment!  They were SORE for a few days!!  They didn't even want to look at the mountain the next day when we drove into town to eat! Ha ha!

This wasn't our cog. Ours was double, but I like this picture. It reminds me of "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood". :)

This was the morning we left Florissant.  We were ready to get home, ready to not climb stairs, and the boys were ready to hit golf balls out in our wide open field (can't do that on a mountain unless you want to spend a lot of money on golf balls!), but wow! What a great vacation home!  There were five bedrooms, two living areas, an office, four bathrooms, and much more.  The last night we played the hide and seek game, "Sardines".  It was so much fun and there were lots of places to hide!!!

My kids doing the obligatory picture.  They were okay with it :).

We hiked this long (not showing the whole thing) road and Joe and the boys ran it a lot.  It was 2.5 miles just down the mountain to the main road!  I can't imagine this in the winter, but would love to be there to see it some day!

Joe and the boys played golf here one day. It was a beautiful course!

Colorado sunset....
One of my favorite things about vacation was that Wednesday night Joe had each of the boys come up with a short Bible lesson.  He did one, too.  We sang, we listened to each of their lessons, we read the Bible, and then talked about what they each chose.  Interestingly, they all went together.  I think that's because the Bible is meant to go together. It DOES go together.  That evening, plus the other devotional times we shared, singing in the car on the way....those are some of my favorite memories.

The hiking group!  The two oldest boys made it down the mountain in 2 hours and 51 minutes!  They RAN because they wanted it to be over!! :)  Joe and the other two made it in a little less than six hours.  They ran a little, but mostly walked.  They were all tired, very thirsty and hungry when they came down!  I'm so proud of them!  And guess what? My husband runs the Pike's Peak Ascent and Marathon this weekend!  He's CRAZY! Ha ha!!  

I've Been Everywhere, Man!

I'm feeling like I should be singing the Johnny Cash song, "I've Been Everywhere, Man". for sure!

(Christmas Day - 2014...at Magic Kingdom in front of Cinderella's Castle)

 On Friday, December 19th, early, early in the morning, we loaded up our vehicle and began a journey to Kissimmee, Florida.  It rained for all but about 30 minutes of our trip that first day, where we spent the night in Pensacola.  The next day we thought would be an easy trip, but it turned out that EVERYONE on the entire east coast must have been traveling that day, as well!  The traffic was horrible, but we made it to our destination Saturday night....tired and ready to be out of the car.

(Cinderella's Castle from behind)

 Sunday we worshipped with the Main Gate church, which is a part of the Concord St. Church of Christ in Orlando. I've mentioned it before, but it's such a great work that I want to mention it again! The services are held in a hotel which is owned by a Christian couple. Every week, visitors to Disney World and perhaps other entertainment-type places around there, meet together for worship and class.  It's such a blessing to have worship just a few blocks from our rent home! It's a blessing to see so many Christians from all over the place come together to worship Him!  I love it!  And we're very thankful for the good work they do!

(Sorcerer's Hat icon at Disney's Hollywood Studios - Dec. 22, 2014. The hat will be removed from the park tomorrow, January 7, 2015.)

 We spent a week at the Disney World Resort, visiting the four main parks.  We took special time to get a picture in front of the icon hat at Hollywood Studios (HWS). It's coming down tomorrow :(.  It's sad to us, but many of the older days of HWS are glad to see it go.

(Breakfast at Chef Mickey's before heading towards home - December 27, 2014)

We got back home from Florida on Sunday, December 27th, after worshipping on Sunday at Opeloosa, LA, and in the Dallas area that evening. (Can't think of the congregation's name, but the singing was GREAT and so was the lesson!).  We got home at 11:45!

Monday, the 29th was a day at home. We were all excited to have that day at home!  But the unpacking and repacking for the next road trip took up a lot of that day.  The next day we headed to Denver, Colorado, where our niece was getting married on New Year's Day!

For the wedding, our oldest two boys served as parking attendants.  It was COLD, but they were glad to serve.  Wedding guests parked down the street in a school parking lot, and walked to the theater where the wedding was held.

 I love this picture, seeing so many family members working together to get the theater ready for the wedding!  We couldn't get into the theater until a few hours before the actual wedding, so it took lots of help from everyone to get it all done! (I'm not showing much of the wedding because my sister-in-law is blogging about it and leading up to the actual event! If you would like to keep up with her posts, it's at www.wawawaughs.blogspot.com. There's a link on the side of my blog, as well, if you're on a computer.)

Our youngest was in charge of handing out the wedding favors. Here he is stacking them.  They are pears!  I'll post more about that later, as well!

The drive home that New Year's Day was pretty. There was snow, heaving, blowing snow, then just pretty snow on the landscape.  We were expecting really bad roads the closer we got to home, but it turned out not to be too bad.  We arrived home at 12:45 a.m.!  And had another one day at home before the next trip!

(Beautiful iced trees somewhere between Paducah and Matador, TX.)

There were ice warnings all over our area and all around us, so we were thinking we might have some trouble getting to our next destination - Lubbock, Texas.  Thankfully in our area, it stayed a few degrees above freezing, so instead of the dreaded ice, we got the much-needed rain!  However, a few places along our route got the ice.  The roads were clear for most of the time, but eventually even the roads were slick. It wasn't too bad, just had to take it slow.

(Icicles hanging - on the Loop at Lubbock)

Taking the roads slower than usual gave me plenty of opportunities to take pictures!  Such a pretty site to see!

We stayed in Lubbock from lunch until that evening, leaving before the temps got too cold and the roads froze too much.  We got home around 9:30 p.m., and everyone went straight to bed!  

We really haven't been EVERYWHERE....but we sure feel like we have!  We're thankful to be home, for the most part, and in our own beds.

Thank you, God, for the world you've given us.  You created such beautiful things for us to see. Thank you for allowing our family to visit just a few of those places these past few weeks.  May we never forget that it was YOU would created everything. 

In Jesus' name,

Amen

Ruidoso - Summer Vacation 2014

Just driving into Ruidoso, NM, last Saturday I knew we were going to enjoy our stay there! Who doesn't enjoy seeing deer just calmly lying on the ground instead of running towards, away from, or into your car on the highway as you would see in SW Oklahoma?!  It was such a beautiful site!  And we saw many over the next five days!

 And then the scenes like this - the mountains, the pine trees, spectacular views.  It was beautiful!

Our house was beautiful, too.  We found it through vrbo.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner), as usual. I like having a big, nice kitchen, but actually, this time I didn't cook very much.  I still would have brought the kitchen home with me if I could have!

The owners are from Texas, so we had lots and lots of Texas decor.  We liked it - felt almost like home!  A neat thing is that we found out that the man is a hot air balloon company owner! He has won lots of awards in the hot air balloon industry! That explains why there was a lot of hot air balloon decor, too! I found myself finding hot air balloon things in the downtown stores, as well.

One fun thing we did was visit "Pillow's Funtrackers".  The owner, Jim Pillow is actually a former resident of Tipton Children's Home, that my husband now over as director.  He was adopted as a young teen and credits his faithful Christian life and success to those loving parents who adopted he and his siblings.  It was great to meet him!

Our children enjoyed the go karts!  Here Zachary and Jacob are racing!

 Lauren is so funny! It never fails, if she knows  have the camera out, she'll pose some goofy pose!  I wouldn't be able to do two things at once. I would have wrecked! Ha ha!

One thing Pillow's Funtrackers has is a huge maze. You stamp your card on the time machine, then get several markers punched along the way, then race back to the clock to be the first one back. It was so much fun!  Joe cheated! Can you believe that!!!???  

We visited the "Flying J" Ranch for a shoot-out, chuck wagon dinner, and Western music show. Tyler and the others all practiced shooting a pistol with wax pellets.

They had fun comparing who did the best.  I think Lauren did, actually!

Although we're not big Western music fans, this group was great! They were funny and talented. And it was clean! That's a buggy these days!

The food was really good!  It's so much fun eating from a tin plate and drinking from a tin cup!  Just like a cowboy, huh?!

Our family enjoyed being in the rental home. The owners leave puzzles for the guest to do.  This one was very, very hard, but we had such a fun time doing it together! Well, most of us contributed.  Joe tried to help, but he put a lot of pieces together in a row that didn't go!!  Ha ha!  He was disappointed we took them all apart, but we had to!  We didn't want to stop until we had it done, so several of us worked hours and hours at a time!

I wanted to take a picture of each of the kids in front of the house at this bear carving.

 So many of the homes had these kinds of bears! Small ones....big ones....cute ones!

 We bought one for our house with our last name on it.

It will always be a great reminder of our vacation!

We ate at so many wonderful places! I will spotlight them on "Life's a Bowl of Cherries" starting next week.

Mother/Daughter Road Trip - San Antonio and Fredericksburg

Before Lauren went to college, we didn't have time to take a weekend trip together, like I had wanted to.  Thankfully, it worked out that we  could take that trip this past weekend!  We had lots of fun, traveled lots of miles, saw new things, view some of God's beautiful creation, and made special memories.

Near the River Walk in San Antonio, we saw a few neat sites:  An old firetruck being towed...probably to that fire station museum or away from it.

Beautiful buildings with PALM TREES (I love seeing palm trees! I'm going to plant one - in southwest Oklahoma!)

The Alamo!  When Joe and I visited there years ago, I had no idea there was stuff behind this building! 

Lots of neat information about the history of the event, as well as a beautiful garden. There's a gift shop, too.

It was pouring rain as we walked along the River Walk! We had to stop in at CVS (which is right there on the River Walk) and buy ponchos.  But that's okay. :)

We ate at the Rainforest Cafe - a favorite place of our family, but we haven't been in several years.  Great food and great atmosphere! 

The mall had a GREAT Disney Store!  It even had a little castle room for little girls to admire their princess dresses.  Lauren tried it out!

The mall had a HUGE pair of boots outside of its entrance.

Saturday we went to Fredericksburg, TX. I had been there, but Lauren hadn't. We shopped up and down the main area, which was fun.

Then ate at Pasta Bella, a GREAT Italian restaurant.  Their Alfredo sauce is delicious!

Dessert was at Clear River, an ice cream, deli, and bakery shop. Very good!

                                               

We saw tons of bacon "stuff" and treats.  Hmmmmm.....Interesting.

It was a great mother/daughter weekend! We ended by attending a performance at the Rockbox Theater in Fredericksburg on Saturday night, then going to Bible class and worship and eating at the Peach Tree before heading back towards home.  It was a great little trip! I dropped my college girl off at her dorm, met her for lunch the next day, then headed back to Joe and the boys. I left her a fun surprise for her birthday, which was yesterday - lots of cupcakes and party supplies, so she could have a little birthday party in her dorm hall.

Thank you, God, for special times with my family...with all of them or one on one times.  A wonderful blessing.