An Update for the Family

Most of my posts seem to be about all of our critters, with a few scattered here and there, of my 3 kidlets. I started this blog (and my original blog) over 5 years ago mostly for keeping a journal and for sharing updates with friends and family from out of state. I’m pretty sure the critter posts are not as well received by my Dad and Stepmom as are the posts that contain photos and updates of Jax, Jem and Jen.
So, since it’s been a while, here’s a post for the Grandparents so they can have a little peek into what we’ve been up to.
(Note: If looking at lots of photos of someone else’s kids is not your cup of tea, then you’ll probably want to stop reading……..now.) 
Jax and Jem had one of their best bud’s Chad over for an awesome fun sleep-over to celebrate his birthday and then went over to Chad’s house for a big co-ed birthday party.
(I told them to act silly, but instead it looks like they all have to go to the bathroom)

We all went Letterboxing one afternoon, after picking up Ranchman John at the airport and found 4 Letterboxes around Albuquerque. We had a great time hiking and just hanging out together. It was fun to visit Tingley Beach again. Hard to believe we used to live right across the road from these little lakes, at The Beach Apartments, over 19 years ago. Where has the time gone?
(And how is that I can buy pants that fit my sons and then just a month later they are already looking too short? Jax and Jem are already over 6’ tall and tower over me and won’t be 15yrs old until February. Quit growing already, ok?!)

I took the kidlets ice skating recently with our homeschool group. Jen was too afraid of the slippery ice (I don’t blame her) but the boys both had a great time, although it sure is cold in the ice skating rink.
 

Since we were there during the week, our group basically had the entire huge place to ourselves.

I was almost wishing I had donned some skates myself, but my knee still isn’t always reliable and sometimes gives out on me. But Jax and Jem skated for about 2 hours with some of their friends.

It’s a pretty neat Ice Skating Rink nestled into the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, right below the Tram. There’s two separate ice rinks connected by two tunnels. And they’ve got several Ice Hockey Club Teams that practice and compete there, and while we were there we got to watch several figure skaters practicing. They were really good! I like the fun decor, too.



While Jen and I sipped hot cocoa, Jax and Jem seemed to have a good time out there on the ice.
 

Jen is still very active in her Girl Scout Troop. In fact she participated in our Troop’s Bridging Ceremony last month and is now an official Brownie. (Sorry no photos. I forgot my camera, but I’m hoping some other Moms will share the ones they took with with me)
And Jax and Jem are active in their Boy Scout Troop and are quickly moving up in rank advancement. They have been busy studying and attending classes to complete several of the Eagle Scout Merit Badges. Their Troop’s Court of Honor is next week and they are very excited and I am very proud of them. (I’ll try to remember to take some photos)
Jen, Jem and I went with our homeschool group last week to play some indoor miniature golf. The owner was homeschooled and was so happy to have us there that she gave us all pizza and drinks for free. She also let us play golf in the dark, which was really cool!
(Ice Hockey on Hole #11)

Jax stayed home because he was feeling a little under the weather. I think he was concerned that we’d be playing outside, but he needn’t of worried because, although it was only 25F degrees and snowy at home, down in Albuquerque it was in the 40F’s and completely snow-less. Besides we were playing indoors anyway.
It was too bad, because one of his best friends, Bri was there, and the place had WII. Bri had to settle for Twin B to hang out with this time.
 

Jen watched some Kung Fu Panda after we finished our 18 Holes.
 

And we had a great time playing miniature golf together. Jen kept asking me to take lots of photos, which was quite challenging to do in the dark room.
But here’s a few (or more) to share:

Jem is always so good with Jen. They are very close.

Such a nice lion to give rides to visitors.



New Mexico Golf Sharks are very dangerous.


Jen really liked this race track obstacle.


This was my favorite hole for it’s creativity.

Another safe rattlesnake to visit with.

A lot of thought went into making each obstacle.

The castle and dragon in the moat was very cute and fun.

That windmill spins and is difficult to get the ball inside the doorway. But Jen did it! Jem had to go around. lol!

I thought this picture was cool with how it picked up the spinning of the windmill and made it look solid.

You make the 18th Hole and a little train went around a track among a village of cute houses. Choo Choo!

This is going to be a very busy week!
This week Jen has her Girl Scout Christmas Party/Cookie Baking Party. That same night, Jax and Jem have their Boy Scout Meeting. Later this week we’re all going to the Albuquerque Bio Park’s River of Lights display at the Botanic Gardens with friends. Jen has her Music Class and I’ll be attending my Homeschool Mom’s Christmas Luncheon at the end of the week and the boys have their Patrol Leader Training over the weekend. And then there’s the Boy Scout Court of Honor this weekend, too.
Thankfully the following week, the week before Christmas, will be much quieter and less scheduled. This week promises to be the storm before the calm.
And speaking of storms, we’ve got another one coming on Tuesday with predictions of it dumping another 5”-10” of snow on top of all the snow we still have on the ground from last week’s previous snow storms that left us with 15” of the white stuff. Oh Joy!
And to add insult to injury, our roof is leaking in two places and more snow is just going to make it worse. The boys and I are going to try and patch it up tomorrow, but there is a lot of ice up there to deal with. And something else with bad timing……the washing machine. I’ve been without one for two weeks now after ours died one day. Not fun. And with Ranchman John working in Phoenix for 7-14 days at a time, all this stuff can be very overwhelming.
One positive thing is that the kidlets and I did manage to get the Christmas Tree and decorations up on Sunday.

The sparkling colorful lights, although beautifully festive, don’t help get my mind off of the fact that I’ve not gotten any Christmas shopping done yet. Sigh.

The Tea Party

 

(Interesting title? Probably not what you were thinking, if you had politics on your mind. lol!)

Yesterday, my daughter’s Girl Scout Troop had a Mother’s Day Luncheon and Tea Party.

(Jen wasn’t all that thrilled about wearing her pretty paper tea time hat, but I was happy to have a photo of my daughter and I together)

First we enjoyed a tasty lunch at a local Mexican Restaurant and then met up at the location of our usual Girl Scout Meetings to have a fun tea party.

Everything was very festive, pretty and appetizing.

And there were several crafts for the girls to do, including making a hair scrunchie,

a jelly bean necklace,

(Doesn’t that little girl in the background remind you a little bit of Nelly from Little House on the Prairie?)

and a lovely floral paper teatime hat.

There was also a Badge Award Ceremony, too.

And all the girls posed for a pretty picture, which our Girl Scout Leader will be sending in to Family Fun Magazine because the floral paper hat idea came from their craft section.

    

And of course there was plenty of tea.

And this tea review is for Ed of Sunday Stills who hosts a weekly post on his blog called Teatime Tuesday.

One of the teas I chose to try was called:

Lapsang Souchong

Lapsang is grown in China and Taiwan and is distinct from all other types of tea because Lapsang leaves are traditionally smoke-dried over pinewood fires, taking on a distinctive smoky flavor. The story goes that the tea was created during the Qing era when the passage of armies delayed the annual drying of the tea leaves. Eager to satisfy demand, the tea producers sped up the drying process by having their workers dry the tea leaves over fires made from local pines.

Lapsang Souchong's flavor is strong and smoky, similar to the smell of a campfire or of Latakia pipe tobacco. The flavor of the pine smoke is meant to complement the natural taste of the black tea, but should not overwhelm it. Tea merchants marketing to westerners note that this variety of tea generally produces a strong reaction—with most reviews being extremely positive or strongly negative.

Personally, I rather liked this unusual tea although it did remind me of a campfire, but in a good way. I drank it with only a little sugar, but I think a splash of milk would have given it a smoother, “tamer” flavor.

Happy Mother’s Day wishes to all of you this week, who are blessed to be Mothers. 

And we we’re Splishin’ and a Splashin’!

 

 

My daughter’s Girl Scout Troop raised enough money from cookie sales (thanks to everyone that helped by buying cookies from my girl) to plan a fun event. Everyone decided they wanted to go to a water park, but didn’t want to drive too far due to the cost of gas. So it was agreed that we would all spend the night at The Radisson Hotel and Water Park in Albuquerque!

I’m sure all of you who are experiencing enough rain to float an ark, probably won’t be too impressed with all of our water play, but to us here in New Mexico, water is gold!

On Friday afternoon we checked in and immediately donned our swimsuits and spent a few hours splishin’ and splashin’ and just having a grand ol’ time!

Jax and Jem came along and had fun zooming down the two water slides, one which was a tube slide and one which was a body slide….and actually did most of it’s twists and turns *outside* of the building! And I really liked the Art Nouveau theme of the water park.

 

Jen’s favorite place was the kid’s play area, which was shallow and packed full of sprayers, squirters and big buckets that dumped water on us.

 

Jax and Jem also spent a lot of time in this toasty warm pool, shootin’ hoops and navigating the rope across the slippery floating shapes.

Jen became a happy fish and smiled the entire time we were there!

She and I really enjoyed the indoor/outdoor hot tub which had a fun little door to swim through to go in or out. But she spent most of her time sliding down the two slides in the kid’s pool.

I went down those two slides a few times, too and quickly understood why Jen couldn’t stop smiling. That was so much fun!

I have never seen her smile this much.

Jax, Jem and I took many trips around the Lazy River. I loved it! So relaxing!

I didn’t even mind these “flower Petals” dumping water on my head as I floated beneath. Although it did get a little annoying, and kind of funny, when my tube would get stuck in an eddy below them for a couple minutes. If only the water had been as warm as the river itself.

The blue slide is the tube slide and it also travels outside for the last half of the ride. I almost went down that one, but I couldn’t get my courage up. My left knee and my hips don’t always feel secure and I didn’t want to risk it.

This looks a whole lot easier than it really is. lol!

 

My twinlings were off having so much fun that I was quick to grab a photo when they did check in with me.

I was happy that they were interested in being my photography subjects so I could practice taking action shots in a dark environment. They took some fun surfing lessons on the Flow Rider. This is another ride that looks a lot easier than it really is. But the more often they did it, they did seem to get better at it, even in such a short time.

Go Jax!

 

I need a whole lot more practice taking action shots in an indoor, light-challenged environment and experimenting with different settings. Hubby thinks I just need a better camera. Hmmm….

Go Jem!

We played at the Water Park from 3pm until about 6pm. Then came back to the room for some snacks and drinks. I took a shower and got dressed, and then we all headed back over to the water park to play until it closed at 10pm.

I was glad I wasn’t swimming on Friday night because it was much more crowded then and there were a lot of teenagers and the vibes were rather rowdy and loud. My kidlets still had a great time while I took photos and tried to stay dry.

I really enjoyed seeing how the water park was all lit up at night, almost like a disco. They play music all the time, but at night it’s more exciting because of the dancing different colored lights.

I was also excited to take on the challenge of more action photography in low lighting.

Jem looked kind of sleepy in this photo. It was almost 10 pm and we had been swimming and playing for almost 6 hours by this time. The Lazy River could easily put a person to sleep, too.

But the noise level kind of prevented the ability to fall asleep…..

I like how, in this picture, everyone is blurry, except Jax.

I was easily entertained with photographing all the sculpturally interesting water works.

I was mesmerized with the way the light shone through the bright colors and sparkling, flowing water.

And the spinning water squirters were even more fun and challenging to photograph.

These leaves drip water onto those floating on the Lazy River……very cold water. I avoided them, or at least tried to.

I enjoyed them much more as a photography subject.

 

After we closed down the water park, we drove down the road and had dinner at Sonic, came back to the hotel, took showers and went to bed. Did I mention the Radisson had Sleep Number Beds? Mmmm…..nice.

And then the next morning, we had a little breakfast and then threw on our swimsuits again and headed over to the water park around 9:30am. I didn’t take any photos because I spent the entire time either soaking in the hot tubs or floating in the Lazy River.

We jumped out about 11:30am, went back to our hotel room, took showers, packed up the van, and then checked out at 12pm(the check-out time the hotel gives to water park guests. Nice!)

What is extra awesome about all of that, is that it only took us 30 minutes to drive back home. Don’t ya just love those quick, little, relaxing and fun vacations?

It’s just what we all need sometimes.