The Oleo Ranch 2010

We left Texas this past week for some much needed rest and relaxation (and cooler temperatures) in Colorado at The Oleo Ranch.

We left out of DFW around 9:30am on Saturday morning, August 7th. Drove all day Saturday and stayed the night in Alamosa.

Got up Sunday morning, went grocery shopping at City Market and got on the road. We stopped at a little shop (can't remember the town) that had a live elk and some reindeer before we actually started up the mountain. We bought some elk sausage and some antler tip necklaces for the kids and then checked out the reindeer and the huge elk. Then we headed up the mountin. Just before we went over the Continental Divide we saw a bunch of elk in the valley - many more than we normally see. The kids got out their binoculars (as did we) and we watched them for a bit. We also stopped at North Clear Creek Falls to see the beautiful waterfall which we weren't able to see last year because they were fixing the fence that keeps you from falling off the cliff :)

On Monday the kids and Ryan went fishing in the stream and then later at the ponds while I stayed at the cabins and painted my rocks. I also played a bit of Quiddler with my mom, sister, and mother in law. The kids also finally got to do their "dino fossil dig" activity that I bought and it was a hit!

*Ryan and the kids before they went fishing and Little Miss and Little Man out in the streams*

*Little Man fishing the ponds and Little Miss helping Gramps with his fish. *

*The Great Fossil Dig 2010 - Little Man had his open in abour 3 minutes but Little Miss took her time and really tried to be as slow and patient as a real paleontologist*

Tuesday was Lake City day. On the way down the mountain to town we passed a guy riding a unicycle down the mountain. We stopped at a scenic overlook a little ways down and the unicycle guy ended up stopping there as well. Turns out he was a member of a unicycle group and was unicycling over all of the major mountain passes in Colorado - I believe he said there were 32 and he was on #30. It was great getting to talk to him. We hung around Lake City for a couple of hours. We did some shopping and then hit up our favourite ice cream shop in town. On the way up the mountain Ryan spied some wild raspberries so we stopped to pick a few.

*Me and Little Miss -Here is how we do our hair in the mountains :) -Us at the Scenic Overlook*

*The Unicycler - Lara and I - Ryan and Little Man "They're watching us" *


*My little Rock Hound (I love geology so I'm so excited that she is a fossil and rock lover!)- The Boys ready to fish - Ryan picking raspberries *

Wednesday was definitely fishing day. Wednesday night is Fish Fry night so we needed to make sure that we had caught enough fish to feed everyone. Ryan, the kids and I headed down to the stream to catch dinner. On the way to the streams and on the way back up we stopped by the barn to love on the horses. No luck for us catching fish but everyone else had caught enough over the last couple of days that we only had one fish left at the end of the meal! After dinner we all loaded into the car around dusk and headed down to the valley to look for elk. We came upon the most elk we'd ever seen. They were grazing and "talking" to each other. Kids loved it!

On Thursday we headed down to Creede. On the way down to Creede we stopped to do a small hike up to a pretty waterfall. It was the first time the kids have done a "hike" before. Then it was down the mountain to Creede for some shopping and FABULOUS maple fudge :) Before leaving town we took the kids up to see the old mines which are always incredible to see. Once back at the ranch we took the kids to the ponds for some spinning rod fishing. Little Man reeled one in for Ryan and Little Miss got her boot stuck in the mud. Back at the cabin it was our last night there after dinner we busted out the glow stick bracelets. Then it was time for bed because we had a long day of driving on Friday!

*Little Miss & Little Man on the hike - Little Man hiking with his hiking stick - The waterfall we hiked to see*

*Ryan and Little Miss checking out the waterfall - Little Miss and I through the trees*

*The old mines in Creede - Ryan and Little Man fishing - Me taking pictures of my family*

Friday morning we headed out for Lubbock. We drove through some major storms just north of Lubbock and took some beautiful sunset and rainbow pictures. We got into Lubbock around 9:30pm and headed straight to Mamarita's for some of their FABULOUS chips and queso!

Saturday was Texas Tech day! We drove through campus and reminised - took pictures with the kids and played in the fountain. Then we hit up a couple of our favourite stores to get the kids (and us) some Texas Tech gear :) Before we left town we met up with one of my college girlfriends, Brit, and her family to have lunch and catch up. We're thinking that we might come back to Lubbock for a football game this season and so that the kids can visit Brit's kids and check out their farm! We left Lubbock around 330pm and got into DFW around 9:30pm. Kids did great this trip and we were happy that Lara and Ryan came this time too!

Waco Road Trip

What an exhausting and fabulous day :)

We headed south to Waco this morning to meet our friends from Austin for a fun filled afternoon at the museum. We met at 11am at the Collin Street Bakery to fill our tummies with lunch and some of their yummy cookies and then it was on to visit the Mayborn Museum.

Our main purpose for the trip was to visit the Lego Castle Adventure exhibit. It was really amazing. There were building stations for old and young, dragons, knights, and even stained glass made completely out of legos, and the kids favourite - a computerized catapult.
After taking in our fill of the Lego exhibit we hit the rest of the museum. We spent 5 hours exploring the 17 themed Discovery rooms which included the Water and Bubbles Room, the Health Room, the Energy Room, and the People of the World Room. It was definitely worth the drive. Super fun summer day!

Lara's First Bridal Shower and Zing Zang Zoom Circus

What a crazy day!

My sister's first bridal shower was this morning :) Her best friend came up from Houston to help host at my mom's house. Lara invited her best girlfriends and we had a blast. We played "Dress the Bride" and Bridal Bingo, munched on turkey and cream cheese sandwhiches, Chick Fil A nuggets, and fabulous cake and Lara opened some fabulous presents from lingerie to more lingerie! A really fun shower if I do say so myself.

After the shower I headed out because Ryan, the kids and I had tickets for the circus. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's Zing Zang Zoom circus was great! A wacky, fun filled circus with horses, elephants, and tigers along with the crazy guys who walk around the large spinning circle. Kids loved it!

Pinkalicious

Pinkalicious came to Southlake today!

The kids and I (along with a couple of our friends) went to see Pinkalicious - a play put on by a local acting company.

After the play (which was fabulous) we headed over to one of our favourite Grapevine parks - the Spider Park. We had a picnic lunch and ran off some energy with our tennis friends.

The Clutter Diet

OK, so as many people know, my "special talent" is writing ditties. I call them ditties anyways. I'm really good at writing rhyming poems and I write them for all occasions: birthday invitations, baby showers, contest entries, etc.

So last Fall (September I believe) I was reading through Good Housekeeping magazine in a doctor's office when I came across an article about clutter. It was an article that the author wrote because she had found a website (http://www.clutterdiet.com/) that was a service to help you reduce cluttter and chaos in your home. The author subscribed to the website and then wrote an article about how it helped her clean up the clutter in her home.

I got home from the doctor's office and visited the website and found out that they were working with Good Housekeeping (http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/) and were having a clutter makeover contest. The contest was to write an essay (250 words or less) about why you need a clutter makeover from Lorie Marrero (CEO of clutterdiet.com and author of The Clutter Diet).

So with the help of my fabulous sister (who usually writes the ditties with me) we wrote a 250 word ditty about the clutter in my home and why I should be chosen to win the contest.

The winner was to receive a signed copy of The Clutter Diet, two days of in home organizing with Lorie Marrero, and a $1000 gift card to the Container Store.

I submitted my entry at the end of October and pretty much forgot about it. Then in June of 2010 a box showed up on my doorstep. I opened it and out falls The Clutter Diet book and a letter stating that I had won the contest and should call to claim my prizes!

Long story short... Lorie Marrero came to my house this past Thursday and Friday to help us organize our office and garage! On top of that, she called in a favor and was able to get overhead garage storage (from http://www.saferacks.com/ - Rich Adams) installed in my garage for free.

Thursday morning at 7:30am Lorie showed up on my doorstep. We had decided in advance that we were going to organize the office and the garage and some small "hot spot" areas in my kitchen and master closet. Thursday morning we got to work on the garage (while it was still relatively "cool"). After lunch on Thursday we started on the office. We left my house at 6:30pm on Thursday night to do some super fun shopping at the Container Store in Southlake. We showed up and they congratulated me and handed me a gift card for $1000! We shopped for 2 hours and ended up spending $725 on storage solutions for the office, garage, kitchen, master bath, and even got something for Little Miss's room. After checking out we headed over to Mi Cocina's for some much needed dinner. She left on Thursday night around 11pm and was back for more early Friday morning.

Ryan worked from home Friday and was able to help with the garage organizing. We finished the garage around 2pm on Friday afternoon, broke for lunch, and then did some shopping at Office Max and Target. The office organization was crazy (and VERY necessary) and we didn't get totally finished until around 1am Saturday morning.

It was an AMAZING two days with Lorie. She was very adament that she didn't want to "organize and run" but really wanted me to learn organizing techniques and routines that worked for us and our life. She wanted to make sure that everything was specifically geared towards fitting into our lives instead of a cookie cutter approach to organizing. I learned some ways to think about items in our home and where we put them that I hadn't thought of but that make so much sense.

My favourite things that I learned included:

* A, B, C, and D - categorizing our items and the location for those items and the frequency with which we use them

* Numbered filing system - this specific system will REALLY work for us and completely fixes my perfectionist problem

* ART - Action, Reference, Trash for papers coming into the house

* NEXT ACTION - What is the NEXT ACTION for this?

By no means is this all that I learned these past two days but these 4 things really changed the way that I think about items in our home and what to do with things as they come into the house.

It was so amazing to have Lorie here for the last couple of days. She really helped me to overcome many of my organizational hurdles and put systems and/or routines into place to keep the house looking as fabulous as it does right now!

Thank you Lorie for all of the HARD WORK and teaching that you did these last two days. I had a blast getting to know you, laughing with you, and learning from you. Thank you for helping us get some sanity back into our home and making our office and garage look so spectacular!

Before and After shots of the garage and office:

My Clutter Makeover Contest Poem (this is my contest entry):

We're a family of four with two young kids

One is six, the other is three

We have a nice big house with tons of space

But when you walk in the door stacks are all you can see

The kitchen counter it seems is where things multiply

Current bills, magazines and old 'to do' lists

The office is where the clutter piles high

Filing papers here doesn't exist

Our office has morphed into the paper cemetery

The piles are put there to die

Trying to run my home business in there is quite hard

My customers just look at me and sigh

Piles upon piles, boxes of stuff

Where to put it of course where we eat

Our dining room table collects frames and old broken lamps

You'll probably never find a seat

Now onto the master bedroom it's one of the worst

With clothes thrown about on the dresser and floor

And books and such overtook the nightstand

Restful sanctuary it's not - I just run for the door

Finally the garage, my husband's retreat

And the home of our family minivan

Problem is you can't find a screw or a wrench when you need it

Because it's buried beneath old saddles and rusting coffee cans

So Lorie please come with your Clutter Diet method

Four years is too long to live in such a mess

Please help us organize our lives and create systems that work

So that we won't have to deal with all of this stress!

Weekend in Nashville

In continuation of our "Summer of Vacations", Ryan and I spent a long weekend in Nashville this past weekend.


We flew out of DFW Thursday night and got into Nashville around 11:30pm (our flight was delayed because of bad weather in Dallas so we didn't get onto the plane until 9 pm). Friday was a pretty quiet day. Laurie had to work and Denver went up to her work to go to a work baby shower that they had for her. Ryan and I lounged around the house for a bit. Once Denver got home the boys packed up for a quick campout that night. They fished and drank and fished some more.

Pics from the guys camping trip...

Laurie and I hung around the house once she got home and chatted about baby stuff and finally went to dinner around 7pm. We ate some great hibachi and ended up talking for a while with the people sitting next to us (imagine that!).

On Saturday the boys got home around 10am and Laurie and I headed out to her baby shower at 11:15am. The boys fished and hung out while Laurie and I played baby shower games, had awesome cake, and exclaimed "cute, awww, adorable" over all of her baby shower gifts :)

Sunday was Target shopping day and lunch at Red Robin before Ryan and I got on the plane back to Dallas!

Thanks guys for a great weekend!

Independence Day 2010

Happy 4th of July!

This weekend is one of the only weekends that we'll be home by ourselves this summer :) For the rest of the summer we've got trips planned and friends coming in to stay for the weekend so we made the most of our time this weekend.

Ryan was outside planning out our patio - getting the sand level and determining the placement of the patio pavers that we have. He also put up our big American flag outside the house today and put the small ones all along the walk for 4th of July. I was inside painting our laundry room walls so that we could redo and finish the laundry room. We pulled up the carpet, took out the blinds, knocked out the lower cabinet and prepped the walls for painting. Ryan stained the floor and replaced the baseboards. Next I'll get some cute rugs and window treatments and the laundry room will be complete :)

After I finished painting on Saturday, we took the kids to a new location to go and see our local fireworks show. We sat on the side of a major road near the Kroger and watched fireworks from the nearby baseball park. After fireworks the kids popped their poppers and then it was time for bed!

Happy 4th of July everyone!