Christmas at the Ranch

This year we spent Christmas in Grover at our family ranch. My entire family was together which hasn't happened in quite sometime. Mom & Dad, 6 siblings and spouses, and 19 little ones in all. It was such a fun week. We had plenty of snow which made for a lot of fun sledding, riding 4-wheelers, and building snow forts. We had great food every night, played games, watched movies, drank eggnog, and just enjoyed the company. Luckily Santa knows where Grover is, since most do not. The kids were thrilled when they woke up Christmas morning to see what he had delivered. When Sunday came we were sad to leave. It was the best of times. Nothing like a ranch Christmas!

Crew sporting Riley's old snow bibs



Cousins making gingerbread houses

Christmas Eve Nativity performance

Christmas Eve jammies

Sleeping in the loft

Christmas Morning

Riley braving the snow hill

4-wheeler rides

Mom & Dad

White Christmas?

The last few mornings we have awakened to a blanket of snow. The kids are thrilled and so am I. It doesn't matter how cold it gets, Riley is constantly asking to go play in the snow. This morning the kids got all bundled before preschool and had a ball scooping up the fresh powder. Here's hoping for a White Christmas!

Riding Santa's Train

Fall Leaves

Halloween

Another fun holiday has come and gone. This year Riley got to celebrate Halloween more than once. She did a trunk-or-treat at my parents, had her preschool halloween party, got to go trick-or-treating at Jake's work and then of course celebrated the real night of trick-or-treating. Needless to say we have a major stash of candy on hand! Friday night we got the kids dressed and headed over to the Radebaugh's for some delicious chili and great company. Then we went over to Kurt's for a taste of Marnie's famous homemade donuts. YUM! We visited for a bit then took the kids out to hit up some doors. The weather couldn't have been better. We barely needed jackets. Ry made the cutest little cavegirl and Crew was a football player. He didn't quite know what was going on but sure had a good time. What a fun night!

Punta Cana 08

Punta Cana - Dominican Republic

Last Sunday we returned from an amazing trip to the Dominican Republic. We stayed 7 nights at an all-inclusive 5 star resort in Punta Cana. It was fabulous! The reason we were able to stay in such a posh place was because we agreed to listen to a 90 min time share presentation while we were there. It was well worth the fortune we saved (and no we didn't buy). Luckily that was day 2 of our trip and we had the rest of the week to relax and play. We did a lot of excursions. The hotel provided horseback riding on the beach, scuba, snorkeling and list of other things included in our stay. Our biggest excursion we took was to the Fun Fun caves. We were told it is the 3rd largest cave in the world. We boarded a shuttle at 6:30am (what were we thinking, we're on vacation!)for a 3 hour drive into the jungle. Once we arrived we hopped on horseback and rode for about 45 min until we reached the cave. From there we repelled 100 feet into a massive cave. The entrance was only big enough for one at a time but once we reached bottom it opened up very large with giant stalagmites/tites throughout the cave. We all wore headlights and the guides had spotlights to point out different things in the cave. A lot of the walking was in ankle deep water which was a bit nippy but felt good. Towards the end we were swimming through several parts of the underground river. It was crystal clear and so pretty. The most exciting was having to dive under a big rock in order to get to the other side. Not recommended if you have a fear of water, but we don't and it was so fun. We spent about an hour and a half in the cave. At the end we hiked out a big opening where our horses were waiting and rode back to the stables. A local woman had prepared a true Domincan feast for us. I don't know if we were just famished or if the food was really that good! Looking back that was still one of our favorite meals of the trip. We made it back to our hotel after dark and crashed in our massive canopy bed. We were only allowed to bring water cameras so sadly I have none on my digital. Such a fun day though. The next day we just relaxed at the resort, played beach volleyball, ate, and ate some more. We really wanted to go parasailing but the hotel was charging a bit much to book it through them, so we walked down the beach and arranged our own deal with the locals. It was a blast and we saved quite a bit by bartering our own deal. Wednesday we rented speedboats. We had our own boat and followed a guide out to a beautiful reef where we did some great snorkeling. The water was so warm and clear so we saw a lot of sealife. After snorkeling we followed our guide to a "natural pool" in the ocean which was really just a sandbar out in the middle of nowhere. We got out and swam for a bit then headed back in. We had an hour or so to change into something dry and hop the shuttle for horseback riding compliments of the hotel. They took us to a beach about an hour away. When they assigned us our horses they asked who liked to go fast and who liked to walk. Jake and I opted for the fast ones. Once we were on the beach they had one guide go to the front of the pack where he just took off. And so did our horses. He wasn't kidding when he said they were fast. It was so fun. When we finally stopped we looked back at the others that were no where in sight. We rode for an hour or so, took some pics and then headed back to rest our legs. It was a pretty full day and we were starving when we returned. Luckily there was no shortage of food at the resort. They have a huge buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, 3 on-site restaurants, and our favorite 24 hour room service :). By Thursday we were realizing the trip was coming to an end and we hadn't spent near enough time at the beach and just relaxing by the pool. So, the last 2 days that is all we did. It was a little taste of heaven. The weather was perfect and the ocean water was even warmer than the pool. When Saturday came it was hard to leave, but we were ready to get back to the kids. I think I brushed up a bit on my spanish skills. That's always a plus these days. Overall we had an amazing vacation and would go there again in a heartbeat. And thank you timeshare presentations for making our trip so affordable. We will be back for another soon!

A Little Homemade Fun

Dinosaur Museum

We took the kids to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point today. It was interesting and the kids had a good time. Kind of pricey for a walk-through. Afterwards we went to Cabela's and walked around (for free) and the kids thought it was the coolest! Guess we should have gone there first. Oh well~

Preschool

Riley started her first day of Preschool today. She was soooo excited! She wore her backpack all morning and wouldn't stop with the constant "is it time yet?" When I finally did drop her off, she dashed out of sight to the playground with the other kids before I could even give her a hug goodbye. Jake picked her up on his lunch break and she was beaming with her freshly finished artwork. She is in for a fun year.