Texas!!

Ok... so I'm a little behind! I swear to get caught up on all of my blogging soon!

I'm sitting here in the airport about to leave Albuquerque, New Mexico and I'm posting about my last trip that happened over a week ago!!

Well here's the low-down on Texas, and I'll post about my Alb. trip and all the USAT coaching stuff within the next few days!!....

Texas really was a lot of fun! Especially since I ended up taking most of the time off!

It began after our long car journey there when we finally arrived at Adam’s sister Kellie’s house just in time for a cookout on July 4th! The kids pretty much got in their swim suits the moment we arrived, and we celebrated our country’s birthday with hamburgers, margaritas, and sparklers.

Of course I’m not much of a night-person, so the evening didn’t last too long beyond dark!

Saturday, I did do my 2:30 brick that I wrote about earlier. The roads were bumpy, but the scenery was gorgeous! Texas ranches are seriously beautiful. Long stretches of fields covered with wildflowers, livestock, and produce. It was nice!

Saturday night we went to the rodeo! I was so excited about it because when Adam and I had been before I would always think how fun it would be to bring our kids someday, and well… that someday is already here! Ellen had purchased some rubber boots for both Cooper and Gracie to wear at their cabin when we headed up there on Sunday to fish and such. However, they both LOVED their boots, especially Gracie and started wearing them immediately. They were both so cute in their boots and dresses and shorts!

They really enjoyed the rodeo. If I had known ahead of time, I would have gotten there in time to try to get them picked for the kids portion of the rodeo. They have a drawing each time to choose 10 kids to saddle up and see how long you can hold onto a sheep. You should have seen those little people riding those sheeps. Of course none of them made it very far, but they were all so tiny, and the last little boy to ride, when he fell off at the end, he raised his hands in victory! He truly felt like he had won, and it was awesome!

Cooper did go out and chase the cow. All the little kids line up and run after 2 cows that each have a ribbon on their tale. Gracie didn’t want to participate, but Cooper ran out there just as fast as he could and it was so cute!! They loaded up on popcorn (Gracie can put away a LOT of popcorn to be so little!), cotton candy, pop-guns and stuffed pink ponies, and we headed home after a late night!

Sunday was spent at Adam’s parents cabin. They built a small cabin about an hour north of Dallas several years ago. It’s a really neat place. They built it themselves and it’s right in front of this little pond and they have a ton of land, and it’s just neat.

We spent the day fishing with Spiderman and Princess fishing poles and Gracie discovered the advantage of having a grandmother that loves to sew! Everyone knows how much Gracie loves dresses. She wears a dress everyday. She had begun sewing her one and was almost finished with it, and was showing it to Gracie. Well Gracie discovered the picture of the little girl modeling the pattern who had on a yellow dress and decided she needed one like that. So Ellen agreed to make it for her, and that’s all she could talk about for the rest of the day! Gracie wasn’t much into the fishing, but Cooper caught 4 fish! We threw them all back of course, but it was so cool to watch him concentrate and be quiet and such!

My favorite part of the day was when we went over to their neighbor’s house who owns 6 horses. Neither of my kids had ever been up-close to a horse, so they got to meet them, and feed them and even ride them! I myself have never been much of a horse person, but it was such a great experience. I got up there and go to know “Chief” and then took both Cooper and Gracie for rides. It was an amazing experience!

Monday, while I headed to Kellie’s gym to the pool, Adam, his Dad, and Cooper went to play golf, and Ellen and Gracie went on a shopping spree to get Gracie her yellow fabric and ensemble she’d decided she needed. I tried explaining to Gracie before she left that they weren’t actually going to go and buy the dress. That they were going to go and buy the stuff to come home and make the dress. My example was how mommy goes to the grocery store and buys the stuff we need to come home and make a cake. That we don’t actually go and buy an already made cake. Well as soon as Ellen came to pick Gracie up, what she had taken away from that conversation was by telling Ellen that while they went shopping, mommy was going to make a cake! Needless to say, she didn’t quite get what I was trying to tell her. But they had a BIG time! She came home with sparkly, yellow-flowered fabric, yellow shoes to match. A new necklace and bracelet, and a new Barbie. Can anyone tell that Grandma Ellen was excited to have the opportunity to take them out and spoil them a little! Can you believe that she set down and had that dress made within like 2 hours! Gracie finally had the perfect outfit! Her new yellow sparkly dress, her stripped rain boots, her new jewelry, and her new cowboy hat that she’d gotten and had Grandma Ellen sew jeweled fringe onto!! THAT is one heck of a fashion statement!

Tuesday I had sometime to myself. I rode my trainer for almost 2 hours and then went and did a little shopping. Wednesday, the kids headed back up to the cabin for a spend-the-night campout party, and I had about 24 hours to myself! This is when workout Kellye shut down and went into complete vacation mode! I sunned in the pool with Kellie, napped, and then we went shopping at Steve and Barry’s in downtown Dallas. Got to love the cute and super cheap Sarah Jessica Parker clothes! Then onto dinner at the Melting Pot! One of my favorite places to eat. And though some adults bring their children there, I do not for fear of cooking one of their hands, so that’s always a special place to go for me!

Mine and Kellie’s “Big Night Out” had us home and in our PJs by 9pm watching “How Clean is Your House” on BBC! Ok… if you ever feel like you are not doing a good job keeping your house clean…. Tune in to this show, because OMG… these people are disgusting!!

Thursday and Friday were pretty lax just hanging out and taking it easy. Adam flew back into Dallas from working all week on Friday night.

We were going to head home on Sunday, but decided Saturday would be best so that we could recover at our own house on Sunday instead before heading into a busy week on Monday. And that was that!

Lots of fun, family, and good times! Thanks Ed, Ellen, and Kellie for being such great hostesses! Sorry to Kellie because my kids just about destroyed her house. She literally had to pull up the carpet in her guest bathroom as soon as we left!! Ooops!! But we had a great time, and can’t wait to come again!!