Spring Break 2012 ~or~ The Big Road Trip

March.  Spring Break.  You know what that means for our family -- time to find some snow!!!  After last year's rainy disappointment in Tahoe (I swear our week was the only week the Sierras didn't get dumped on), we headed back to the Rockies.  There was a new twist on things this year...we decided to drive.  Yes.  You read that correctly.  15 hours in a car.  Fun times!

We hit the road in our rented Chevy Traverse shortly after school let out on Friday.  We didn't stop except for a quick dinner and potty breaks until we rolled into Wichita, KS around 1:00 AM.  We stayed in the "old town" area -- which was alive and kickin' at 1:00 AM.  So alive and kickin' that we couldn't help watching the scene from the window of our enormous room.  There was quite a bit of action to see as the nightclubs closed and patrons scurried for their cars in the garage across the way from our hotel.

Morning brought clear blue skies and balmy temperatures.  Perfect driving conditions.  Before we headed out of town, we took a drive around.

Wichita is full of interesting sights.  It's obviously a town that, at one time, was quite culturally rich.  The downtown area is peppered with interesting art and architecture, including life size bronze sculptures of small town and farm life.  Unfortunately, many of the buildings are now vacant and or boarded up.

This particular morning, Wichita was also all dressed up in crime scene tape.  Apparently, all the activity we were watching from our window in the wee hours of the morning was actually the aftermath of some disgruntled club patron who decided to exercise his right to bear arms.  Per the news reports, a man opened fire on the closing time crowd.  He shot 4 people before the police put an end to his rampage.  Seriously, the area a block away from our hotel looked like something out of CSI.  Crazy!

We pulled out of town happy for the blue skies, but a little creeped out by the surreal yellow bullet markers all over the sidewalks.  But...we had a lot of ground to cover, so it was time to turn our attentions to the road ahead of us.  We figured we had a bout 10 hours of solid driving before we reached our destination.  Duke put the pedal to the metal...

Maybe a little too exuberantly.  You know those Kansas highways -- long and straight.  Perfect for getting caught going 93 in a 75!  (Seriously, how on earth did we not see that cop?!)

It's not like there's anything to obstruct your view.  (Yep.  That's pretty much all we had to look at until we reached the foothills in Colorado.

Needless to say, we were happy for the change of scenery when we finally hit the mountains.  The beautiful sunset was icing on the tired road-trippers' cake.

By the time we arrived at our final destination -- the Vail Marriott Mountain Resort Spa & Hotel -- the sun had long since set.  We stumbled to our ground floor room and pretty much fell into bed.  The next morning, we threw open the drapes and were greeted by this:

Yes.  A room with a view!  And a ski valet!  And only a 5-minute walk to the gondola.  Months earlier, Duke cashed in the lion's share of our Marriott points for these sweet digs.  And oh how sweet they were!  (More on that later.)

Not only did we have a great view, we also had two nice patios!

 

And a bounty of treasures just footsteps away!

Oh the heartbreak of having to leave all those pine cones behind.

 

As for the skiing conditions...well, we were a little concerned.  Vail hadn't had much snow in the weeks leading up to our visit, and the weather was predicted to be quite warm during our stay.  We had been told it was icy on the top of the mountain and soupy at the bottom.  We were not filled with optimism as we headed out on our first day.  Fortunately, our concerns were laid to rest immediately.   Kudos to the Vail grooming crew.  The snow was great!  Our only concern was that we hadn't packed enough sunblock.

Our plan, as it's been every year, was to put the kids in ski school.  We got off to a bit of a late start, so the whole family skied together on the first day and had a blast.  Jake & Lila headed off for lessons on Day 2.  We were supposed to meet up with friends on Day 3 to ski in Breckenridge, but we were lazy to make the drive over there and since we hadn't made reservations for ski school, we spent another day on the slopes with the kiddos.

We skied and took breaks to sip hot chocolate.

Jake definitely took the prize for best cocoa mustachio and best helmet hair!

 Lila got the award for best application of sunblock to a freckled nose.

Day 4 saw the kids back in ski school while Mommy & Daddy carved up the slopes.  But you know...we'd had so much fun with the kids that we decided to scrap ski school for the rest of the trip.  We skied as a family for the remainder of our vacation.  And we skied every day -- no days off this year.

Jake mapped out the course and was sure to include all the terrain parks.

Lila's sole purpose was to find the rainbow in the "magic forest."  Unfortunately, this quest resulted in hours of frustration and one very unhappy ski bunny.  After several trips through the kids run known as Magic Forest, we determined that the rainbow was NOT there. It was in Chaos Canyon -- on the other side of the mountain.  Once we finally made it over there, I skied to the rainbow with Lila while Jake & Duke took a different run through a terrain park so Jake could practice riding the rails.  Of course, the boys beat the girls down to the lift.  This did not please our little lady at all!  Finally finding the rainbow was cool comfort to say the least.  In the end, we managed to squeeze out enough fun to consider the day a win.

The day concluded with a post-shower ride up the gondola for a peak-top dinner.  (And yes, as long as you were in the sun, it really was warm enough to be comfortable in a t-shirt!)

It was a very nice way to end the day.

We'd saved some special fun for our last day.  Vail has a great tubing run right on the mountain.  So after we'd skied our fill, we headed over to the tube park for some spinning, bouncing sliding fun.

 Jake wasn't keen on the spinning part, but he loved the speed.

Spinning was just fine with Delila.

After our tubing time was up, we headed over to the kids' snowmobile track.  More disappointment for Delila -- she's not old enough yet -- but Jake had a great time racing his mini snowmobile around the track.  True to his competitive nature, he made it his mission to pass every rider on the course.  It was funny to watch him in his attempts to maneuver around his competition.  There was a group of boys who did their best to team up against him.  But they underestimated our boy.  In the end, Jake skunked 'em all with a crazy inside-outside move.  He was quite pleased with himself.  Quite.

And then, just like that, the week was over.  One last sleep and then it was time to pack up and hit the road.  On the morning of our departure, Duke went up to the front desk to check out and have the car brought around while the kids spent a little more time hunting for treasures...

...and practicing future tricks.

It took forever to check out.  2 hours to be exact.  Remember all those hotel points we cashed in to stay at this ritzy place?  Well...apparently there was some fine print that we missed when we made the reservation.  $3000 worth of fine print.  WHAT?!?!  Yep.  So much for the free posh digs.  Duke did his best and got that number significantly reduced, and he's still working on it to get the rest taken care of, but needless to say, he was NOT a happy camper by the time we were ready to load the car.  And as if that wasn't enough to deal with, during the delay, the Marriott porters decided to send my skis home in someone else's car.  It was a fiasco to say the least.  And a very late start to a very long day on the road.  We considered changing our course, but in the end we considered our selves lucky that we weren't chained to an airline departure time.

So we stuck to our original plan and took the scenic route -- while we had a scenic route to take.  The road was a little too twisty-turny for our boy Jake.  When he started feeling too queasy we pulled over to take in the beautiful vistas and a little fresh air.

And where there are boys...and rocks...and a river...well, there are boys throwing rocks in a river.

And where there are girls...and sparkly pink rocks...

...there's a car full of rocks.  Alas, so many rocks, so little room in the car.

Our next stop was the Royal Gorge Bridge in Canon City.  At over 1000 feet above the Arkansas River below, the bridge is considered the highest suspension bridge in the world.  At least that's their claim.  All I can tell you is it is way up there.  Yikes!  When we made our stop, they were experiencing a power outage so our viewing was done from outside the park -- and that was dizzying enough for me.

That was our last break for a while.  It was time to hit the road hard for Amarillo.  It was already 5:30 and we still had 6 hours of driving to do before we could call it quits for the night.  It was going to be a late one.

Thank goodness for glow sticks!  They turn any late night road trip into a party!!

Who knows what time we finally rolled into Amarillo.  All I know is we were all tired and very cranky.  It had been a very long day.  And when we hit the road the next morning, our blue skies and pretty scenery had given way to...

...windmills and cattle...

...lonely barns just waiting to be ripped away by the next tornado...

...freshly plowed fields and mesas.  In other words, a whole lotta nothin'.

We were quite happy when we finally reached Wichita Falls, TX.  Not only was it getting close to home, it also gave us an opportunity to get out of the car and stretch our legs.  It also gave us an opportunity to answer the burning question, "Are there actually falls in Wichita Falls?"  And the answer is yes...kind of.  Once upon a time there were falls in Wichita Falls, but they were washed away by a flood back in the 1800s.  In 1987, someone decided it would be a great idea to create a nice waterfall so the good people of the town could once again say, "Yes!  There are falls in Wichita Falls!"  So after a stroll through some kinda cool/kinda creepy woods, and a very wobbly walk across a swinging bridge we reached the falls.  Hey...it's no Niagra, but it beats the heck out of sitting in the car.  Beggars can't be choosers.

But that was the last of the pit stops.  After our tour of the falls we were back on the road with the mantra, "Next stop, HOME!"

We napped.  We snacked.  We took drew and colored pictures.  Best of all, we survived our first real road trip.  And who knows, maybe we'll take another.  In the meantime, it's good to be home, sweet home.

No More Little Girls

Mommy!  Mommy!

My tooth came out!!

No more little girls in our house.  Just big, beautiful, toothless girls.

For the record, the glorious transformation from little girl to big girl took place last Sunday.  Lila was getting ready for a birthday party at Pump It Up -- one of our favorite jumping places.  She was quite concerned about her tooth, as she explained while taking her bath:

Lila: "Mommy. I'm not going to do any jumping at the party."

Me:  "Why not?!"
Lila:  "Because I don't want my tooth to fall out while I'm jumping.  Then I might lose it and the Tooth Fairy wont be able to come."
Me:  "Well just jump with your mouth closed."  (Seemed like an easy solution to me.)
Lila:  "Mommy!  When I jump I always yell 'WooHOO!'  You can't yell 'WooHOO' with your mouth closed."  (Duh.  I'm obviously the dumbest mommy on the planet.)

Fortunately, it was a non-issue.  The tooth came out moments later and Lila was able to jump and jump and jump at the party...and do a little big girl bragging too.

Can We Keep Him?!

Please, oh please, oh please????  We'll take really good care of him!!!

No!

Say goodbye!

What about this guy?  He's tiny.

No!

Oooo!  We found a caterpillar!!!

~sigh~  OK.  (But I think we've killed him.)

Maybe it's time to get Lila that puppy she's been begging for.

Good House Keeping

You know, it's not all fun and games around here.  Oh no!  There's plenty of work that gets done in this household.  Last week was no exception.  The floors needed a serious cleaning, and I had just the serious team for the job.  The dirt didn't stand a chance against us!  We had a machine.  We had protective goggles.  We had...

...specialized footware!

 And when the floor was good and clean, we broke out the aerosol chemicals...

 Just for some slippin' and slidin' fun!

OK, so maybe it is all fun and games around here.

A Red...er...Green-Letter Adventure ~or~ Watching Grass Grow

Yikes!  I'm so behind on my posting.  This summer is just racing by.  We've been lazy and crazy all at the same time.  I guess it's pretty much the same as last summer.  Actually, there are a few carry-overs from last summer:  swimming lessons, 'summer camp' at Infinite Bounds, dates with friends, and of course, our summer adventures.  Last summer, the kids and I tried to squeeze in an adventure every week.  We're keeping up with the tradition this year.  We've had some fantastic adventures so far -- some more adventurous than others, but always fun.

It's been horribly hot so far this summer -- hovering around the 103 degree mark most afternoons.  The mornings, however are pretty tolerable so we try to get up and out early.  We were a little pressed for time last week, so we kept our adventure close to home.  

One of my goals this summer was to get Delila more comfortable on her bike.  She's been begging to ride by herself to the playground, but I've had no confidence that she could do this on her own.  There's a pretty big hill (for these parts) that she'd have to negotiate before reaching the slides and swings.  Now, it's not that Lila doesn't have the strength.  Oh no!  She's got some strong legs.  I know this because when she's on the Afterburner behind me, she literally pushes me up the hills.  But for some reason, when Lila rides her precious little purple Tony Hawk bike around the neighborhood, she refuses to peddle up even the slightest of slopes.  Making the 1/2 mile trek to the playground...up and down a significant hill...well, I've not been willing to go there.  I made an exception last Monday.  And guess what!

She made it!!  All on her own!

But there was no time to bask in the glory of Lila's maiden voyage.  We had work to do.  We had to collect some pebbles.  Two bags of pebbles to be exact.  Jake was a bit concerned that we were stealing, but I assured him they would eventually be returned to their home under the twisty slide.  We were only going to need them for a little while.  With that moral dilemma cleared up, he and his sister got to shoveling.

After we'd procured all the pebbles we needed, we loaded them up into my backpack and took turns rehydrating from the camelback hydration system -- also located in my backpack. Sipping from the Camelbak is most definitely one of the highlights of every adventure.  However, riding a bike under a blazing sun with 5 lbs. of water and 20 lbs. of rocks on my back...well, let's just say that was not a highlight of this particular adventure.  At least it wasn't for me.  I was happy to get those pebbles off my back when I got home.

Once off my back, the pebbles were loaded into two shallow containers.

Then we made some mud.  OK, Jake made some mud.

And had a little dirty fun in the process.

Then we loaded letter-shaped cookie cutters with the mud and some grass seed and sunk them into the pebbles.  Voila!  Our name gardens were complete.  Well, almost.  Now we just had to wait for them to sprout.

And boy-oh-boy did they ever sprout!  I always thought that expression about "watching the grass" grow implied that it was a rather slow and boring process.  Not in our experience.  Seriously, this stuff grew about 1 1/5" a day!

It wasn't long before a trim was in order.

That's a little better.

Jackass: (Not) The Movie ~or~ The Boy Life

OK, first of all, for those of you unfamiliar with Jackass, relax.  I'm not referring to either one of my boys in the title of this post.  Well, not really.  OK, maybe a little.  But anyway, for a quick primer on "Jackass:  The Movie", please visit this link ~> Jackass: The Move (Official Trailer).

Alrighty-then.  Assuming you are now up to speed on Jackass (and thanking your lucky stars that don't call any of those fellows "son"), read on.

We like to live as "green" as we can in our house, and I have gone to great lengths (and amassed quite a bit of junk) trying to impress upon my children that everything we use has at least two useful purposes.  Reduce.  Reuse.  Recycle.  That's our mantra.  Lila, in particular, has latched on to this principal quite vehemently.  So the other night when Duke tried to toss this empty juice bottle into the recycle bin, it was no surprise to hear her say, "Reuse, Daddy!!  Reuse, reduce, recycle!!!" (Yeah, she gets the order mixed up some times.)  Here's the conversation that followed:

Daddy:  It's empty, Lila.  What do you want me to do with it?
Jake:  I know, Daddy!  We could fill it with farts and drop a match in it.  Then it would explode!!
Me:  *blink* *blink*
Daddy:  Hahahahahahaha!!
Me:  (trying very hard to suppress laughter cuts disapproving mother-eyes and laughing father)
Jake:  No!  Seriously!!  I'm not kidding!!!   It'll explode!!!!
Me:  Uh, Jake?  Who told you that?
Jake:  Daddy did!!
Me:  Uh...Daddy?
Daddy:  No I didn't!!
Jake:  Yes you did!
Daddy:  *blink* *blink*

And there you have it.  Life with boys!

Oh, and no, we did not repurpose the bottle as a fart bomb.

Lila turned it into an annoying percussion instrument by filling it with bouncy balls.  Maybe we'll try Jake's idea next time.

Delila's First Dance Recital ~or~ The Thanks I Get

Ballet.  *sigh*  Just the mention of the word sends ripples of anticipation up and down the spines of most Girl-Moms.  The shoes!  The tights!  The layers upon layers of tulle!  Not this Girl-Mom.  When Delila started expressing interest in dance...well...those ripples of anticipation felt more like waves, no tsunamis of nausea.  But it's all about the kids, right?  Not about me.  So, when Delila wanted to sign up for ballet, Delila got signed up for ballet.

She took it very seriously, and practiced her positions with diligence. 

But ballet isn't just about a little girl perfecting her passe.  Oh no!  There's a lot of practice involved for Mommy too.  None of which is all that fun.

Like applying stage makeup to a squirming 4-year-old.  Oh yeah, let's talk about how much fun that was.  I think I'd rather apply mascara to a cat!  (OK, so my first attempt was a little heavy-handed.)

And then there were hours spent scouring YouTube for ballet hair style tutorials.  (Yes, there are plenty of them out there.  Wow!  You can really kill some time doing that kind of research.)

Back in April I thought all this stuff was the hard part.  But then came picture day and preparation for the recital - when the tutu had to be pressed and fluffed just so.  ("Hang your tutu upside down for maximum puffiness" -- per the directions that came with it.)  All of this translates into a lot of work for the Girl-Mom.

And then...then there was the dress rehearsal and the recital itself.  Delila was beside herself with excitement about her big day on the The Big Stage!  Fortunately, she didn't have a baseball game on that Saturday, so the entire day could be wasted dedicated to hair, makeup, dressing, etc.  Oh, and did I mention that recital day is supposed to be some kind of momentous occasion?  To be celebrated with flowers and gifts?!  Well, you know what that meant...more running around for the Girl-Mom...which I dutifully did.

I bought flowers to match her costume.  I tied them into separate bundles -- one from Bubba, one from Mimi, one from Mommy & Daddy...

a very special one, hand picked from the garden by Big Brother Jake.

I included feathers and chiffon butterflies...so she'd have lasting souvenirs of her big day on the big stage.

I wrapped each bouquet with organza and satin ribbon that I planned to use to create a streamer so Lila could practice her ribbon dancing at home.

And then the moment arrived!

I have to admit, seeing all the little girls dressed up and ready to take the stage...well, it was pretty stinkin' cute.

I got Lila's hair and makeup just right.

Lila assumed her Prima Ballerina attitude...

...and she took the stage!

And then it was over.

And then it was really over.

Seriously.  Over!  Really?  This is the thanks I get?!?!?  All of that pressing and primping!  All of that running around and wrapping!  For this?!?

Well, it really hurt my feelings.  So I've decided to keep the flowers and feathers, the butterflies and ribbons, the tiara and the trophy for myself...for being a great Girl-Mom and doing a fantastic and under-appreciated job on Lila's first dance recital.  I might even make myself a streamer and do a little ribbon dancing of my own.  I'm definitely wearing the tiara.