A Beautiful, Snowy Day!

North Texas today received its annual dusting of snow.

Except, this year, we got several inches of snow!! We can barely contain our excitement!

The snow began just after noon today. Certain we would not even get enough snow to cover the grass, I sent the girls out to enjoy what little there was.

But, lo and behold, an hour and a half later it was still snowing!

After another hour - still snowing! I was in shock by this point.

By this time, we couldn't even see the lake anymore - it's that misty place just beyond the trees.

We discovered that a couple of hours in the snow makes children cold and exhausted. We all cuddled up with some hot chocolate and watched Zathura with Daddy...in the middle of the day! What a treat!

We went next door to play with our neighbors as soon as they got home from school. (They were released early because of the snow. We do that around here.)

After more hot chocolate & warming up, we all came to our house to try the sleds on our long, steep driveway. In case you're wondering why we have sleds, we don't. Our neighbors do, because they're Yankees. And anyway, 2 of the sleds are really pool floats...

Nope, too powdery. The sled just sank into the snow. It worked great with Mr. Dave pulling it, though!

We had a wonderful day playing in the snow together, and more is expected tomorrow. What a blessing! Our Friday co-op has been canceled, no one is working and we are declaring a Snow Day from school! Yea!!!

I was going to include some nature pictures I took today, but I'll post them separately as this is getting quite long!

Back from Colorado!

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks because we took a vacation to Colorado. My parents went with us, and we had a fabulous time! Here are a few pictures.

We enjoyed our outings - horseback riding through the mountains, a visit to the local wildlife park and a trip to Durango, including a store with a huge teepee out front and an elk ranch (elk jerky - yum!!) & Mesa Verde, the ruins of ancient Indian cliff dwellings - but we actually never had to leave the condos! There was plenty to do right there at "home" - from just enjoying the beauty of the mountains and the lake to feeding (& chasing) the geese and ducks. (Canadian geese, Padme informed me. And mallards.) And more!

We played golf and miniature golf at the condos, took several craft classes and yoga at the condos, the guys worked out and we went swimming in the local rec center. We never made it to the hot springs right there in Pagosa Springs. Maybe next time. But we had our own personal gynormous (Lil Yoda's word) jacuzzi on the first floor of our 3 bedroom condo! We love our timeshare!!!

The "cliff dwellings" seen above are villages actually built into the sides of cliffs by the Indians of Mesa Verde 1,000 years ago. They have been deserted for hundreds of years, no one knows why. The architecture was truly amazing! I highly recommend a visit if you are ever near the Durango area.

We are back on schedule now, and in the swing of regular life again! We have a pretty busy couple of weeks coming up with co-0p coming to a close for the semester.

We rushed back from CO, arriving home at 3:30 am last Thursday night/Friday morning, so Padme could cheer in our co-op's homecoming football game Friday afternoon. She did a fantastic job!

Then we had a homecoming dance that night, for which King Louie was the deejay (the teenagers love him) and Jubilee chaperoned. The girls were at a birthday party so we all had a busy day and were exhausted all weekend! In fact, we are still recovering and are excited about the extra hour of sleep tomorrow night! We had a wonderful vacation and are so thankful for the opportunity to rest and enjoy the beauty of God's creation.

...and I think to myself...what a wonderful world!

Why don't I live in Colorado? There's just something relaxing about waking up to see mountains every morning. A reminder that there is something bigger than you, I suppose. If you live there, I hope you enjoy it!