Hoo's sitting in that tree?

The girls found something extra special in the neighbor's tree!

It was so small! I am thinking it is probably a fledgling Eastern Screech Owl!

It was very sleepy!

My goodness little owl, what BIG eyes you have!!

The little owl didn't seem to really mind us staring at it. It just sat there, very calm and sleepy-looking. Brady and I have been hearing screech owl calls at night, and can I say they are LOUD? Because wow, they are super loud! I guess this might explain why we've been hearing them so much. There must be a nest close by. The girls decided to name it "Hoo". I hope little "Hoo" successfully fledges and becomes a permanent resident of our neighborhood. In fact, it's welcome in our yard ANYTIME!

I Fly, You Fly, We All Fly at iFly!

A couple of weeks ago, Linda called and told me to keep a Thursday afternoon open because she wanted to take all the kids to do something special. So we met up at iFly, the new indoor skydiving place! It turns out she ordered the family pack which was good for 5 people, so we had one spot open. Linda wasn't that interested and Rachel decided to hold off and wait for Mia or Riley's birthday. By default, I got to go with the kids! Yay! We went in for our briefing, suited up in our flight suits and went in to get our FLY on!

 Boy were we a goofy lookin' crew! ;)

Here we are eagerly anticipating our flight!

Riley went first, followed by Mr. Ian. Sadly, I have no pics of Mia or Riley flying, those are on Rachel's camera! I think Ian and Riley discovered that it wasn't as easy as it looked!

What do you know? Piglets really DO fly!

I didn't do too bad. It was definitely hard to keep form and that is some SERIOUS air in that tube!

On our second flight, our instructor, Aaron, took us way up high to really get the freefall feeling. It was definitely a rush!

Ainsley was a little scared, but Aaron promised to go slow. He kept his promise and she did great!

I tell ya, it was not at all a bad way to spend a hot, Texas afternoon! Thanks Nana for letting me and the kids do something wild and crazy! It was a blast! Unfortunately, they are now hooked and beg for it every time we drive by!

Birds, birds and more birds!!!

Hi Everybody! We just got back from the cabin and was it ever nice! It never got above 78*F and was down to the upper 40's, low 50's at night and we had rain! Every. Single. Day. After several years of drought and wildfires, it was so amazing to see Ruidoso green and thriving again! It was such a brilliant green it almost made your eyes hurt! And not only did the rain have an impact on the local flora, it had a HUGE impact on the local fauna! I have never seen so many birds. I have compiled a selection of our best bird photos from the trip, please feel free to click on them to see them better! Several years ago, some sort of virus or something took out a lot of the mountain jays, but as far as I could see off our porch, they are making a BIG comeback!

The jays are always the first to find us, but the chickadees are usually quick to follow! This particular one had quite the fancy little mohawk!

And then came the juncos! I love these little birds!

This one was a bit of a pig!

Time for a close-up!!

We had some newcomers this year. I think they are some sort of finch, possibly house finches? I will have to consult my friend Lee who is an avid birder to find out for sure!

And let's not forget the little grosbeaks! I didn't see any males this time, which is a bummer because they are so pretty, but the girls are pretty neat too!

Excuse me, but I think you have something on your beak!

And OH the nuthatches! We had a little pair of the pygmy nuthatches and they were just TOO cute!

I'm watching you! ALWAYS watching! ;)

There were a couple of white-breasted nuthatches as well, but they were super skittish and very difficult to photograph. This was the best shot!

And hummingbirds? There were a lot of them, but they are also a bit hard to catch! Brady was very diligent though and managed to get a couple of nice ones!

Aren't they super sweet?!?

Oh, and what about robins? Yep, we had 'em and they were just gorgeous! I almost think this was a young one, it sat in the tree and whined incessantly, much like the fledgling mockingbirds do here!

And now for my very favorite Ruidoso bird... the woodpecker! We saw two different kinds. I think the first one is a female Downy Woodpecker (I could be wrong, need to consult with Lee) and the other I believe is an Acorn Woodpecker. Either way, I just LOVE them. I love their wings when they fly, I love the way they cock their heads when they look at stuff, and I love those little red caps!

Downy Woodpecker

Acorn Woodpecker

And this concludes my Ruidoso Birding Adventure! I hope you enjoyed looking at the photos as much as Brady and I enjoyed taking them! I was just overwhelmed at the amount of birds that visited and I can't wait to go back and see them again! Next to come... CHIPMUNK MANIA!!!!!

Off to the Mountains!

It's August in Texas. You know what that means, don't you? Over 100* temps, no rain, and for some reason this year, Saharan Dust! That's right, Saharan Dust. Some big ass storm over the Sahara has up and migrated across the pond and landed right, smack dab in the middle of Texas! Cuz we need MORE dust! So right on queue, we are packing up and heading to the cabin! YAY! Linda and Woody have spent the last week and a half there and reported temps in the upper 50's-mid 70's! It makes me sigh just thinking about it! And they've had rain! I can almost smell the damp pine needles! Needless to say, I will be sans internet for the week, but do not fret! I will come back with lots of pics and stories of our adventures! I will also catch up a bit as this week was SO ridiculously busy, I didn't even have a chance to blog about our anniversary! And it's 19 years this year, so that's a BIG deal! Stay tuned and check in sometime after the 20th to see what's going on in the World of Woodall! :)

And so we sell a house and begin an adventure!

So obviously, we sold our house. The not so perfect part of our move was the fact that there was going to be a month in between signing over the first house and signing for our new one. Brady still had to work and there was no way Linda and Woody would have been able to put up with all 4 of us and 2 dogs for 4-6 weeks. And because we homeschool, I was able to put all of our stuff into storage, then I pack up my kids and my dogs and hit the road for a month-long adventure in New Mexico while Brady stayed with his folks and maintained gainful employment and signed for our new home! Brilliant!

The day we signed was a fiasco! I spent the morning packing up last minute things like a mad-woman, trying to make sure Brady had everything he needed for his extended stay with the folks and the kids and the dogs and I had everything we needed to survive a month in New Mexico. We had pain-in-the-ass buyers throwing a fit about a hole in the pressboard under the sink and threatening not to sign and my whole world was falling apart. Finally, with a little firmness, our agent was finally able to get them to understand that fixing the pressboard was a cheap, cosmetic fix and if they had a beef about it, they should have brought it up in the negotiations. So they finally decided they would sign. AND my life was back on track as planned!

As soon as I signed the papers, Brady drove me back to the folk's house and we said our good-bye's and I piled kids and pipsqueak dogs into the Hyundai and down the road we went! I'm kind of bummed, because I swear I had a picture of my little SUV with the cargo bag on top! Oh well. Anyway, we hopped on the highway and headed out of town bound for Sonora, TX, trying like the devil to beat rush hour traffic. Now why, you ask, would anyone ever feel the need to go to Sonora, TX? Well for the most part, you really shouldn't, there just isn't much there. However, the Caverns of Sonora are there and for the last 10 years, every time I have driven down I-10 on my way to NM, I have seen the signs and always swore I would stop, but we never go through at a time that would work. So this time, I made it work. I booked us a room at the Best Western for the night and we got up bright and early and headed to the caverns the next morning and boy was it ever worth the visit!

This cave is known for its abundance of helictites, which are formations that grow in many directions, not just up or down. It is also known for being covered in "cave popcorn" which is usually formed by dripping or splashing water. You will get to see some of the samples in the photos that follow! And by all means, if you'd like a closer look, CLICK on those photos!

Example of cave popcorn

A little underground pond

This one made me think of melted candle wax!

Example of helictites, notice how they grow in every direction?

The most famous of these formations was the butterfly. You will have to google an image of the Sonora Cavern Butterfly if you want to see it in tact. In 2006, someone vandalized the formation and cracked one of the wings off doing irreparable damage. This is what is looks like now, still beautiful, but nothing compared to how amazing it was when it was intact.

I think this one was called the Bottle Brush, but it looked kind of like a toilet scrubber to me!

This is the first time I saw "soda straws" that were over 3 ft. long! SO COOL!

And last but not least, this pic just made me think of the deepest, darkest depths of the world. It's almost a little scary!

So although I could live the rest of my life without ever going to Sonora, TX again, the caverns were truly tremendous and well-worth the effort! Not too bad for the first day of our Big Ol' Adventure!

Ainsley's Joke of the Day

A duck wanted to buy some lipstick, so he went into a shop. The shopkeeper asked, "How to do you plan to pay for this?" The duck answered, "Oh, just put it on my BILL!"

On the Boat Again!

Yes, it's true! After a two-year hiatus due to drought and inaccessibility, we were finally able to take the boat out! As it happened, the boat was dry-docked at a harbor on the south side of the lake. Once the drought started raging and the lake levels tanked, it made it damn near impossible to get to the boat. It was so bad that you had to call about 48-hours in advance to get it. Then drive down on your designated day, walk to a shuttle and be shuttled over to your boat. All of this on top of a 45-min. to 1-hour drive! I know... First World Problems! But it really did make it hard to take the boat out. So, my wonderful, problem-solving hubby found out about a marina on the north side of the lake near his boss's house. Linda, Woody and Brady all went down to tour the site and determined it was a much better fit. SO, a couple of weeks ago the move was made from Hurst Harbor to Highland Lakes Marina. Here's a nice view of the slips.

Yesterday was our first excursion on the boat since it was moved to the new location, and can I just say... WOW! It was so much easier to get to, so much easier to park, and it really was just a nice, little location. So I slathered the kids with sunscreen and was getting ready to load everyone on the boat when I realized I had forgotten their nice, appropriately-fitted life vests! Ugh! So we put them in the bright orange life vests that we have for the adults on the boat. They didn't fit very well, so I had to make the rule that no tubing and/or skiing was going to be happening without the proper life vests. BOO. You would understand my concern if you had had the dream I had a couple of weeks ago involving the children at the lake! But tubing or not, we still had a great time!

El Capitan, taking us out for our maiden voyage! ;)

And although the life vests weren't optimal, the kids still managed to have a blast!

JUMP!

Did I mention that Nana tagged along?!?

The Monkey Man was King of the Crazy Jumps

I sure love this guy!

Daddy even let him man the boat for a bit, and he did a really good job!

And, of course, someone else had to take a turn too!

You know you've had a good day when someone passes out on the way back to the marina!

We'd like to thank Nana and Papa for the awesome, super-fun, great-way-to-spend-a-Sunday, boat! And now that we can actually access it easily, I see a lot more boating in our future. WITH the appropriate floatation devices! ;)