CO Trip

Well, summer is officially over for me. I got back from a long weekend in Denver last night and it's back to the grind. I spent the morning up at school getting last minute things ready in my room. Tomorrow and Thursday I have all day trainings, then we officially start back to work on Monday. I really thought that I would be more ready to go back since I didn't work this summer, but that's not so much the case. I have REALLY enjoyed my time off this summer. I am excited to get back to school to start up in reading recovery, but I could use a few more weeks off.

Anyway, back to my quick getaway to Denver. Tony and I flew in to Denver Thursday morning and spent the day with my parents. My dad, Tony, and I spent a few hours that afternoon at the golf course. We played 9 holes and I must say I played pretty well for having not golfed at all since May! That evening we had a big cookout at the house. Woody was in town (with his gf) on his way back from his summer internship in Wyoming, Davis came by with a friend of his, and Bobby, Janet, Aunt Jane, and Uncle David all came over to eat. My dad made BBQ chicken and we all relaxed out by the pool all evening. The weather was PERFECT! I don't know what all those people in Colorado are complaining about ... it wasn't hot at all compared to Houston haha.

Friday Tony and I got up early to head to the mountains. The plan was to backpack for 2 nights ... but things didn't quite go as planned. T got hit by altitude sickness, and despite telling me he was fine and we could stay and camp, his wobbly walking proved otherwise and we ended up taking a nice day hike then heading back in to town.  I think it all worked out great though because we ended up getting to spend a nice weekend with my parents.  I really didn't take many pictures while we were out since we went to the same place last year. I figured I didn't need a repeat of all the same trails etc. Here's one of us on our hike though:

Friday night after we got back to town, everyone met up for dinner again then we stayed up late catching up. Saturday we went golfing again with both my mom and dad. We played this great little par 3 course and I was doing really well. I finally learned how to hit my irons so I felt like a golf rockstar haha.  We went back to the same course on Sunday and I played my best game of golf yet. We played 9 holes and I was 9 over at the end. That means that I averaged bogie on every hole. That's amazingly good for me haha. I'm improving!

All in all a very fun long weekend. It would have been great to camp, but I think it turned out just as fun anyway. Always great to see the family. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

So many things to be thankful for ... here are just a few:

- I'm thankful that after last years group of hellions, I have a small class of perfect angels this year
- I'm thankful for my AMAZING team that I work with. It is not possible to have a better group of ladies to spend my days with. They are truly my friends and I look forward to seeing them each day at work.
- I'm thankful my whole family is able to spend Thanksgiving together this year (and I'm thankful they are coming to Houston so I don't have to spend my break traveling!)
- I'm thankful for my wonderful best friend who came home from China early to cook a turkey for my family. He's so good to me!
- I'm thankful for my naughty kitten, who as we speak is climbing the Christmas tree, yet again!
- I'm thankful I didn't move to Colorado after all last year, because life turned out pretty damn good here. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by friends and family!

Christmas Vacation

I am SO excited about Christmas break this year!

One of Tony's good friends, Kyle, and his wife Jacky, rented a super fancy RV to take a 2 week trip to Colorado over Christmas break (I'm talking multiple bedrooms, heated floors kinda fancy). The four of us went to the gun range yesterday, and then out to lunch afterwards. At lunch, Jacky and Kyle invited us to join them for a leg of their trip. So, I spent the evening coordinating with Jacky, and working out flight arrangements with my dad to make this possible

I was already going to be in Denver the 22-26th for Christmas. Now, instead of flying back on the 26th, Tony is going to fly up to Denver to join me (thanks Dad for getting my flight changed, and using the miles to get Tony to Denver instead!), and we are going to meet up with Jacky and Kyle in Breckenridge to spend a few days playing there then road trip back to Texas in the RV with them! I'm so excited! I get to see my family for Christmas and go snowboarding with them, AND I get to go on an awesome road trip with friends. I seriously cannot wait for Christmas break now! So much fun ahead! :)

Marionfest

This weekend we celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday with Marionfest in Dallas. Each of her kids came, along with all the grandkids (and one great grandchild). As always, hanging out with my brothers and my cousins was a lot of laughs :)

Lauren is so pretty; and Woody desperately needs a haircut!!

Ashley and Davis modeling in front of our red carpet Marionfest wall. haha

*somehow I didn't get a single picture of Kristi (sorry!)

The first night we were there we all ate dinner at the house, courtesy of Uncle Tom, then ate cake and opened presents. My aunt had a photo book made for my grandma with pictures of all of us. She was so cute when she opened it. She LOVED it!

The next day we had a photographer take pictures of the whole group of us. It was windy as heck outside so I will be interested to see how the pictures turn out. haha.

After pictures we all went to lunch, took a break for a nap, then went out for a fancy dinner that night. Grandma loved every minute of it so I guess that makes it worth it.

Happy Birthday Grandma, we all love you! :)

Ashton

Over the weekend I drove to Dallas to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday with all my family. More on that later, but I just wanted to post some pictures of my cousin's sweet baby first. Ashton is already a year old and seemed so big since the last time I saw him! I had so much fun taking pictures of this sweet boy. He is so laid back ... probably the most mellow baby I've ever met. What a sweetheart :)

Baby Ashton

Last night my cousin Molly came over with her husband Adam and their 7 month old son Ashton. I hadn't seen them since she was pregnant last year so I was super excited they were in town for the weekend and I would have a chance to meet the baby (we all know how much I LOVE babies! hehe). Ashton is so sweet, and one of the calmest babies I have ever seen. He hardly made a sound in the 3 hours they were over here. He hasn't quite got crawling down yet, but he is pretty good at that army crawl where he basically slides his body across the floor. He was so fun to watch and play with! :)

It's better to give ...

For Christmas, I made this for my mom:

By made, I mean I took the black and white pictures, bought a frame, picked out a mat, had it cut to size, then put it all together. I think it turned out wonderfully!

It took FOREVER to find a picture for the letter "m" (seriously, I drove around for something like 4 hours one day just trying to find something that would work), and I had a heck of a time finding a frame that would be long enough, but not too wide either. But, in the end, it came together nicely (I actually wanted to keep it for myself I liked it so much haha!).

I was pretty excited to give her this; I was sure she was going to love it. Sure enough, she's called like 4 people already this morning and explained it to them in detail. I love when you give someone something that you know they really love.

I did good this year :) It is definitely better to give than receive (that's not to say I didn't like receiving all the wonderful things I got this morning too hehe).

Weekend in Salt Lake City

Can I just say what a wonderful time I had in Salt Lake City this weekend? Seriously, it was SUCH a good mental health break! I hadn't seen my dad since the first week in June, which I think is the longest period of time in my life that I have gone without seeing him ... craziness! Plus, Lauren and Aunt Mary Beth were there, and I got to see a lot of family I haven't seen in a long time. Dad and I were trying to figure it out, but we think the last time I saw Aunt Mary was possibly almost 15 years ago! That's an insanely long time, so it was really good to see her again. Plus I got to see Molly, Uncle Bruce, Grandma and Dick. Such a fun time!

Friday morning I flew up to Salt Lake city and met my dad at the airport. We checked into our hotel and relaxed/napped for about an hour upon checking in. Then we headed over to the park to meet up with everyone for the barbeque. I got to meet Molly's husband Adam, and I have to say he definitely got two thumbs up from the McCormack's. This guy is great, and so much like Molly! They are adorable together. So, in the park Adam did some grilling

and everyone did lots of eating. Whole foods must have thought we were crazy about kale because they sent over a MASSIVE platter. Seriously, Molly and Adam are going to be eating this kale for months to come! It was ridiculous and proportionally so much larger than any of the other platters of food. Lauren and I laughed so hard about it!

I have turned into quite the Texas girl over the years, because once the sun went down I was FREEZING! Seriously, SO cold! However, it was lots of fun hanging out with dad and catching up with Lauren. (this picture was actually taken the next night, but it's the only one I have of the two of us this trip)

The next day Lauren and I went to Adam's yoga class. He owns this neat studio there, so he had invited us to come to his class. It was a good class, but man 2 hours of yoga almost killed me! I am used to only an hour, so this was twice as long as any class I had been in! It was lots of fun though! After yoga I spent some time showering and getting ready for the day then dad and I went to lunch and drove around the city so I could see it. Having the mountains as a backdrop makes everything so much prettier! I really miss the mountains!

That evening we got dressed up and headed over to this beautiful restaurant, Tuscany, for the ceremony and reception.

It was a small group of maybe 30 or so people so it was very intimate. One of their good friends was the officiant and the whole ceremony was very Molly (and as I came to find out, also very like Adam). It was simple and very sweet. I cannot even tell you how much we all loved Adam, he is perfect for Molly and they are so cute together!

After the outdoor ceremony we moved inside for the dinner. Dinner was supposed to be outside, but the whole day had been very overcast and chilly, so it was moved inside. Thank goodness! Seriously, I would have frozen! I knew I needed a coat, but when I was packing I found that the only dressy coat I have is a peacoat, and I knew I would look ridiculous if I wore a peacoat the first weekend in October. That being said, I had no coat. No coat, and a dress that only comes to my knees. Dinner outside would have been miserable, but inside it was quite fun. Lots of yummy food and chatting with family.

Sunday morning my flight was at 8:30 so I had to get up and leave pretty early. It was such a nice weekend and a nice break from work that I was really sad to come back home. I'm thankful I got to go though, it was really a great time! Thanks Dad, love you!