Update Your Blog, He Says

Last night, Dan says "You don't need to watch TV.  You need to update your blog."  Am I behind?  It's only been 2 or 3 weeks, right?  Instead, I'm much rather be on the couch with my iphone in one hand and my remote control in the other.  I was out of town for two weeks.  My DVR is not going to watch itself and erase all that must see TV :).

Seriously though, we had a great three weeks, between the visit with the Beatles at our house and our two weeks in Florida at my parents house.  We visited with family and friends, we played at the beach many times (sigh), we shopped and we ate AND I even snuck off to Destin with Jen for some time at Serenity.  I'll work on posting pictures next week.

We have 5+ more weeks of summer.  There's an issue with a new sixth grade building; so our district will be delaying our start date until after Labor Day.  Yea!  I have two weeks of swim lessons planned for the kids, but other than that, we are free to veg out and enjoy the end of our summer doing whatever we feel like every day.  I have a feeling there will be a lot of laying by the pool.

Kelly not updating her blog

Tissue Box Surprise

Yesterday, Allie and I picked Dan up from the airport.  We've been waiting for him so we could celebrate Jaelyn's birthday.

First we blindfolded her, with her cooperation of course.  Jared envisioned kidnapping and blindfolding her by force, crazy teenager.  But he wasn't here; so we modified his plan a little.

We unblindfolded Jaelyn at Ruby Tuesdays where Grandmother and Granddaddy were waiting with Nana.  Jaelyn loves Ruby Tuesdays.  She always begs to go there and it's one of the only place where she'll actually eat and fill herself up.

After we filled our tummies with things like shrimp fondue, guacamole, salads, steaks, and ribs, it was time to open presents. 

I saved the present from me, Dan and my parents for last.  My mom did crazy things with presents when I was growing up.  I truly learned from the best.  Jaelyn wanted money for an Ipod touch instead of a party. I got $100 in one dollar bills from the bank.  My mom threw in her $50.  We stapled the bills end to end and rolled them up into a huge roll.  We finished it off by stuffing the roll into a wrapped tissue box, leaving one dollar sticking up out of the hole.

Jaelyn started pulling...

and pulling...

and pulling...

and pulling...

Until finally she reached the end and had a huge pile of money on the table in front of her.  It was truly awesome and she loved it as did the other patrons in the restaurant.

If the picutres aren't enough...here's a video.  It was a definite memory making dinner!

The Beach...Again

We've been rained out of beach trips for a few days, so we got up early yesterday and headed to Pickens before any storms could dampen our plans.  It was also our last day with my nephews.  I hope they've had fun with us.  We sure have had fun with them!

We got a show as we drove through Ft. Pickens and parked at Langdon Beach.  The Blue Angels were practicing over NAS.  They were a little far away, but it was still fun to watch them.

BTW, did you notice my hat?  I said I was going to get one.  Unfortunately, the only one in the store was black (hot in the sun).  I bought it anyway and my mom was nice enough to trade me because she wears hers when it's cooler to walk in the mornings, not in the sun to the swimming pool.  I did throw in a shirt to sweeten the deal. Score!

It was out of character for Jared, but he suggested that Caden bury him in the sound.  That was fun.

But turn-about is fair play and Jared had a great laugh turning Caden into a Mer'maid' instead of a mer'man.' 

The water was a little bit calmer this time.  The boogie boards were pretty useless for anything except floating on. 

Dan says we have at least two more beach trips to make!  Yea!

The Big Kid Cooks Scones

I'm not quite sure what prompted the baking flurry that went on this morning, but someone decided to try a new scone recipe and Jaelyn took charge.  She made Cinnamon-Sugar Scones out of the Taste of Home magazine.

Mix 3 cups biscuit baking mix and 1/4 cup sugar.  Whist together 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt, 1/3 cup 2% milk, and 1 tbsp vanilla extra; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.  Stir in 1 cup cinnamon chips or semisweet chocolate chips (we obviously went the chocolate route).  On lightly floured surface, knead dough gently 10 times.  Pat into 9-in. circle.  Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar.  Cut into 8 wedges; place on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until golden.  Makes 8 scones. 

They topped them with an icing drizzle, but I have no idea what the recipe was so you'll have to come up with that on your own :).

Little Red Jaelinghood packed up her scones to deliver them to her family (down the hall and through the door to the living room I go).

Apparently pretzels were also made, but salt was dumped into the yeast while it was proofing...let's just say they didn't turn out right and leave it at that.

Birthday Girl

How did she get so big?  It seems like just yesterday I was meeting a little girl with a big pink and white bow in her hair and trading her cheerios for hugs.  Two days ago, Jaelyn turned 10.  Double digits...that's a big deal for my big girl.

We celebrated with a blueberry birthday pie and a few small presents.

We'll celebrate for real tonight with everyone now that Daddy is in Florida with us.

Zero to 14,345 ft

Blanca Peak is the highest peak of the Sierra Blanca Massif at the southern tip of the Sangre de Christo Range in Colorado. It is the fourth highest peak of the Rocky Mountains, and the eighth highest peak in the contiguous United States (according to Wikipedia) at 14,345 ft.  Pictures by Ian.

     Rich B. asked me to join him on a little hike last week in Colorado. As a personal quest Rich wanted to summit a 14,000 ft peak and invited me to join him on this little adventure. So the clan drove from Pensacola to FLW on Tuesday. We did a little local sightseeing on Wednesday the 4th, and drove to Alamosa, CO on Thursday. Everything was going to plan until we started up "The Long Hard Road" on Friday.

This is me, Rich, John, and Ian. Kelly, Jen and the kids stayed at FLW and had fun in the sun.  It's a 5 mile hike to Lake Como, where we were going to camp this day...7 hours later we got there. This was a 3,500ft elevation gain from 8,000ft to 11,500ft.

It was a struggle just to set up camp and filter water at this point. For those of you that have been to this elevation you know...for everyone else its like holding your breath for as long as you can...those last few seconds before you have to take a breath is what you feel like just bending over to put a tent stake in the ground.  The plan was to wake at five and be on our way at six to summit Blanca and Ellingwood peaks. Right on schedule Saturday morning at six we left camp. Basically it took longer to do everything...including the 2 mile hike to the base of Blanca, but the views were awesome.

I gave myself a safety timeout at the ridgeline at about 13,500ft...Rich and John continued on up, and Ian was probably up at the top by then waiting. As you can see Rich made it to the top right as the weather took a turn for the worse.  I took a couple spills getting off the mountain, but escaped with just a bruised knee. I was just about to the bottom when it started to rain and hail.  I made it back to the tents about two in the afternoon...soaked and limping, but worried about Ian, John, and Rich that had to come all the way down in the rain and hail. At around four a fellow hiker stopped by and let me know that everyone had made it down and they should be to the camp soon.

This is Rich. I wanted to show the terrain we had to navigate once we started up Blanca proper. We were picking our way up through these rocks...not what we had expected.

We hiked out the next morning (Sunday). We were basically done...all of gear was water logged, our visions of summitting two additional peaks were put down quickly and humanely.

We drove to Colorado Springs and visited the Garden of the Gods... but we had had enough rocks for a while. We had an awesome dinner at Rudy's BBQ and stayed overnight at a hotel before driving back to FLW on Monday.  We did see some bighorn sheep, marmots, and a plethora of chipmunks, but much to John's dismay no bear.

Pensacola

We arrived at my parents house Wednesday night to discover an empty house.  My parents were on a late night adventure.  My kids were all asleep when my parents showed up with the Biloxi cousins.  There was much excitement when everyone woke up Thursday morning :).

Thursday was great.  We didn't do anything.  Not one single thing.  Other than feeding a dog, I laid around and read a book.  We had the best time with our friends in Missouri, but we never stopped.  We stayed up too late, got up too early and played and played and played.  I needed a day off.

Gracie absolutely loves being in Pensacola because my parents have a huge fenced backyard.  She races in great big circles.  So happy!

If someone says animals don't smile, they've never seen my dog!

Last night, Jared suggested we go to the beach in the morning.  I never heard the decision, but apparently it was made.  When I woke up, half the house had on bathing suits.  We headed to Langdon Beach at Ft. Pickens around 9:30.  My dad has a pass and I love to go down there because it's never crowded.  It was crazy today because the Blue Angels were practicing so I'm glad we were where we were.  The water was perfect!  There was enough of a wave for the kids to boogie board, but not so much that I was worried about their safety.

I love my Mom's hat.  I must get one!

Waiting for the perfect wave

We finished off the day with dinner with Pop and Memaw.

Johnson's Shut-ins State Park

After Elephant Rocks, we drove 12 miles to Johnson's Shut-ins State Park.  We tried to go here once before, but we had Gracie with us.  The Missouri state park website says dogs are allowed everywhere.  It should say "mostly" everyone as there's a sign at the trail head to the shut-ins that says "no dogs allowed."  I was excited to finally get to go.

I was impressed and had a great time playing follow the leade rover and around the rocks with the kids.  Shut-ins are paths worn in the rock by a river.  In this case, the water was L-O-W so it didn't look too much like a river.  It was more of a series of interconnected ponds with giant rocks inbetween. The scenery was beautiful although in some places, the trees looked like it was fall because of our lack of rain.  Everything is so dry.

Jaelyn loved Mr. Ian.  They night before the guys left for Colorado, she told him he could stay with us.

Silly faces...I love this picture!

So pretty!

Coming back to the nature center, Caden says "I found a geo-cache."  Silly boy, we weren't even looking for one, but eagle eyes spotted it under the steps.

Wednesday, the kids and I drove back to Pensacola with our friends.  The boys rode in one car and Jennifer and the girls rode with me.  Normally Dan drives the whole way, so it was nice for me to have Jen to share the responsibility.

PS I thought I brought Dan's Colorado pictures with me so I could put them on my blog, but they are on our desktop at home.  You'll have to wait a couple weeks to see them.