Celebrating a couple of anniversaries on vacation

Hello everybody!

I hope you guys are well.

We’re back from vacation again.  This time around we invited our family members to join us for a week at a Massanutten resort http://www.massresort.com/v.php?pg=2 in McGaheysville, VA.  The place was lovely and the condo we stayed in was spectacular, but your wallet takes a beating if you want to do several of their activities.  We mainly stuck to the playgrounds and the pool, which were free.  The one activity we decided to pay for was going on a pony/horse ride along with petting and feeding the farm animals.

My daughters and I rode on a horse for the first time ever.  This was pretty exciting and the smiles on their faces filled my heart with sheer joy, especially my youngest who we thought was going to bail, but instead her grin extended from one ear to the other and it stayed put from the moment she got on the horse until we said goodbye to “the horsie”.  I was very proud of them because when you’re far away from the horse and just looking at them, it seems like it’s not such a big deal, but once you’re up close and about to get on, it’s a different story.  The ride wasn’t long, but it was definitely a great introduction and there are a couple of riding schools where we live that I’m going to be looking into.  Hey, you never know and the more experiences they get out of life, the better.

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 My cowgirls!

We also had fun at the feeding/petting farm.  I was definitely hovering over my youngest because she was getting a little bit too close to the animals and I was afraid of them biting her.  There were ducks, a turkey (who looked pretty mean so we stayed away from its cage), goats, donkeys, a camel, alpacas (my youngest, Sophia, couldn’t stop feeding these guys and she giggled the whole time with them), pigs, rabbits, and a zebra.  Yes, a zebra.

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Olivia was fortunate to be able to feed a baby camel named Clyde.  She also had a lot of fun feeding the donkey who was eating up a storm.  Sophia’s faved animal was the alpaca and she also enjoyed feeding the zebra.

During our vacation I celebrated my blog’s first year anniversary.  It sort of crept up on me and I was shocked that a year had gone by even though it’s around the same time as my wedding anniversary, which I also celebrated.  My sweetheart husband and I have been happily married for twelve years now.  Our family members made a special dinner and we enjoyed it together.  We didn’t need to go out by ourselves because we wanted to be with our family and to make things less stressful we decided to not give gifts, just celebrate together and enjoy being on vacation.  By the end of the week, Olivia desperately wanted us to stay for another day and my four-year old nephew was not happy that we were leaving.  In fact, he was down right mad and didn’t want to say goodbye, but I still kissed him on the forehead real fast.  🙂  The kids not wanting to leave just showed me that they had a wonderful time together and we will definitely be doing this again come next year.  I told my sister-in-law, “Let’s make this family vacation a tradition because we all had a great time.”  I just need a calendar for 2014 so I can jot it down asap.

Take good care all.

Until next time…

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A year round gift

Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.  I can vividly remember the first time I gave my mother a custom-made family calendar as a Christmas gift to her.  She started crying!  It was of course tears of joy, but I wasn’t expecting her to cry.  Be overjoyed, yes, but not cry.  Needless to say, she absolutely loved it.  She completely immersed herself into the calendar.  It was as if the world around her suddenly disappeared and it was just her and this gift that she couldn’t wait to see.  I watched her intently.  She paused at each month and you could see her eyes darting here and there, taking in all of the images.  A loving smile would appear on her face and I knew she was looking at pictures of herself with my daughters, her only grandchildren, so far.  A small laugh would escape her when she saw the funny pictures.  I got a few “Oh my gosh,” and when she reached the end of the calendar, she let out a big, “I love it!”  Sweet music to my ears.

There are many places and web sites where you can make a calendar.  So far, I’ve made mine on www.shutterfly.com because they offer great promo codes and free shipping.  The calendars always come out great.  Since I like to include more than one picture, it usually takes me more time to assemble them into place.  Once you’re done and you complete your order, the calendars are on your doorstep fast!  My cousin loves taking her pictures to Wal-Mart and making her calendar there herself!  She’s the one who gave me the idea to give a calendar as a gift because she sends me one every year.  Another tradition that we’re forming and I love putting it on my kitchen wall and looking at my gift year round.

Stay alert, stay alive.

Until next time…

Christmas Tree

Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well and getting ready for the Christmas countdown.  It has begun and yesterday we put up and decorated our little (four-foot tall) faux tree.  I’m not a big fan of cutting down real trees.  No offense to anyone.  I grew up with reusable ones.  I prefer not to hurt our environment and I like to save some money wherever I can so after I got married I went and bought my very own tree and it’s been serving us well for eleven years.  I might get a bigger one in the future, but for now this tree is perfect because I’m able to situate it high up where my darling two-year old, who loves to touch and doesn’t like to use her listening ears, can’t take any of the ornaments off.  My sweet cousin, Janice, started a tradition a long time ago of sending me an ornament each year so my tree is decorated with those cherished embellishments.  Some are handmade by her using pictures, while others were purchased signifying special moments in my life for example when we were expecting and our children’s birth facts.  I do have a love/hate relationship with decorating the tree.  I love displaying it, but kinda of hate the time it takes to decorate it, even if it’s four-foot tall,  because I can be a little stubborn with where the ornaments have to be specifically placed.  I did give in a lot this year because I didn’t put up all of my ornaments.  I just wanted to finish, fast!  And we did.  So the tree is up, now it’s time to wait for Santa to bring the presents and place them under the Christmas tree, which I take down the night before and place the presents around so my kids think that Santa came to our house.  This year my daughter became aware of placing cookies for Santa so she wants to do that for him.  🙂  It’s cute.  I love it and I hope you guys have fun decorating for the holidays.

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Mercado Christmas Tree 2012

Stay alert, stay alive.

Until next time…