Yep! That's right! Negative 2!!! Remind me of this when I'm whining of how hot I am this summer! Dang it's cold! It's so cold that all I want to do is stay in bed and snuggle under the covers. Wait a minute...I like to do that no matter what the weather! Oh well, this certainly makes for a good time to do it! So, enough of this. I'm going to snuggle now!

First Snow!!

                                                               
  
It's SO pretty! Well, it's January 10th and we have received our first snow of the season! About 3 inches. I love it! Of course I don't have to be out in it. The kids don't either but they sure seem to want to! They are out playing right now, begging to bring in a bowl of it to make snow ice cream. I think I might just give it to that request! I love snow ice cream as much as they do! Always heard not to use the first snow of the season, but who knows when we'll get more. Think I'll chance it and just go for a pile of clean snow! I will however take the advice of those who say "don't eat the yellow snow!" We have way too many animals around to not heed that advice! Some of them are even 2 legged human animals! Well, time to go make the hot chocolate for those silly, energetic kids that will come in half frozen! Stay safe and warm!

Harder than I thought

Wow, I have even more respect for bloggers who blog everyday! I was really excited about starting this. And now, one week later, here I am doing blog number 2!! :) I'd like to offer excuses like...but Awana started back up this week and we've had 5 basketball games...which is all true, however, that is just normal life for us! Actually, I could have found time to do it but I've chosen to spend time enjoying my husband this week! He was off for 7 days in a row which is what he is supposed to get off in exchange for working 12 hour shifts at Conoco. It just doesn't always happen that way. But he got all 7 off this time, so we had lots of time to spend together! I LOVE spending time with my husband! We have breakfast dates after taking the kids to school, lunch dates when we have to run to town to get parts, coke dates when it happens to be happy hour at Sonic, or even late night dates when we are both craving cheese breadsticks from Pizza Hut! Wednesday night after putting the kids to bed, we snuck back into town, picked up breadsticks and headed to the park to eat them! Mmmm! Were they really better than ever or was it just the laughs, conversation and togetherness that made them so yummy?!!

To update on the happenings this week, on Monday Cody had a basketball game which they lost but he did get to play some towards the end. That was fun to watch! Tuesday consisted of Lane playing a JV basketball game followed by a girls and then boys basketball game. Late night but fun, fun, fun if you like basketball like we do! Wednesday night was the start back of Awana after a 2 week Christmas break. We always start back with Pajama Night as our theme night and there were lots of cute pj's around. Then Thursday, Friday and Saturday found us heading out to Cherokee for Lane's tournament which they would up getting 5th place in. Not too bad considering the amount of practice they have actually had due to their LONG football season lasting until December 4th. Not that I'm complaining about that though! :) So we'll wrap up the week with a great day tomorrow at church and then begin another crazy busy Williams week! Thanks for stopping by to see us! Hope you have a fun-filled week as well!

                                             Lane is #21 for the DCLA Eagle Basketball team

My very first blog post...EVER!

Girls first Limo ride courtesy of the Renaissance Hotel!

Snow tubing at Bricktown Ballpark

                                                                    Cody snowtubing!

                                                                      Pinksnitzel

                                           $3.50 cupcake...worth every penny from Pinksnitzel

                                                   Sierra and Mike enjoying Orange Leaf!

Well, after drooling, envying, coveting and stalking several friends that have their own cool blogs, I decided that I really wanted to try my hand at it! I think it will be so fun for their kids to go back and read some day. I hope my kids will think the same thing. Of course they won't think so now, but maybe 20 years from now when they actually come up and say those coveted words that we await for..."mom, you were right" they'll also say, "and by the way, those blogs you did all those years sure were cool too!!"

So for my first blog I'm going to tell all about our mini Christmas getaway. I LOVE to plan trips! I LOVE to take trips! I LOVE to surprise my family! It's one of my favorite things to do. But with our crazy, busy, normal schedule it's hard to find time to do fun getaways. I finally found a small block of free time and starting the PLAN! Mike had to take off 1 day of vacation time and I GOT to start researching fun things to do! I began with the OKC Thunder Basketball tickets, but at $40/ticket x 6 that was a little steep for our impromptu getaway. No fear, there is plenty to do in OKC! Especially around Christmas time. I wanted to stay in a hotel. Why? Because a.} someone else has to pick up after my kids not me and b.} it makes me feel pampered and spoiled which is one of my favorite feelings! So, in keeping tradition with our low budget getaway, I went to priceline.com where you can name your own price. I put that I would accept any hotel that was at least 3 1/2 * and I would only pay $40.00. The message came back that the RENAISSANCE HOTEL would accept my offer for $55.00! OK, since that's still 1/4 of the price I jumped on it! SWEET! Then I decided that we would go to the Bricktown Ballpark Snow Tubing! Every year at this time, they build long ramps and put fake ice and snow on them and for the low cost of $10.00 per 1 1/2 hours you can sled down them! Arrangements made, time for the adventure to begin. We started the evening with stopping at Perry for a yummy Mexican meal at La Macarena. Then got to the hotel in time for the OSU Alamo Bowl game to begin. That was the end of seeing Lane! Mike decided to stay in the room and watch the game with Lane. I think maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had been up since 3:15 am that morning. He was asleep within 15 minutes! The other kids and I headed to the indoor pool to swim. Always a favorite thing to do on vacation. After swimming a couple hours, I drug them out of the pool by bribing them that we would go on a tour of the fancy hotel! And tour we did! The glass elevators, the fancy lobby, the game room the SKY bridge that connected hotel to the convention centers and the LIMO that the hotel owned and was available for hotel patrons to use. Normally, he drove people to local restaurants and such but as it was 11 pm and we had already ate, we asked for a ride around town to look at Christmas lights! I don't know if it was more fun looking at the lights or watching the kids excitement over the limo ride. Yes, I do! It was definitely watching the kids! They had such a fun time! Finally it was time for bed. Or the floor for the girls. Hotels are never designed for families with 4 children! The next morning was filled full of fun with a trip to IHOP, shopping at the cute little candy and gift stores in Bricktown like Pinkitzel (if you've never been there, you have to go. Lots of pink, fluffy, girly kind of things and the most scrumptious cupcakes you'll ever taste even if they were $3.50 each!) and then of course the snow tubing! Everyone loved it except Cheyenne. She hates heights and I begged, ok I made her, try it once! I think she really had fun but her stubborn side wouldn't let her admit it so we spent the rest of the day just taking pictures of the tubers! That was fun too! Especially when it's 75 degrees outside. So for a big finish to our little trip we ventured to Orange Leaf. One of our newest found places where there are like 20 kinds of soft self serve ice cream and then every topping you can ever imagine to put on top of it and you pay by the weight. Yummy!! End of day, back to the grind!

It's amazing how a mere 24 hours can make memories that can last a lifetime! That's what I love about those little trips! Hope you enjoyed our little trip with us and can't wait for the next one. Me either! :)