Texas Tech Football!!

This past weekend we finally got to take the kids to see a Texas Tech football game live. It was a bit anticlimatic for the kids but Ryan and I had a blast!

We drove to Lubbock on Saturday morning and got in around 3pm. The kids were super excited already to be staying in a hotel and went nuts when we got to the hotel room and found that our Christmas elf, Frank, had followed us there! Frank shows up the day after Thanksgiving and comes to our house to watch the kiddos behavior and to listen to their Christmas requests. He travels back to the North Pole each night to update Santa and reappears every morning in a different location in our house. The kids LOVE this tradition and so do we!

It was a cold afternoon in Lubbock and the weather was clear and cold for the game so once we got settled into our hotel we piled on the clothing layers and headed out to check out campus and find a great place to park the car for the evening. We lucked out when a police officer doing traffic duty let us park really close to the stadium (in exchange for buying him a cup of coffee - which we did gladly because it was cold outside!).

The game was great although the novelty wore off pretty quickly for the kids and we ended up leaving at half time because they we too cold!

On the way home we went through Abilene so that we could visit with Ryan's grandmother for a couple of hours.

Excellent trip! Go Red Raiders!

What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Fa La La La La ...

Okay - so I know it's too early but it was such a nice day out today (and it's fixing to get COLD) that we decided to put up our Christmas lights this afternoon (We didn't light them though!!).

The kids helped get out the lights, stakes, and Santa on the tractor and we got to work. It took us most of the afternoon but we had a lot of fun doing it together!

Pheasant Hunting Trip to Kansas

Fun Trip details coming soon :) ...

A & P Study Group

So I've gone back to school this semester. I graduated the first time from Texas Tech in 1998 but have recently decided that I need a career change so I'm back in school completing prerecs for nursing school. Anatomy and Physiology I is the first class I've taken in 12 years and I'm having SO much FUN!

Yes, the class is difficult but not why you'd think. It's difficult because of the amount of material that we have to learn in the amount of time we have to learn it. The material is actually extremely interesting. I was worried going into the class that I wouldn't study properly or that the class would be too difficult but I've found a FABULOUS study group which makes it 10x easier and a heck of a lot more fun :) We've all signed up for A & P II next semester so study group and the ridiculously fun study sessions will continue!
















Here are me and the girls and then a picture of the girls studying




















Here is K being an oligodendrocyte and D showing how neurons are connected





















Here is A being an astrocyte and me showing how neurons communicate.

















Here is D teaching us about the spinal cord and the owner of the place that we study at likes having us there so much that he offered to reserve our "section" each Monday night so that we'd have a place to study. So we showed up this past Monday and he had made this sign :) He made us a name and everything - How fun is that :)

Camping with Friends

We typically like to go camping a couple of times a year but for one reason or another we've missed the last THREE camping trips with our friends! So when planning this most recent one we were determined to make this one happen. Even when it turned out that we picked one of the coldest weekends yet :)

Ryan found a fabulous place for us to camp called Pilot Knoll Park and we were excited to try it out. So we loaded up the car and headed out to campsite number 22 to set up camp around 2pm yesterday. The weather was actually nice and sunny when we set up camp but once the sun went down we were COLD. I had brought hand and foot warmers for all along with a couple of larger warmers that we all put in our sleeping bags to keep us warm. They actually worked pretty well.




This camping trip was a lot of fun. The kids fished with worms on their hooks, made worm habitats for some of the luckier worms, & fed the ducks.
We all grilled burgers, spider dogs and beans for dinner, made s'mores, snuggled into our sleeping bags at night (made that much warmer by the handy warmers placed at the bottom of our sleeping bags), and had hot chocolate and breakfast burritos this morning.


Everything you'd expect from a camping trip and more!