Blizzard 2009

Rachel, Hayden, Sarah and Abby

Palo Duro Canyon by: Hayden, Clay and Abby

Pizza night

Rock Band

Cookie making!

Well, as most of you know, the Texas panhandle got pounded with snow. We only got about 4 inches here, but Amarillo got 11 inches. I-40 was shut down on each side of Amarillo. There were wrecks all over the interstate.

Here in Canyon, we had tons of snow blowing in at 50 mph. If I could have mounted a bucket sideways on my tree, we probably would have had a foot of snow. It was blowing sideways. It snowed for about 24 hours and then stopped. This morning, we went out and played and tried to make a snowman. It ended up being a snow sculpture of Palo Duro Canyon. Texas snow is so dry that it doesn't pack well.

We spent our snow day making cookies, enjoying our usual Friday night pizza night and John played a little Rock Band. He took the day off and was really glad he didn't try to go in to work. Later in the morning, they did close the plant.

Spring Break

We had a wonderful vacation. We went to Las Cruces to visit friends and went to White Sands, saw "Race To Witch Mountain" and had a great time visiting with our friends. This was the first trip we've made in a long time with no DVD player. For those of you that don't travel much, this sounds crazy, I'm sure. For those of you that have moved multiple times across the country with the military know that a DVD player is a must with 4 kids. Okay, maybe not a must, but a lifesaver to say the least. John knows movies by heart that he's never seen but heard playing behind him as we drive for hours. "Ice Princess" to be exact. The trip was just fine without a DVD player, believe it or not. We survived.

Because we had been to that area before, we decided to stop at the Eagle Ranch Pistachio Farm. It is a little place John found on a TDY to New Mexico. They make everything you can think of out of Pistachios including wine. We loaded up on Pistachio Carmel Corn, Green Chile and Garlic Pistachios, Pistachio toffee and a few bottles of wine. If you are ever in the area, you should stop by; they have samples of everything the make.

We took a trip over to White Sands and on the way over, Rachel started feeling a little car sick. When we got there, she was miserable. We had packed a lunch and she didn't even want to eat. She laid in the back seat of the truck. After a little while, she got out and had something to drink. The next thing you know, she threw up all over the white sand. She felt much better after that and joined us for some fun in the sand. She says that she made the white sand colorful sand. I'm sure she wrote about that in her journal for school. This was the first time that our kids did not complain about getting their picture taken. It was a great day!

We had a great time and can't wait to go run our toes through the sand again!

PPHM

I took 3 of the 4 kids to the museum today. We went to see the Belles of the Ball Exhibit. We had a great time. We stayed for about 2 hours. We saw the Belles of the Ball, Woodie Guthrie, the music exhibit that features a square grand piano and the old pioneer town. The kids loved it. It's fun to go and just spend a couple of hours. Rachel took a notepad and a pen and wrote down all kinds of things. In the art exhibit/gallery, she sketched pictures of her favorite paintings and the artist and price of the piece. She is too funny. We found out that one of the volunteers feeds the neighborhood cats at one of the back exits. He told us they live under some of the buildings on campus.

Rachel's Birthday Party

Breakfast at the Donut Stop

Decorating cupcakes

The party

Sprinkles anyone?

Rachel's cupcake

Hayden's cupcake

Rachel turned 9 on March 4. We went to the Rock-n-Roll soda shoppe after school to celebrate. We had a party on Saturday and she had 9 girls come over and decorate cupcakes. We had 3 colors of frosting, 9 kinds of sprinkles and a whole lot of fun. She had a couple of girls spend the night Friday night and we took them to the Donut Stop for breakfast. We've had a great time celebrating Rachel's 9th birthday and wanted to share some of her pictures.