Cruising Southern New Mexico

After Grace Getaway, the kids and I headed to Alamogordo to spend some time with my cousin and his kids. There is not much to do in Alamogordo, so we headed to Tulie Creek to ride the river. If Henry was around, he headed back home from camp, there is no way he would have allowed the kids to get into the creek. It wasn't very clean. But it was fun playing in the water.

Ryan riding the waves.

My cousin John and his son, John.

Ally hanging with Cara and Heather.

From Alamogordo we headed to El Paso to visit family. While in El Paso, Henry's Abuelita passed away. Henry drove down and we were in El Paso for a week dealing with the funeral and hanging with family.

Grace Getaway 2011

For our third year in a row we headed to the Grace Getaway in Ruidoso. This is an organized church retreat where we spend the weekend socializing, participating in various activities (zip line, climbing wall, etc.) and listening to a guest speaker. We start looking forward to the Grace Getaway right around February. It is an awesome time of fellowship and relaxation.

It was a lot drier and hotter this year than previous years. Here is a picture of Ryan enjoying nature. At this time Ally and I were doing the zip line. Henry had the camera so we don't have pictures of that. I did the zip line 3 times this year and Ally did it twice. It is such a rush when you jump off the 65 foot tower.

Here we are we are Grace Getaway buddies. We always hang out together at Grace Getaway and the kids get along so great. This was the first year they had a pop up so now we are also pop up buddies.

This year, for the first time, there was family paintball as an activity. They gave us face masks, sling shots and all the paintballs we wanted. It was all fun and games until the adults started shooting each other as hard as we could. Then it was extremely fun (at that point the kids chose to go shoot trees instead).

Is it okay to shoot your child when they don't have their weapon. These were the tough decisions we faced.

Ryan Graduated From Kindergarten

On May 23rd Ryan graduated from Kindergarten. My baby finished his first year of school (sniff, sniff). As previously stated in other posts, I have been a stay at home mom this year. This gave me the awesome opportunity of volunteering in Ally's and Ryan's classrooms a couple time each week. Because of this, I feel that I was so involved in Ryan's first year of school. Since Ryan's teacher, Ms. Stultz, also had Ally in kindergarten, and she knew I am a teacher, she utilized me in the classroom greatly. This allowed me to know the other kids in Ryan's class as well.

Ryan and his classmates reciting a poem for the parents on graduation night. We almost missed the graduation because Ryan, Ally and myself all had strep throat.

Now I know that Ryan is very blurry in this picture and the next. However, I wanted to post this photos so you can see the expression on Ms. Stultz' face. All I can say is that she loves Ryan.

I'm not talking how all teachers love all their students (at least at this age). I'm talking she LOVES him. She would constantly tell me how cute he is and the various statements/stories he would tell her throughout the day. If he asked her if she had seen a certain movie and she had not he would give her a five minute narrative of the movie for her. She could not get enough of Ryan. Once she said in front of Ryan "he is just so cute" and Ryan stated "I know, because of my chubby cheeks". Ms. Stultz actually chose Ryan to be in her class due to the fact that she had Ally a couple years ago. I don't think she knew the effect this little boy would have on her.

Ryan and his best buddy showing off their diplomas to each other.

The entire graduating kindergarten class of his school.

And the teachers responsible for them.....

My big boy and his diploma.

The proud family.

And Auntie Cheryl who came to his graduation (we only got 4 tickets to the graduation).

Las Vegas, Baby!

A few weekends ago Henry surprised me with a trip to Las Vegas. He even asked his parents to come up (from 6 hours away) and watch the kids for us. We dropped the kids off at school on a Friday morning then headed out to the airport (Grandma and Grandpa Turtle would pick the kids up from school). We landed in Vegas, checked into the hotel, and went sight seeing. We walked up the strip and went into a couple of the casinos. We mainly just walked, looking at the different buildings. When we got tired of that, we bought tickets to the Blue Men Group and went to the show. It was a pretty awesome show and Henry even was pulled into the show! After Blue Men we walked back down the strip heading back to the hotel. On the way we stopped and ate and I got a Henna tattoo (temporary).

On Saturday we slept in since we didn't get to bed until about 2 a.m. I found out in the morning that Henry snuck out while I was sleeping and went gambling until 8 a.m. That did not bother me since I a) enjoy my sleep and b) detest gambling. He only lost $4. In the afternoon we walked down to the Mandalay Bay Casino to go to the Glee concert (the main purpose of our trip). Now I have been to a few concerts and I have to say this was the best concert ever. Our seats were terrible, in the nose bleed section, and the concert was still amazing. If you ever get the chance to go to a Glee concert you must go. And pay the big bucks for seats up close.

Henry and I have decided that we are not Las Vegas people. We don't see the draw to the city. I feel like I have been there and there is no need to go back. I enjoyed both concerts tremendously, however, I could have done without the gambling, cigarette smoke, x-rated business cards being thrust at you constantly, drunk people and the crowds of people.

While in Vegas we took one picture. It is of the ceiling in one of the malls. It looks like the night sky and we thought it was beautiful.

Sunday, when we got home, Ryan was running a fever and both my throat and Ally's throat were hurting. Quick trip to Urgent Care on Monday, we all had strep throat.

John's Wedding

My cousin John, who is like a brother to me, got married the first weekend of May.

John and his beautiful bride, Heather.

John's daughter, Tannis and son, John.

John's oldest son, Seth.

John's youngest daughter, Cameron.

Heather's daughter, Karrah.

Father and daughter dancing at the reception.

This wedding was an eye opener to me. A sad eye opener that is. This was the first get together without our grandmother there. She passed away two years ago. Also, seeing John's kids getting older was difficult also. I had not seen the kids in over a year. The three older ones came home from school (the oldest driving his own vehicle) and I was shocked at how tall they had gotten. It just reminds me how time marches on.

White Sands

We headed down to Alamogordo for my cousins wedding the first weekend of May. Since we were in the area we headed over to White Sands for the afternoon.

AWANA Awards

Well, we finished AWANA for the school year. I say "we" because we are all involved in AWANA. Henry is a leader for Cubbies, the 3 and 4 year old class. I am a leader for the Sparks Sky Stormers, the 2nd grade class. All was in the Sparks Sky Stormer class and Ryan was in the Sparks Hand Glider (kindergarten) class.

This was Ryan's first year as a Spark. He finished his book and also received his review patch.

Here is Ryan and a couple of his friends looking through his gift bag, after receiving his award.

Ally finished her 3rd year as a Spark, therefore finishing 3 books and memorizing 150 verses!