I LOVE TO SKI!!!

This past week, our family was able to sneak away to Ruidoso, New Mexico, for a little skiing vacation!!  Brad and I LOVE to ski and couldn't wait to introduce Annabelle.  Our great friends, the Thompsons and Munns, insisted on keeping Harris.  We were hesitant at first, but OH MY are we thankful that all worked out!  It would've been a completely different trip with our Little Man there!  We missed him TERRIBLY, but knew that he was in great hands and was having WAY more fun here!!

We were able to get a little condo that had just enough room for another couple, so we invited Chad and Julie.  We're so glad they were able to come!  Julie had an awful skiing experience a few years ago, but she jumped back on the horse and officially became a skier!

Another official new skier is ANNABELLE!!  She did SO GOOD!!!  We put her in ski school on our first day and had prepped her for the worst.  We told her that it would be really hard, but don't give up!  I could just see her getting frustrated and cold very quickly.  She was just the opposite!  The school usually averages about 30 students a day.  With some strange luck of the draw, she was the ONLY one!!  She had a 5.5 hour private lesson!  It was awesome!  Our highlight of the day was ending up right behind her on the lift and she had no idea we were there!  We got to be 'flies on the wall' and see her learning up close and personal.  It was such a proud parenting moment! 

The next day, she begged to go back to school.  She loved the variety of the day.  They would ski, snack, do crafts, eat lunch, have a little movie time, ski some more, drink hot chocolate - it was great!  We decided that she had done so well and we had such a great time skiing alone, that we would do it again.  She ended up being 1 of 4 students that day and the only one that had been there before - so she had another full day of private lessons!!  At the end of the day, we were amazed at her progress.  She is FAST!!!

It was such a great, relaxing, fun trip and I'm so sad it's over!  We can't WAIT to get her on the slopes again.  She claims that she even likes it more that swimming.  WOW!

As sad as we were to leave, we were overjoyed to get back to Harris.  We had gotten lots of picture updates and even skyped once, but I couldn't WAIT to get my hands on him!!  He was a little hesitant at first, but soon he wouldn't let me out of his sight.  It was great!!

Get ready for a picture parade.  We took a ton!

The first day we went tubing.  SO FUN!!

It wore Annabelle OUT! 

 She mustered up some energy to get her ski gear, though!

 Skiing and swimming in the same day...one little girl's dream come true!

 Ready to hit the slopes!

 The first day it came a BLIZZARD!  This was no San Antonio "Arctic Blast!"

 Spying on A while in ski school

 Day 2 was PICTURE PERFECT SKIING!!!!

 I love this moment!!!!!!

 Beautiful Sierra Blanca Mountains

 Twinsies ;)

 She was so proud of this shirt....I love it!

 OH!!!!!!  MY LITTLE MAN!!!!!!!

 This is quite possibly my new favorite picture.

 Begging for some of her ice cream...she shared ;)

 This is her "book report" that she turned in after missing a few days of school.  I'm quite certain that she learned more on this vaca than she missed at Kinder!

And here is a video of my SPEED DEMON!!!!  The sound quality was horrible, so I let YouTube pick a song for me.  Forgive the cheesiness and ads ;)