Spring Break - Day Three

The drive from Tucson to Phoenix was relatively short and allowed us to arrive in plenty of time for our first sporting event.  The World Baseball Classic game between Canada and the U.S.  It was at Chase field, which is an awesome stadium.  The weather was outstanding!! 

The boys hung out in the the outfield hoping to catch a batting practice ball, but no luck this time. 

My cutie patooties.  These next few pictures don't require any captions...just some action shots that Hubby captured during the game.  He got some good ones! 

U.S.A. wins in a close one!  I really didn't think I would care who won this game, but I was totally into it by the end!

As soon as this game was over we headed over to check into our hotel.  We have stayed at Squaw Peak several times before and we were very much looking forward to it again. This time we had a Casita, which was more like a town home. It was great.  Here are a few pictures of our unit before we unloaded all our belongings.  It was never this clean again! 

After we unloaded the car, we headed over to the pool for a quick swim.  Then off to dinner.  I think the first night in Phoenix we ate at Olive Garden and made a quick trip to Target for a few things.

After a late dinner, we hit the sack pretty early.  We had a big day on Monday morning. We were heading downtown for a college tour of Arizona State University - Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.   One of Harry's top choices.   Stay tuned for more pictures.....

Spring Break - Day One and Two

We are on our way home from a week in Arizona.  I really had great intentions that I was going to blog each and every day of our vacation as it happened.  

I was so wrong. 

My husband never actually lets you sit still on vacation.

There is no downtime.   There is no quiet time.  There is most definitely no time to blog.  So, now we are one more day away from our vacation being over and I haven't even posted the first picture.  If you are friends with me on Facebook I did post a few pictures there!  I am going to cram Day One and Two together in this post so I can get caught up quickly!  

We rolled out of the driveway last Friday at 4:30 in the afternoon.  Grabbed some grub for the starving teenager in the family and hit the road for Arizona. 

Then we slammed into rush hour traffic and it took damn near an hour to go 20 miles.  It was a bit of a slow start to our road trip.

We finally broke out of the hullabaloo that is city traffic and hit the barren wasteland that is west Texas.  It was getting to be about 8:30 or so and we were looking for a place to grab some dinner and rest our weary heads.  The choices were VERY slim in this part of the country.

We finally found a blip on the map and came up on this Cooper's BBQ.  It smelled good from the parking lot.

SIDE NOTE:  We had to put Rosie the cat to sleep the day before we left on vacation.  Yes, contrary to my many public rants about the happiness it would bring me to not have a litter box in my house any more, I cried.  No one was more surprised than me.  She was 13.  It was the right thing to do.  Anyway, back to Cooper's.  We were walking across the parking lot when from the corner of my eye I catch some movement.  I glance over and I'll be damned if it wasn't a Rosie look a like.  Kinda freaky.

Cooper's was as redneck as redneck comes. There were so many stuffed dead animals on the wall it was unreal.  I mean, there were goats, snakes, coyotes, all kinds of wildlife.  Dead.  Hanging on the wall.  The best one was two raccoons sitting together in a canoe.  Is that real?  Do raccoons really row themselves around in a canoe?  I don't think so Cooper's.  You need to talk to your taxidermist.  He pulled a fast one on you. 

After our stomachs were full, we started looking for a hotel.  The GPS said the next exit with hotel was about 50 miles away. We didn't want to drive that far.  There were two choice here by Cooper's.  One was a decent looking Best Western so we headed over to see if they had any rooms.  They did not. Apparently, there was a wedding in town and the hotels were filling up fast. 

We dashed across the street to see if there were any vacancies.  The boys both said in unison "Motel 6"??  Are we staying there??

It was not a real nice Motel 6, either.  It was a bit of a dive, but we were desperate.

We honestly didn't know whether to hope that Hubby came out with a room key or not.  While we were waiting in the car, Harry slipped into full Arles mode from his school production of Tuna Christmas and was talking country like you cannot believe.  A giant truck rolled by with skull and cross bones airbrushed all over it.  I mean... ALL OVER IT.  I said "Oh my."  Harry said "I sure like your skeletons, mister."  There were trucks with fire painted on them.  It was quite the car clientele in the parking lot.   

Then we got upstairs and this nice sign was on the door.  That gives you a warm fuzzy! 

We settled in pretty quickly.

Then the first "incident" of record on our family vacation happened.  Chip went to the bathroom.  When I say "He went to the bathroom."  I mean "He pooped and it was massive and it was a problem.  A serious problem."

We had to call the front desk for help.  We did, we did, we did. 

They promptly brought us a plunger.  Does this happen to any one else??? Anyone???  Please tell me it does. 

We slept well and woke up to get back on the road...we had a long day of driving ahead of us.  The Motel 6 did not have the customary plastic laundry bag, so Hubby fashioned a dirty clothes bag out of his jeans.  He wasn't ever a Boy Scout, but you better not tell him that! 

At one point we had to strap Harry to the hood of the car.  He was fighting with Chip and one of them had to go. 

Then we let Harry back in the car and I sat in the way back with Chip.  When we crossed into Arizona, Chip reached into his backpack and pulled out his recorder.  Road Trip Rule #4....Never Ever EVER let a kid get in the car with a damn musical instrument.  How in the world he slipped this past me I will never know.  He played a little hot cross buns to celebrate crossing into Arizona and then the recorder went back in the bag. 

We had some gorgeous skies...a little sun, a little rain off in the distance as we drove into Tucson.

Pretty sunsets. 

We stopped at a hotel and they only had a king size bed, but they assured us there was a pull out sofa that could be used as a bed, so we took it.  That pull out sofa was a single.  No way it was going to sleep our two kids. 

Poor Chip had to sleep on a makeshift bed of couch cushions and a suitcase. Poor kid. 

The next morning we enjoyed the breakfast at the hotel before getting back on the road.  Chip ate three pieces of honeydew melon.  For anyone who knows the boys in my family, that is a miracle.  A major miracle.  He ate that fruit and he did not barf or choke.  He ate them!  Maybe sleeping on the floor makes a kid a bit more adventurous eater.  Yay, Chip! 

The drive from Tucson to Phoenix was a piece of cake the next morning!  Boys enjoying the local wildlife.  They have buffalos on the side of the road.  Crazy, right?

First event of the day is the World Baseball Classic....Canada vs. USA!   More pictures to come in the next post!

Top Ten Tidbits

1.  Chip's basketball season is over.  He is not happy about that.  This boy loves him some basketball.  Yesterday they played two games in the end of year tournament.  The first one was against a team they were well matched with and it went down to the wire. Chip hit three 3 pointers to give the Thunder the edge and a win.  Next up, they played the Heat and the Heat put it on them.  It was not a very good game, but it was still fun.  The highlights in the second game were two 3 pointers, a ton of rebounds and my sweet Chip stopped and helped two kids get up that had been trampled underneath the basket.  Kid makes me proud.  Chip is going to miss basketball.  I will miss watching him play.

2.  I took the cat to the vet last week, thinking she was sick enough that she wouldn't be coming home.  She wasn't.  She is home.  Only $279 for them to keep her for two days, run some tests, and give her a shot.  What a deal.  Now, she is locked in the laundry room until she can prove that she knows where to go to the bathroom.  I put up a baby gate so we could keep the door open and she could see out.  She is too old to jump the baby gate.  I also took the cabinet door off of the sink cabinet and put a box and blanket in there.  We call it her condo.  She hates it.  She meows loudly to protest her confinement in the laundry room.  She is a treasure.

3.  Hubby checked Chip out of school early on Friday so they could go to the practice round of some Grand Am race that was in town.  They had a ball.  They had Krispy Kreme donuts at the track!  No school, donuts, fast, loud, cool cars.  Life is good.  I got to spend the afternoon with Harry and we went shoe shopping and to lunch.  It was nice to spend some quality time with him.  The more we talk about college and the future, the more I treasure these rare moments we have together.   On Saturday, we switched.  Hubby and Harry went to the final races and me and Chip hung out together.  We did basketball, had lunch with our friends and then hit Target for some vacation shopping.  He was a great companion for the afternoon.

4.  Speaking of moments together...family vacation is just around the corner!  Yea!  We are heading to Arizona for spring training!  I have started gathering vacation supplies on the dining room table...towels, sunscreen, snacks, etc.  I am very much looking forward to some time away from work in a warm climate, with some baseball, swimming, lounging and relaxing.  Ahhh!  Bring on the sun!  We will be visiting one of Harry's top college contenders while we are in Arizona.  The Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.  This particular campus is in downtown Phoenix.  We are also going to tour the main campus which is about 20 minutes away.  We are getting the sports tour of the main campus and the boys are all looking forward to that!  Expect lots of pictures next week to be posted to the old blog!

5.  Work has been very busy.  Lots of projects, big and small.  Lots of changes inside the company and in our department.  Procedure changes affecting every dang thing we do on a regular basis.  Forms being updated and modified.  Chasing some big proposals. New RFPs being released.  Whew. Definitely not a part time gig lately, but I really haven't minded too much.

6.  I went to the "Welcome to Middle School" parent meeting last week at the middle school.  I cannot believe that my Chip is going to be in 6th grade next year.  How did that happen?  I was very anxious when Harry made the jump from elementary school to middle school, fear of the unknown and all that.  Riding the bus, locker rooms, changing classes, eighth graders, etc.  I am much more relaxed about the transition for Chip.  Second kid syndrome.  There were lots of first time middle school mommas were up there with their stomach in knots.  It was odd to be the one saying "It is going to be fine.  Just wait and see.  They are going to do great."

7.  Thinking about upgrading our washer and dryer.  I am just about done with the screwdriver stuffed in the hole to make the washer finish the spin cycle.  It has only been about three years with duct tape and electrical tape and something heavy sitting on top of the lid during spin cycles.  I think our set is at least eleven years old or so.  How long should a washer and dryer last anyway? I think our first set as a married couple was my parents set of about 15 years and we used it for at least 10 years.  Of course, after twenty plus years, neither unit was very efficient and took about three laps around the old dial to dry a load of towels.  I am thinking about a set of front load washer and dryers but am worried about the mildew odor that I have heard about.  Is that problem fixed in the new models?  Is it a real issue?  Is the fix to leave the door open to air out occasionally?  Love it or hate it...any comments??

8.  I just celebrated one year of improved health and butt size!  Last Sunday was the one year anniversary of walking into the door of Inspire Fitness and starting on my weight loss, healthy living journey under the watchful eye of Mr. Knowledge About the Human Body.  It has been a great year.  I am maintaining my 70+ pound weight loss and feeling awesome.  I want to lose about 15 more pounds, but don't seem to be able to find my motivation to make that happen.  Maybe bathing suit shopping will inspire me to get it done.  Why does that just fill me with dread.  Ugh!  In the meantime, I am still eating clean and making healthy food choices (just a few too many calories going in to get the needle dropping on the old scale!)  

9.  Our Daniel Bible Study is wrapping up this week.  It has been one of the harder ones we have tackled, but I have learned a lot and that is all I want.  Just to keep opening my mind and my heart to the lessons God wants to put in front of me.  I love, love, love the group of ladies we have so much.  It is beautiful thing that we can all look at it each other after it is over and go, "Huh?" or "That scares me to death!" or "I get that!"  I can't wait to start the next one.

10.  I made protein waffles yesterday for breakfast.  There were delicious and tasted like dessert instead of a nutrition, protein packed start to my day.  I think I will make this for breakfast again today!   Except with warm cinnamon apples instead of berries!  YUM!

Hope your weekend has been awesome and the week ahead is wonderful!

Mother's Day in February

Today, I got to spend a glorious day at an amazing spa. 

It was my Mother's Day gift certificate from last year.  

It was AWESOME!  

The weather was glorious!  I mean spectacular! 

I was chillaxin' by the pool after an incredible swedish massage and a lavender body scrub.  

Those fabulous treatments were followed by a delicious spa light lunch.
 Then it was on to a facial.  Ahhhhh!    

Then I wandered down to the water and came up on this hammock, swinging gently in the breeze.  

So I promptly crawled into it and took a nap! 

Then I woke up and wandered up to a cabana and laid in the sun like a lizard. 

Sipping on Ginger Iced Tea.

Finished the day off with a glorious shower using every gel, lotion, soap concoction they offered! 

A delicious, delicious, delicious day of pampering and relaxation!  

Happy Mother's Day to me! 

College Visit

It has started.  We have a couple of college events under our belt.  And I haven't cried yet! 

Last weekend, we joined Peggy and RV for a local event called the Texas Tech Roadshow.  Tech brought lots of the big guns, the Chancellor, the President, the Dean, to talk to incoming students and prospective students.  The Chancellor was an excellent speaker and I honestly could have listened to him all afternoon.  His best piece of advice for students....GO TO CLASS!  I loved that. Harry also talked to a girl from the Communications department and she told him all about the fantastic, new, state of the art communication building they have at Tech. I think it peaked Harry's interest enough that he wants to go to Lubbock for a campus visit. 

Today, we went to College Station for Aggieland day at Texas A&M.  It was beautiful day and the place was crawling with prospective students.  We caravaned there with five families from the hood.  And saw several other local families while we were there.  At one point, our neighborhood folks were taking up a whole section of the food court. It was funny!  So moving to watch these boys who have been friends since elementary school walking through a college campus.  Heads together, still laughing and cutting up.  Such great boys and we are so blessed to have their families to walk this journey with.  We went to a "Calling all Juniors" briefing and heard all the admission information.  They had 35,000 applications this year!  Oh my word.  Next up, we headed over to the Communications department and talked to a representative there. Sadly, A&M doesn't have a broadcasting major.  Harry was done.  Not interested.  He wants to study broadcasting and he is not interested in checking out anything else at this time.  Guessing we should probably start researching what majors they have before we do any more campus tours.  I don't think we knew how adamant he was about what he wants to study.  Guess we are all learning as we go.  We made the most of it anyway and checked out the dorm and rounded out the afternoon taking in an Aggie baseball game.  It was a fun day! 

On Harry's short list still to visit....Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, Arizona State, Alabama, Georgia and today he said something about Arkansas. 

We have a campus tour set for Arizona State and Baylor in the next month or so.  Got to figure out when we can see some of the others.  I am totally looking forward to checking out the other colleges and seeing where Harry ends up going.  It is a very exciting time!

I took some cute pictures today but don't have the cord to download them. I will share them tomorrow!

Changing my background to get ready for a little Spring Training baseball!   So ready!

Catching Up...

Yea, that thing called life happened again!

I am so glad that my blog can't pull on me like a toddler demanding attention...it just sits here all quietly waiting for me to come back!  Thank you blog.  I appreciate your patience.

I have been keeping a few bullet point items that I didn't want to miss talking about so I will let that be my post today.

* Chip's basketball game last week was epic.  He scored 12 of the 18 points for his team.  Hit two three pointers, one just in the nick of time to send them into overtime.  It was thrilling.  Fans were cheering and screaming. It was a back and forth, well played, well matched game that was so exciting.  It ended in a tie after double overtime.  It was better than any NBA game I have ever seen!   So proud of Chip and the Thunder!

*  Bob had a birthday last week.  Happy Birthday Dad!  I hope you had a wonderful day and that your year ahead is filled with more joy, laughter and love than you can stand.  I love you very much!

* We pulled off the Cross Country Trivia Night last weekend and made about $3500 for the team.  That will make for a nice pot of money for College Scholarships!  My table had a very respectable score, but dang it was much harder than last year!  My only contribution to the entire evening is that I knew Jordin Sparks song Tattoo.  Pitiful.  Without Beth's husband Tony we might have gone 0-10 in the science round.  He knew some crazy crap like what "vulcanizing" rubber was!  I am stunned by how little I know.  Embarrassing, but fun!

* Our friends the Templetons are building a new house and we finally went out to see if last weekend.  OMG...it is the most beautiful, well thought out house I have ever seen. Storage at every turn, electrical outlets in the drawers, a mud room that made me seriously want to move right in.  TO THE MUD ROOM!  So many neat features that it still wows me when I think about it.  She put a little counter area in her bedroom for a coffee maker.  Swoon.  All the bedrooms have dressers built into the closets - so smart!  Laundry chute.  Built in crates for the dogs.  Pull out spice drawers.  This amazing brick wall in the office.  Electrical switches in the closet to control the outlets in the eaves of the house for Christmas lights.  Just every detail was so well planned.  It is still under construction with a few more weeks left to put the finishing touches on it.  I can't wait to see it again!


* We watched the Superbowl at the Berry's and they had another spectacular house.  Lovely outdoor space, beautiful kitchen and so beautifully decorated.  I could have easily moved right in there too!  And the food.  OMG!  They had these dove breast stuffed with jalapenos and wrapped in bacon then grilled.  Out of this world!  And there was this Ahhhhmazing cream cheese chili dip that was hot and ridiculous.  The game turned out to be good too!  That blackout was weird though wasn't it?  Didn't care who one or lost but it was fun to watch it with friends.

* With Ahhhmazing cream cheese dip and bacon wrapped dove, you can imagine that my scale was not exactly nice to me on Monday morning.   I was in a funk on Tuesday when I went to see Mr. Knowledge About the Human Body.  Now, I have made pretty decent choices but was still eating carbs (the bad kind...like wheat thins) which means I was craving carbs and just not eating very clean all the time.  I was definitely eating healthy but not as clean as I needed to be eating.  My weight has been stuck for months now.  I am up and down the same three or four pounds over and over again.  Maintaining like a pro, but I am maintaining at the wrong weight.  Ol' Mr. Knowledge gave me an earful this week and sent me out of the gym with some very specific orders about what I was going to be eating this week.  The man is a genius.  His speech pissed me off just a little, motivated me a bunch and I have done EXACTLY what he told me to do and guess what....down five pounds since Tuesday and heading in to new territory!  Feeling invincible today!   I was wearing some smaller jeans yesterday and they weren't even tight!  YEA!  Super pumped about getting closer to my final goal so I can do maintenance for real!

* I am still down to one day a week in the gym with Mr. Knowledge, so I am doing my at home workout another day of the week.  Yesterday Beth came over to the house and did it with me.  It was much, much better to do it with a friend, but it is still hard.  I have decided that I hate ball squats and I miss mirrors.  Weird, considering I am not usually a fan of mirrors.  But when you are working out it is kind of cool to see what muscles are working and how your form looks in a mirror.  Never, ever thought I would say that.

* One of my sweet little craft friends at Lakeside passed away this week.  Her name was Darlene.  It made me sad.

*  Work is brutal.  Busy, busy, busy, busy!  Back to full time + hours for a while.  Hopefully it won't last but a couple of weeks this time.

*  I still have eight things on my 40 Bags in 40 Day Purge list.  Going to try to mark a couple off this weekend since we don't have much going on.  I was going gang busters on the list and I am determined to finish the rest of them.

*  Doing our first college visit next week to Texas A&M.  AACCCKKKK!!!!!

*  Private Practice is over.  That is one of my favorite shows.  I didn't even know the season was ending much less the entire series.  Bummer.

Well, that is all I have rattling around in my brain for today.  Off to clean a closet, get some boys a haircut, watch a basketball game and then hopefully sit and watch it rain for a while.  Should be a relaxing weekend!

They Call It a Smartphone?

So yesterday there was a weather event in Alabama!  It SNOWED!  That is a rare occurrence and set off a flurry of pictures being sent from the family to show me the lovely white stuff.  It finally started snowing in Bob's neck of the woods and I begged for more pictures so I could see the blizzard like winter wonderland they were experiencing. 

This is what I received. 

I laughed and laughed and laughed some more.  Then I texted Bob back and said "Epic Fail.  Not only did you not send me a picture of snow, you sent me a VIDEO of your face!"

He didn't realize he had the camera switched around or that he was making a video instead of a taking a picture.

He gets an A for effort...I mean, can't you just see the concentration on his face.  But an F for execution.

His error caused a ripple effect from the rest of the family that were also copied on his "snow picture".  I got up close and unflattering pictures from my sister and brother.  Then of course I had to send one myself.

Made for some great laughs on Saturday morning.  Thanks Bob.