17 hours on a bus

When I woke up Friday morning, my bottom lip felt a little weird.  When I looked at it in the mirror, I noticed my lip was about 2x the normal size!  To say I freaked out is an understatement, this had never happened before and I didn't know what to do.  After calling my mom, we decided I must have had some kind of allergic reaction to something (we still don't know to what) and I went on the search for some Benadryl.  After hiding from as many people as I could, and explaining it a few times, I finally found some meds and relaxed a little. 

After loading the bus, I got as comfortable as I could and settled in to let the Benadryl put me to sleep.  When I woke up about 4 hours later, I could feel my lip was a little less swollen, but I still took more when we got off on the next stop.  I slept on and off throughout the day. 

We stopped for dinner in Groom, TX.  In Groom, there is a life size Stations of the Cross and a beautiful, huge cross.  We got there at sunset and enjoyed another breathtaking view!   As a group, we prayed the Stations and then fixed peanut butter and jelly, egg salad, or tuna sandwiches. 

We herded back on the bus and settled in for the 7 hour trip back home.  I think we were ALL ready to be home and off that bus!

Sidenote- I have the best boyfriend in the world for waking up in the middle of the night, picking me up at church at 2:30 AM to bring me (and my bags) back home and tucking me into bed! 

Ski Retreat Day 4

Alex and I woke up on Day 4 feeling oh-so-sore!  All that time on the mountain (and I literally mean on the mountain...I fell more than necessary) was starting to catch up with us!  It was another beautiful day though!!!

Mark, Alex, Chris and I decided to only ski in the morning, then sneak back to the lodge for a little sauna/hot tub/adult time!  We spent about 2 hours in the hot tub (which really wasn't that hot) and just chatted and shared stories. It was probably one of my favorite parts of the week! 

We were all sad to say good-bye to Colorado, but I think we were all ready to go home too...but none of us were looking forward to the 17 hour bus ride home...

Ski Retreat Day 3

I woke up on Day 3 in Colorado feeling much better than I had the night before!  We followed the same morning routine and hit the mountain. 

A few of the more experienced skiiers offered to take us newbies up the "real mountain" on some "easy greens".  The lift we took up was an older lift and was quite slow, but oh my goodness, it was awesome!  We were one of the first groups on the mountain so everything was quiet, peaceful and so amazingly breathtaking!  The morning went very well with minimal falling!  I skiied a bit in the afternoon, but my knee was beginning to get sore, so I called it a day around 2 pm. 

Natalie planned our evening activities and did a great job!  We played a fun new game called "Tri Bowls" and had a dance party!  Day 3 was another great day on the slopes! 

Ski Retreat Day 2

Tuesday morning when I woke up, I found myself in an adorable room at our great ski lodge in Colorado!  Not a bad way to wake up! 
Alex and I donned our ski gear, woke up the girls, and headed down to breakfast. 
Everyone made their own lunch before leaving the lodge in the morning...think of 60 people all making sack lunches...I wish I would have gotten a picture of that! 

We were shuttled to the mountain and the skiing/snowboarding began! Those more experienced/confident went off on the lifts...those of us who weren't...well we went off to our "lesson" from Ed. 
Lesson #1 - putting on your skis...I had never put on skis so I had no clue.  I place my boot in the ski, lean back on my heel and NO CLICK!  After further investigation, we realized that one of the high schoolers grabbed my skis by mistake.  Only reason we realized this was because his skis weren't "clicking" either.  Jordan and I switched skis and we went back to clicking.  Being on skis for the first time was one of the weirdest feelings ever!  It's like having huge, heavy feet and feeling awfully clumsy! 

Lesson #2- skiing- NOT so easy for me, I fell several times my first "run" down the mountain.  You will be happy to know though that I have MASTERED getting up from falling...yep, mastered it! 

Lesson #3- stopping- luckily, I mastered this as well...it's not hard to stop when you aren't going very fast! 

Lesson #4- getting on/off the ski lift.  Not as easy as it looks and quite frankly, I was terrified the first time! 

After going down the bunny hill successfully (aka- not falling) I learned the most important lesson of the day...

Lesson #5- DRINK WATER- LOTS OF IT.  Yep, I got altitude sickness the first day, go me!

At night we had a "beauty pagent" (that didn't have any beauties), a survivor game, and a trivia night! 

Ski Retreat Day 1

After a VERY long bus ride from Colleyville, TX, to Durango, CO, we finally were allowed off the bus and into our Ski Lodge!  We were greated with beautiful weather and breath taking views!

After unloading all of our luggage into our rooms, we loaded back on the bus to pick up our skis, boots, boards, and poles. 

While the boys were downstairs getting fitted, the girls stayed upstairs and played Frogger...a weird little game! 

We headed back on the bus and back to the lodge to get ready for daily mass and evening activities!

After a beautiful mass and a delicious dinner, we set up for Alex's night...Fear Factor and Minute- to- Win-It.  Fear factor included drinking "smoothies" made of spam, chocolate milk, chips and cookies; pork rinds, coke, vienna sausage and cookies; sardines, srichi sauce, cookies and energy drink; anchovies, lucky charms, juice and cookies.  I gagged almost watching them drink it! 

There are way too many Minute to Win It pictures to post (see facebook if you are really interested), but there were games like Bobble-Head, ChapStick Chopstick, Cotton Nose, Dance Off, Sharpen Up, and Hula Hoop!  I think we all went to bed with sore cheeks from smiling and laughing so much! 

Stay tuned for recaps of the rest of the nights!





March Photo Challenge Day 10

Day 10: Course- taken from auburn.edu of course!

March Photo Challenge Day 9

Day 9: Force

And just because she's so cute...

March Photo Challenge Day 8

Day 8- sequence

***While this may not be the best picture I've ever taken, I'm proud because I did everything on Manual setting and I even edited a little in photoshop!

March Photo Challenge Day 7

Day 7: contrast - and now I need to clean my mirror!

March Photo Challenge Days 4,5, and 6

Soo..I forgot to post pics to my blog of my picture of the day...
Day 3- the theme was soil...I didn't do this one...
Day 4- food - Will's birthday dinner at my parent's house

Day 5- tool- the tool I use daily

Day 6- compare- apples to oranges!

March Photo Challenge Day 2

Today's theme: Water 

March Photo Challenge

I've read about these before and I've always wanted to do one so here we go- I'm doing a photo challenge! I've taken one photography class and I'm taking another one this weekend, so I'm totally gonna be using my camera more and more! 
Here is the link if you want to join me! Facebook Photo Challenge 

Day 1's theme was green, so here is my green!

Late Valentine's Day

Apparently I never published this...

Valentine's Day, the actual day, was pretty quiet over here.  Since we had just returned from Austin, we decided to just celebrate Valentine's Day at home making dinner and opening a bottle of wine we got at one of the vineyards on NYE. 

This weekend on the other hand...we celebrated! 
Will decided to have people over for a Valentine's themed party.  I was quite proud of him...he decorated everything by himself (I only had to re-arrange a few things), cleaned his house, had plenty of wine and even had activities!  I didn't take any pictures, but here is a little recap! 
For the first hour or so, we did nothing but chat, drink wine and eat (note to self- next time eat more, drink less).  Since we had friends over who had never met, we did cheezy introductions and had a lot of fun laughing at stories. 

After everyone knew each other, we wrote each other Valentine's cards that had little funny stories on them!  Will had this valentine's mailbox that we put all the cards in, then one by one, pulled them out and read them outloud.  After someone read the card, everyone tried to guess who the card was to and who it was from.  There were sweet cards, funny cards, inside jokes, even a husband who forgot to write a card to his wife!

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard!  It was great joining our friends together and just hanging out.  I did take a few "post party" pictures of valentine's so I will leave you with those!

Chris knows!