Winter Ball

Like I mentioned before, Travis was in charge of planning the entire winter ball for the base this year. He did a fantastic job, and the ball was a huge success!! We had a wonderful time on Friday night, and I was really proud of him for how great the event turned out!! Everyone seemed to have a great time, and they all loved the jellybeans! I had the chance to meet a lot of new people, as well as hang out with some of my friends. It was so much fun to get all dressed up and see all the guys in their mess dress (formal attire). What a fun night!!

Here are a few pictures:

Our friends Kirby and Emily and Clay and Lacey - both couples are engaged to be married! (And, you can't really see them in the picture, but there are snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. The commander's wife helped Travis plan the decorations!)

My handsome and wonderful husband :-)

I was really excited about my new dress! (Travis actually went shopping with me while we were in San Antonio one weekend and helped me pick it out.) And, my hair stayed curly the whole night, which I thought was great! :-)

And, another one of our self portraits...I think these always turn out so great!!

Jellybeans!

Travis' commander asked him to plan the Winter Ball for the base this year. It was a lot of work for Travis to do, and he has been busy for weeks planning and preparing for the big event. Over 100 people signed up to come, and he had to prepare tables, raffle prizes, and many other things in order to get ready!

One of the raffle items was a weekend in San Antonio with a free night at the Omni Hotel on the Riverwalk. (That's a great prize when you are living in Del Rio!!) We decided that the best way to give the prize away was to have someone work to win it. So, the plan was made.... We decided to fill a giant jar with jellybeans and let everyone guess how many were in there. First prize would be the free night at the hotel in San Antonio. Second prize? Definitely the giant jar of jellybeans! (Who wouldn't want that, right??)

Soooo.... we spent two hours on Tuesday night hand-counting jellybeans and filling up this jar. We did the counting in increments of 50, and sloooooooooooowly the jar filled up!

So, how many jellybeans do you think are in this jar??

Official count was seven thousand five hundred sixty eight jellybeans. That's right. 7,568 jellybeans. Did you win the trip to San Antonio? :-)

Double Quincinera

In Mexico, girls celebrate their 15th birthdays or Quincineras in style, dressing up in amazing dresses, practicing for months to get ready for the big day. (I have had several students missing class because they are preparing for their party...it's a big deal!) So, our friend turned thirty in January, and she decided to have a double Quincinera! The theme was "ugly dress party," because she wanted everyone to have a chance to wear a crazy dress and celebrate her birthday in style.

My friends from Austin were in town, and we all went to the downtown thrift store to find the tackiest, craziest dresses that we could find. Marc and Travis found some great hats to wear too! After eating a delicious dinner that Marc cooked for us, we headed over to the party. It was a blast!

My friend Carson in the green dress teaches science at the high school. Travis is wearing an authentic Mexican poncho...it was an exciting find, along with the amazing hat. I felt like a giant cupcake in my dress!!

Group shot! Marc's hat is also an authentic, made-in-Mexico hat!

My friend Sarah and me!

Kristy (loving the poofy sleeves!), Carson, Snow White (aka Heather), and me

(Kristy also teaches science at the high school!)

Update

I just realized it has been forever since I posted an update, so I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still alive and well in Del Rio! Things have been really busy the past month. Travis and I are both working on our Master's degrees; he has to write a LOT of papers, and I am in the process of reading four books for my two classes this semester. If we aren't traveling on the weekends, we are studying, writing papers, and cleaning house! At the base, the flights are all behind because we have had such bad weather lately (clouds, fog, etc), so Travis has been working a lot as well. They have even mandated a few Saturday workdays to try and catch up. At school, the TAKS test is looming on the horizon, and tension is beginning to rise. I was told that, in order for my students to do well enough for the school, I need 65% of them to pass. That's about 85 students. No pressure. Oh, and here's a list of the 33 that we want you to focus on........ What a fun next couple of months this is going to be. I wish there was another way to rate the schools besides this test!! (My personal goal for passing is 50%, and I will be overjoyed if that can happen!!)

The puppies are growing still, and they enjoy their walks everyday. The cat (who I believe is currently locked in a closet somewhere) is so sweet and cuddly, and we love having him around! Nothing else exciting is going on around here. I am anxiously awaiting spring break and summer, and Travis is just hoping for good flying weather!

Have a wonderful day! :-)

Skiing in Colorado!

For the first week in February, we had the opportunity to join Shane, Kelly, the twins, and Kelly's parents on a fantastic trip to Beaver Creek, Colorado. We rented a little townhouse about 100 yards from the ski lifts spent four days there together. It was so much fun!! I had not been skiing myself in several years, and this was only my third time to go skiing ever. Travis, however, is an expert skier, since he spent four years in Colorado at the Academy; he went over 25 times a year for four years! Needless to say, we were both pretty excited to go. :-)

We had planned to leave on Saturday morning on the 6:15 am flight out of Del Rio. And, let me explain a little bit about the Del Rio airport. First, they have only two flights a day out of Del Rio - one at 6:15 am, and one at 4:30 pm. The only airline that flies here is Continental, and the only place you can fly to is Houston. Being such a small town, the airport is only ten minutes from our house. There's one parking lot that is about 100 feet from the entrance to the airport. Once you get inside, there is one ticket booth, a small waiting area, one security line, and a smaller waiting room past security that also serves as baggage claim for the incoming flights. It's really nice because you don't have to worry too much about crowds, lines, lost bags, etc. It is a very low stress place, and all the employees are really friendly and helpful. So, that being explained.....

On Saturday morning, Travis rolled over to look at the clock, and it was 5:53 am. We had both (somehow) slept through the alarms. We raced to the airport (ten minutes away), and we arrived just in time to watch the morning flight taxiing down the runway. Our only option was to wait for the afternoon flight at 4:30pm, so we didn't end up arriving in Beaver Creek until almost two in the morning. (We still aren't sure how we slept through the alarms!!)

This, however, did not stop us from waking up at 7am the next morning, renting skis, dressing out, and heading to the ski lifts. We could walk from our house to the lifts, so it was quick and easy to get there. We spent the next three days skiing all over the mountains. There wasn't a lot of snow, but enough to ski on; it was a little icy, though. I took one big fall down the mountain, only because I was tired and hit a patch of ice that I just couldn't handle. Travis skied with me pretty much the whole time, and I improved a lot! He thinks I'll be skiing on black diamonds with him next year....I told him it's going to take a little longer than one trip for that to happen! :-)

Here's our picture at the top of the ski lifts:

The weather was perfect, we had a great time, and we really enjoyed the vacation!

Fun Weekends!!

Whew! It's been busy around here lately! We came back from Christmas vacation, and I had one week left in the six weeks and then finals week, so there were a lot of tests to make and grade, as well as getting everyone finished up with the semester. Travis has been flying over the weekends for the past two weekends, and while he's having a great time, he is looking forward to some time off!

Last weekend, Travis went to Shreveport and Fort Worth on the cross country with his students. He met up with one of his good friends from college, and they had a great time hanging out in Fort Worth! They had not seen each other since the wedding, and Eric works in Mississippi, so the chances to see each other are rare. This weekend, Travis has been flying all over the west coast. He spent one night in Phoenix, then Albuquerque, then Colorado Springs, and finally Fort Worth again before he comes home on Tuesday night. They have had a great time flying over the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon, and he says the views are just incredible. The student he is flying with is doing pretty well, too, and learning a lot!!

While Travis has been busy flying all weekend, I have had a chance to do some fun things too. Last weekend, my parents came to visit. They were here for New Years and left to do some sightseeing in West Texas, and they stopped back in Del Rio on their way back home. I took them to the Del Rio HS basketball game, since I had promised a student that I would come and watch her play. They did really well, and it ended up being a very close and dramatic game that we managed to win! It was really fun! Then, the next day, my mom helped me to bake 150+ cookies that I passed out to my students the following Monday. They were delicious, but we spent five hours baking!! I was so glad she was there to help me figure out my new blender, and it made such a difference having an extra set of hands to help! Then, she helped get all the laundry and chores done before they both left on Sunday. I spent Sunday getting a haircut, my nails done, and catching up on my TV shows from the week!

This past weekend, I drove to Austin on Friday night. I needed to get out of town, and since Travis would be gone until Tuesday, I didn't want to stay at home alone! The dogs were boarded in town and the kitty had an extra bowl of food, and I had a great time in Austin! I stayed with my friends Sarah and Marc, and we had a blast watching movies and playing Super Mario Brothers on their Wii. Saturday, I drove up to my old neighborhood to do some shopping and visit with friends. I spent an hour in Target, another hour in Michaels, and generally just enjoyed walking around and looking at all the merchandise! I met Kristina and her family for lunch at Pei Wei (yum!), and then I met Carla and Stephanie for lunch again at Panera (double yum!). It was so wonderful to see everyone again, and I loved having the chance to catch up. Then, I met up with Sarah, Marc, Katie, and Ryan for dinner at Chuy's (triple yum!). And, as if things were going great enough already, it turned out that one of my friends, who I coached club and school volleyball with, was with her volleyball team in San Antonio. I was able to stop by the gym on the way back to Del Rio and watch her team play. It was amazing!!! Her team is really good! I was excited to stand at the bench and cheer the girls on and help Niestradt coach. I do miss coaching volleyball!! Then, we went out to lunch (yes, I ate a lot of lunches this weekend!) and ended up talking and hanging out for over four hours.

When I finally got home, Mijo was SO excited to see me. He purred and snuggled with me all night long. I picked up the dogs this morning at the vet, and they are very excited to be home too. I think we have all enjoyed the past couple of weekends, but I am ready to have everybody home again! Travis comes home tomorrow night, so I am keeping myself busy today cleaning the house and putting things away. I went into work for a while, but the students don't have to be at school today and I had finished most of my work last week, so I chose to come home and hang out with my animals and clean house instead!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

New Patio = a lot more work than we thought...

We have our new patio, and it looks great!! We can't wait to have good weather outside so we can really enjoy it. Here are the before and after pictures:

We basically replaced the whole patch of dead grass with an extended patio.

The mess the workers left behind, however, is unbelievable. Apparently, they decided to drive the cement truck into our back yard, and they left us some horrible ruts in the ground to fix. They left tools, string, wooden stakes, and chunks of cement all over the place, so Travis and I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning things up. Travis bought over forty bags of soil to fill in the ruts and spent at least five hours out there filling in the holes and pounding the dirt back into the ground. The major ruts are fixed, but there is still more work to do and soil to put back in place. I picked up all the trash they left around the yard (with Rio's help) and filled in a couple of holes (yes, Travis did most of the work...I was grading papers!!).

The grass will hopefully grow back in the spring, and Travis has done a lot of work to level the ground, so hopefully it won't be too noticeable. For the rest of the winter, though, the ground is muddy and dead. We decided to put up a temporary chicken-wire fence for the dogs so they wouldn't need a bath everyday and to keep them from digging more holes in our freshly laid dirt. The dogs only have about 1/5 of the yard now, but at least they are clean and our dirt is staying where we put it. We haven't tested the sprinkler system again yet...

Ahh, the joys of home ownership. :-)