Ruidoso Winter Park Tubing

Ruidoso Winter Park opened on Thanksgiving day.  It was all man-made snow since they haven't gotten enough snow so far this year.  The kids didn't seem to know any difference though!  It was the coldest that day, so it really did feel like winter in the snow.  My friend since 7th grade, Shea, and her family were in there for the week as well, so I was so glad to get to meet up with her.  It had been a couple of years since we had seen each other.

Mason was so excited

Matthew said she looks like a Russian doll behind bars here.  ha!

Sister doesn't really like the snow, so she rode the carousel instead.

Shea and her daughter Brooke

Evie decided eating and sitting in the sun sounded better than being cold.

He thought he was so big getting to go by himself with Brianne.

Mason is in there behind Matthew.  They really flew down that hill!

Shea and I

White Sands

On Tuesday, we drove a little over an hour to the White Sands National Monument.  We went when I was little, and I just knew our kids would love it too.  We didn't realize we needed wax for our sleds, so we had a hard time going down the hill, but the kids got it to work eventually.  I will probably have sand in my car for months, but it was worth it!

I love this picture of the boys pulling the princess.

Brianne going down

She was content just sitting and playing in the sand

pure joy!  I love this shot!

Thanksgiving in Ruidoso

We decided this year to meet my family in Ruidoso, New Mexico for the week of Thanksgiving.  It was about halfway for all of us.  We left last Sunday morning and got there around 7:00PM.  I took over 200 pictures during the week, so I am going to split them up over different posts.

The weather was perfect, a little cool in the mornings and evenings, but nice enough for the kids to get to play outside.  Mason had a blast playing with Brianne and Brayden, even though the older two had a bad habit of leaving Brayden out.  Next year, I see Evie being the one left in the dust!

We stayed in a four bed/three bath condo with a nice back deck over looking the pond and golf course. We cooked almost all of our meals at home and had Thanksgiving lunch there as well.   We went to White Sands on Tuesday, tubing on Friday, and spent the rest of the days fishing, golfing, playing, and walking downtown.  It was a fun week!

So here are some random pictures in no particular order...

Cousins

Last weekend, Brian, Kim, and Brayden came to see us.  We missed Brianne, but she had to stay home for school.  We packed in a lot in four days.  We went to the zoo on Friday and then rode the train into downtown to walk around and eat dinner.
Saturday it started snowing, so I took the boys to the museum to play.  We spent the rest of the day playing and watching the snow.
Sunday morning we woke up to plenty of snow, so we walked to the park for some sledding.  The boys had so much fun!  They left on Monday morning, but we are excited to see them all again over Thanksgiving.

They had the best time pretending to be firemen and putting out fires.

Fun times at the museum

Zoo and train

trying to eat the snow