A Big Surprise!

On Saturday afternoon Brady and Daren were given the keys to this...

SWEET! I guess Linda and Woody had been secretly looking into a boat for the last year, but because of the hassle of the house and the shop, it just took the back-burner for awhile until they could get all of that dealt with. They finally found a great boat at a consignment lot for a reasonable price and decided to jump on it! It's a speedy, little boat with plenty of get-up-and-go so we can pull a tube or a skier! Daren, Rachel, Brady, the kids and I went out yesterday to get a tutorial on the new boat and to learn about safety regulations and rules, and such. The kids were SO surprised when they learned that the boat was OURS! It took Ian a little bit to get comfortable with the speed of the boat, but Miss Piggy was all about the speed and the wind blowing in her face!!
We stopped in a cove to get our feet wet
and several of the bunch ended up in the water taking an impromptu dip! And no, they didn't fall in, they just decided to jump in... fully clothed!
All I can say is I never in a million years thought that we would have access to a family boat! I mean seriously?!? I remember watching my cousins when we were young skiing and racing around in boats and they had so much fun! It's so cool that my kids are going to have the opportunity to experience that! Especially since we live in such a great place for it! So we would like to give Linda and Woody a big thumb's up for such an AWESOME surprise (even if it didn't play out quite the way you wanted it to)!
Now let's just get everybody healthy and in one piece so we can take this baby out together!!

Ainsley "Macho Woman" Savage!

Ooooooh YEEEEEah!

Making new friends!

While taking out the trash I came across this little fellow...
Ainsley wanted a turn to hold it, and I was SO proud at how gentle she was with the tiny little thing!
After Ian had a little face time with the lizard, we put it back where we found it and thanked it for letting us check it out!

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles!

Besides watching wildlife, hiking, playing in the creek, racing go-carts and various other things, one of the highlights of the trip for the kids was, of all things, BUBBLES! They spent hours blowing them and catching them and popping them, they had a blast!

WHOA!
My happy girl!
Ian--King of the BIG Bubbles!
Such concentration!
Ian would blow bubbles and Ainsley would catch them! I love it when they play so nicely together!

FUNTRACKERS!

The kids had a big day, they played at the creek and for dinner Ian requested that we go to his FAVORITE restaurant in Ruidoso, The Great Wall of China! After we got our fill of mediocre Chinese food, Brady suggested we go to Funtrackers for the evening and ride the go carts! Well of course the kids were OVERJOYED!

After much debate, it was determined that the first ride would be Brady and Ian each driving a single seater go-cart and Ainsley would ride with me in a two-seater. They told us to go and I put the pedal to the metal and Ainsley's eyes got as big as saucers and she yelled, "FASTER MOMMY! FASTER!!!" Sadly I could only go so fast since Ian and Brady kept cutting me off, but that was it... the girl was officially addicted to speed! The next round, Ian had his car and Ainsley went with Brady so I could get some pics and video. Yet again, video is not working well in Blogger today, so you'll have to settle for somewhat blurry pics of the action as I only had my point and click camera.

Here's the trio getting ready to roll!
Daddy getting buckled in while Ainsley eagerly anticipates the action!
Ian speeding around the track, hair flying in the wind!
Daddy with his wild child, and just for the record, I was told that Daddy drove SOOOO much faster than I did! Hmph.
After two rousing races, we decided to go Putt-Putt. Here's the kids ready to golf (nice fountain coming out of Ainsley's head)!
And here's my bunch getting ready to start the back 9, posing like the famous picture of the Three Stooges!
Shortly after that pic was taken, the golf game went to hell in a handbag! This Putt Putt course is INSANELY hard, so the kids were pissed off and frustrated and the next thing we knew lights started shutting off all over the place, so we assumed they must be closing. Sure enough when we walked down the hill, it was dark and pretty much only the crickets were still around! Oh well, I think next time we'll just stick to the go-carts and bypass the mini golf!

Morning in the Rio Ruidoso

Now that the lovely little Rio Ruidoso is no longer flooding and much of the debris has been cleaned up, we decided to take the kids and the dog down to the creek for some fun! Brady was able to locate a spot in the river where he, his brother and his cousins used to slide through the rocks. Once located, he somehow managed to talk our poor little boy into getting into the FRIGID water to slide! We have video of this monumental event, but for some reason Blogger hates it and I couldn't get it to load in, I will try in a different post. But anyway, here he is afterwards, cold and swearing that he will never do that again!
Miss Ainsley testing the water while her brother huddles on his towel trying to get warm in the sun!
Nigel had fun in the water too! Lots of stuff for him to sniff and ice cold water for him to drink!
Obligatory kid pic! Say cheese!
Ainsley was seeking treasure
and she found all sorts of good stuff! Much of which ended up coming home with us!

And I was lucky enough to get one good shot of me with the kids! Since I'm usually the one with the camera these shots are rare!

A Bright Year Ahead

Since returning from New Mexico, I have been so BUSY! Busy making phone calls, busy researching classes, busy looking at finances, etc... This is going to be a BIG year for the Woodall household. I will now have two kiddos that I'm schooling full-time plus all of the extra-curricular activities. Both kids will have a "sport and skate" class once or twice a month, Campfire, bowling, and science classes through the Austin Nature and Science Center, not to mention weekly park days and the field trips and service projects that I'm lining up for each month. Ian will be starting back up with basketball in January and who knows what Ainsley will want to do? It's CRAZY!

And have I mentioned that little photography biz I've been working on? Yeah, throw that into the mix and things get really out of control! But I'm thrilled! The kids are thrilled! Brady is thrilled and life is good! However, all of these commitments take time and money so that's what I've been working on. Most of the stuff we're involved in is fairly low cost, but still, the juggling of class time with activities, the gas to get everywhere, meal prep, making time for housecleaning and errands, it's A LOT of organization! We are having to cut back on some travel and such for about a year as we need to focus on some items for the business and some home repairs. But it's all good, I have already set us up with a camping trip in October to Brazos Bend State Park outside of Houston. As far as I'm concerned, so long as I'm with my little family, a tent in a state park is paradise!

There are going to be lots of changes for us in the coming months. Better budgeting of time and money, healthier meals, more exercise, less TV and Wii, less eating out, more time playing with friends and family and for me in particular, getting my health issues under control and spending less time stressing over shit I can't control. I feel such a level of optimism and confidence right now and although things are still tight, and there are still some stresses, things for this next year are looking bright and I couldn't be happier!

Monjeau Lookout and Sierra Blanca

Tuesday at the cabin was quite eventful! I woke up early, like 4:30am early, hearing an awful lot of ruckus outside. When I looked out the window it was obvious that the bears had trashed the trash AGAIN and there were at least 12 ravens fighting over the remnants. I didn't have the forethought at that time of the day to find the camera, but I did take a picture of the mess they left us! Thank goodness for heavy gloves and a snow shovel!

We spent most of the morning enjoying the deck, which is pretty par for the course, but everybody was a little bored so we opted for an afternoon outing to Monjeau Lookout. We always enjoy ourselves there. For those of you that have never visited, Monjeau Lookout serves as a fire lookout tower within Lincoln National Forest.
The view from the tower looks something like this...
Obligatory kid pic!
"Doc Binoc" checking out the view!
Brady stole my camera! The nerve. ;)
And of course Nigel tagged along. Here he is hanging out with his kids!


We finally had our fill of Monjeau Lookout so we decided to head home. Funny thing though, at the bottom of the hill Brady decided that since we hadn't taken the road up to the ski resort in years that we'd take that drive and try to be at the summit by sunset. On the way up we saw some amazing things!

A HUGE hawk on a dead tree.

A small herd of elk, the first ones we saw on this trip! It was a group of females with fawns. Sadly, the fawns were VERY skittish and none of the photos with them came out.
Aren't they amazing? And if seeing this particular herd of elk wasn't awesome enough, check out what we found at the ski slope! We were shocked to see so many in one place! And while we were admiring the group down by the lift area, more and more came running down the hill! This herd was easily 50+ animals and they were stunning! I wish we could have had a closer look, but we only had a camera and a pair of binoculars!

On the way back down, we stopped at the Sierra Blanca lookout. We chatted with a nice family from Wisconsin and they offered to take our picture, which I of course offered to do the same in return! It's not often we get the whole family in one pic!
Our dreams of the perfect sunset didn't happen as a storm started rolling in, but the sky was still amazing nonetheless.
What a great day! Have I mentioned lately how much I love my family and road trips?!?

Over the river and through the woods...

To Grandma's house we go!

The kids and I packed up on a crisp Monday morning and headed to Roswell to visit Grandma. It was a nice little drive, the kids were chilled, we listened to music and played "I Spy with My Little Eye" which in the plains of NM is pretty boring since all you really see are cars, the road, signs, grass and fences! However, we did luck out and see the wild turkeys outside of Riverside. We LOVE the turkeys! We also saw a few vultures, some ravens and a red-tailed hawk, no antelope though. :( We plotted out where all of the roadside fruit stands were so we could stop and get cherry cider on the way back to Ruidoso.

We spent most of the morning visiting with Grandma which was so nice since we hadn't seen her since last year. She looked great and was in good spirits. She just misses Bob and hopes he can come home soon. We all got hungry and decided to head over to the good 'ol Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet. Afterwards I took her to the bank and to run a couple of errands. She was so happy to have the help, and I was happy to do it! When we got back to her place, I informed her that I had made a HUGE batch of fried okra and black-eyed peas from my garden the night before and I had brought her the leftovers for her to have for dinner. You just can't imagine how happy she was for that! Such a simple gesture that obviously meant so much. It felt nice to share something from my garden with her as I remember all the times as a kid that she cooked farm-fresh food for me!

It started to get a little late and I could tell she was getting tired so it was time to head home. We gave hugs and kisses and I reminded her where to find the peas and okra and we got on the road. It was an uneventful drive home, at least to begin with. Somewhere in between Riverside and Picacho a grey fox ran out in front of me with a fresh kill in it's mouth! Luckily there was no one behind me because I had to throw on the brakes to keep from hitting it. Can you imagine the hysteria in my car if we had actually hit that thing? Once it got to the other side of the road, it turned around and gave us a quick glance and proceeded into the brush. Beautiful animal! So glad I didn't mash it flat!

From that point on the trip got a little strange. We kept running through little rogue thunderstorms where we would get pommeled with rain for 30 seconds then have sunny skies and then 2 minutes of downpour, then more sunshine and at one point it was pouring AND the sun was shining. It was freaky. We finally decided to pull over at fruit stand to get cider. The kids and I went in, found our cider and spent the next 5 minutes searching around the store trying to find someone to pay. We called out, we walked around, but no one was there! I could have walked right out with my cider. But of course, I'm not a thief, so we put it back and walked out. We headed back up the road to the first fruit stand we saw. I told the guy about my strange experience at the other stand and he laughed and said that he was more than happy to take my money! So we finally got the damn cider and I spent the next week with kids sporting bright red "Joker" lips!

Ainsley-ism of the day (rated R for profanity):

While sitting at the table for lunch... "So Ian, do you remember the part in Shrek One where the dragon eats Lord Fuckwad? I LOVE that part!" Note to reader, character's actual name is Lord Farquad. I think DreamWorks and Pixar get some sort of sick amusement out of names like this! ;)

Ruidoso--August 2010

The fact is, we take too many damn pictures! SO. In order to remedy this dilemma a bit, I will have to spread this out in several posts. There is just no way I can condense 7 days of fun into one post!

We hit the road on Saturday. The kids were excited.
For the first 30 minutes. Then all I heard for the next 10 hours was, "Are we there yet?" "Are we almost there?" "How much longer?" "This is taking too long!" So our parents can rest well knowing that we've had our come uppin's for the hell we put them through on road trips! We did our best to keep them occupied with movies, jerky and peanut butter crackers! Nigel however was the perfect traveler!
We got in late, so we unloaded and crashed! The next morning, we decided to go have breakfast at Pena's and came home to a visitor on the deck!
We were trapped in the car for a bit. In fact, he came right up to the car and put his paws on the hood, we were a little freaked out! He eventually walked off through the neighbor's yard and we were able to make the mad dash up to the house only to find him coming through the backyard and around the house to get up to the berry tree that was off the deck (which, incidentally, is what he's going after in the photo!)

Once we got over the excitement of the early morning visitor we had the chance to check out the surroundings. The little cabin is still looking great!
Ian and Brady busted out the checkers board and ended up in a stalemate!
Then we had some more furry visitors!

After Nigel took out after one of our furry visitors, Brady decided he needed to have "a spot". So we put a fuzzy pillow in one of the chairs and Nigel spent almost the whole vacation hanging out in this spot, not bothering the wildlife! That'll do dog, that'll do!
Early evening had kids going wild on the deck. They were dancing and spinning and yelling and being crazy in the crisp, fresh mountain air! We gave up on wildlife at this point.

My very own Joe Cocker!
Power to the people!




I made a nice little dinner of meatloaf with sides of black-eyed peas and fried okra, fresh from my garden. Once the dishes were done, I made a pan of brownies and we all sat down to watch our favorite cabin movie... Clash of the Titans (original version of course)!