The Morgan Notebook: November to Remember

My sweet girl turns 5 during this post. So sad. She's turning into a big girl! Miss Madelyn had to bring pie to her Thanksgiving Feast at school. She says I want to bring my favorite Strawberry Pie to school. Well that's her NaNa's recipe, so Nana got everything and one night made the pie with her. When she got home from making the pie, she says mom, the pie is going to be so good. I told Nana it was a pie contest and we were going to win with this pie, But, I told her not to get too excited b/c there weren't any trophies or ribbons! That girl can come up with some stuff!

As most you know we headed to my sister's for Thanksgiving! 2 Kids, 1 mini van and 19 hours! They did really good! Derek drove most of the way! Kuddos to the Nissan people... we drove about 9 hours that day and Derek finally said, my butt is finally starting to hurt!

The GPS is a gift from God! Derek enjoyed Sexy Mandy's voice and I enjoyed not having to worry with directions! One time Mandy had us questioning her. Had us turn off the highway onto this 2 lane road. After we traveled about 10 miles w/o seeing one car, Derek says how far can you go once you're gas light comes on. I'm like you have got to be kidding me. We are in the middle of no where! I said I guess about 30 miles. We were 10 miles from our next turn. Derek says I see a water tower, that's good, probably a town up ahead. We finally get to the town....then we see a red light... We're like oh, this is good, has to be a gas station. Mandy tells us to turn right and then says 15 miles to the next turn. Then, I see a sign that says Chaney population 356. I knew we wouldn't be finding a gas station. It was close to dark and I was getting nervous! We traveled the 15 miles without words. We approach the next town, see another water tower, but our hopes weren't high. We are in farmville can I tell you farmville! Finally, I"m like Derek we can't ride around looking for a gas station pull over and ask somone or pull in a farmhouse and ask if they have gas we can purchase from the farm. We pulled over and asked 2 very nice fellas in some overalls. They informed us we could get gas at the co-op! Farmville, I'm telling you! We finally got gas! Needless to say, we didn't venture off the highway again unless we had a half a tank!

We finally got to New Mexico at about 5:30PM...DARK already. So we couldn't even enjoy the scenery! We finally passed the Colorado state line at about 8:00 that night. As soon as we passed, Madelyn says, now where is the snow!

We so enjoyed going to church with Dana and Family Sunday morning! We got to listen to the new song! Jehovah! AWESOME! that is coming soon from Fike and Dana!
Dana brought Madelyn on stage to see all of the equipment.. Dana is a little partial to her little Madelyn. I think she would do anything for her!

We snapped a quick family pic in front of the trees at Church. I so did not expect this to come out. It was the fastest family pic ever!

We headed for some BBQ for lunch, where Wyatt and his Uncle Fike had a corn on the cobb eating contest. Of course I missed it b/c I was on my third trip to the bathroom. I promise I think they just want to view every bathroom at every restaurant that we go too!

Now why uncle Fike didn't let my baby boy win, I don't know! Doesn't matter, it was a great memory for Wyatt!
Then, we headed to the very cold Garden of the Gods. Absolutely beautiful. We even saw a mule deer and there was plenty of snow on the ground!

Snowing Monday Morning!

We got up that morning and it was snowing outside. My kids got up as quick as they could. And, as Wyatt was getting dressed to go play in the snow, he says Mom this is the best Thanksgiving ever! That's one of the reasons we drive for 19 hours! :) Warms my heart!

We headed to Pikes Peak via the Cog Railway on Monday. Did I mention a very cold Monday!

The ride up started at about 35 degrees blue skies. As we got about 6000 feet up, the skies turned gray and it started getting colder. We couldn't make it to the top (14,000 feet) that day, b/c there was a blizzard at the top...they call that a white out on the tracks! The pic of the tree below is a tree that's about 200 years old, so they tell us! When we got to about 12,000 feet, they let us pull the windows down to feel what 20 below felt like. It felt just like it sounds. FREEZING to death!

Tuesday, We headed to this the small town of Manitou Springs to do some shopping! Awesome town, very old timey! My sister says it' s which craft capital of the world. We did see lots of dread locks amongst the locals! Food isn't that great.

Also visited The James Dobson Focus on the Family Center, that was very nice! and FREE! They have a very nice book store and an area for the kids to play!
Madelyn wanted to take a picture with Baby Jesus!

And, this photo is being dedicated to the one and only, Mr. Whit Watson.

Whit's Girl!
However, the best part about Tuesday took place at about 9PM that night. Aunt Dana took us to the coolest little tea spot. We all had a tea party with Madelyn, we thought it would be just us girls, but Justus was not being left out of this one! We so enjoyed this. Dessert and Tea!

Sweet Wednesday!
Wyatt's dream was to snowboard and it finally came true!

We tried hard to find a spot to snowmobile as a family, but I really didn't want to drive myself and it was $400 for 3 hours. A little much for a 3 hour trip!
Derek and Wyatt went to snowboard at the Monarch Ski Resort $230 for all day, much better!

Derek so enjoyed the scenic route that the lovely Miss Mandy GPS provided for him.

Wyatt loved it! He had a personal instructor and she said he has amazing balance and he did really well!
Derek asked the instructor if she thought Wyatt was good enough to go up on the lift and travel down a real slope vs. the bunny slopes. She said absolutely, he was ready. He says now son, when the lift gets to the top and your board hits, you have to jump off. Wyatt says okay. Derek jumped down first, but Wyatt didn't jump. Derek said his heart hit his knees. Wyatt was on his way to the top of the mountain by himself. He jumped up as fast and as high as he could thinking he might bust open his lip or something when we hit the ground, but he won't be going to the top of the mountain by himself. Wyatt hit the ground standing up and snowboarded himself down the mountain like a pro! If snowboarded himself is even a word?? :)

Well, we couldn't afford for all of us to go to the resort, but Mom made sure Madelyn had some snow fun! We went sledding at the park. We took the top to one of those big blue tubs to sled on! Worked perfectly!

The famous Madelyn Smerk! Mrs. Lucia says I have that same smerk!

And, the highlight of this day was: We met a white and black medium size dog at the park. He followed us to my van, jumped in my van. We had to pry him out with some crackers from mom's purse, but that didn't work, so Dana got in the back of the van, got the dog. Then, we all tried to jump back in and lo and behold the dog jumped in again! Makes for a good Wednesday!

Thanksgiving Day.
Well, we cooked most everything Wednesday night on 2 burners I might add! Makes a great memory right Dana! So, Thursday went pretty smooth! Derek fried some pickles and mushrooms, those went fast! Very Good!

Thanksgiving Day pics of the kiddos!

Ended Thanksgiving at the Movies! Promo for the new Chipmunk Movie was too cute!

We enjoyed our trip so very much. Thanks to my sister and her family being such wonderful host. We will be back! The drive wasn't that bad! We even stopped in New Mexico on the way home and bought some wreaths made out of chile peppers and jalapenos! We love them!
Happy Birthday Madelyn!
Madelyn celebrated her 5th birthday the day after we got home from Colorado!
November 29th!
We made a trip to Chuck E Cheese where she got her gift from her bubby!