Easter

The annual Egg Coloring Night

It is so hard to try and take a picture and not get at least one of them with a goofy smile. :)

Dallas looking for eggs. The sun didn't help in this picture.

Dylan looking for eggs.


Tyler trying to get his easter basket out of the tree.



Dylan showing what he found.

Tyler checking it all out.

Dallas

Shane looking to see if there is any candy worth stealing.

Jace's First Avalanche

So my Brother Jace, myself and my friend Jeremy decide to go snowmobiling this weekend with our backpacks and camp over night, what a trip. The weather wasn’t great when we arrived, but we threw our backpacks on anyways and headed up to the top, it was awesome, riding with a 60 lb. pack on your back in powder is pretty interesting to say the least. Anyways we made it where we were going to camp dropped off our stuff and headed out for a ride. It was cloudy and pretty hard to see, but the snow was awesome, we made our way back to one of our favorite chutes to climb, for those that don’t know what a chute is it is a hill that has a narrow path of either tree’s or cliffs on each side and generally speaking once you enter a chute they are to narrow to turn around in. The chute we were looking up forked towards the bottom and Jace and I were debating on which path to take, the right side was drifted in at the top but from where we were at looked climbable, the left chute was not as steep therefore not as challenging, so I went right and Jace went left. As I entered the bottom of the chute and made the turn to my right I knew I was in trouble, the snow was much deeper than I had anticipated and I ended up getting stuck near the top. Now mine and Jace's snowmobiles are not your average everyday snowmobiles, they have a 174” x 16” x2.5” track, and have a turbo, I am running real close to 300 HP, so when I get stuck it is either because I make a huge mistake or it is extremely steep and deep, today it was the later. Anyways, Jace walks down from the top to help me, about 45 minutes later of digging with shovels we have a shelf dug out with my sled sitting on it ready for me to head back down, the entire time we were digging I kept telling Jace I had a bad feeling about the snow that there may be an avalanche and that if anyone was going to die I hoped it would be me because I didn’t want to live thinking I had caused someone else’s death. I put my helmet back on and just eased my sled off of the shelf we had dugout when all hell broke loose, the chute avalanched from the shelf all the way across, I was riding on top of the avy which is no big deal ( It was my 4th or 5th avy), but I turned around to see Jace on his back riding amongst huge chunks of snow, I was screaming profanities as I watched him until he disappeared, it seemed like several seconds but I am sure it was only a split second until he poked back up and rode the avy for a few more seconds before standing up and waving me on that he was ok.

After everything was said and done, I would 10 times rather be in a an avalanche than watch someone I know in one. Congrats Jace, you popped your avalanche cherry in style.

For those that don't know much about snowmobiling and need a reference as to the kind of power our turbo sleds make, the first video is of a 2009 800, the 2nd video is me on my sled. The hill isn't much but you get the idea.

Playa del Carmen - Mexico

So we decided to surprise the boys with a trip to Mexico. We had to avoid a lot of questions when it came to going through the whole passport process with them. Dylan was starting to suspect something the day that we left. Tuesday night we told them that they could stay up late and play the wii. At 10 pm, I went downstairs and told them to change out of the pjs and don’t ask any questions. Of course, they asked lots of questions…we told them we were going on a drive. They soon realized that we were headed to the airport. Then the guessing game began. Are we going to DisneyLand, DisneyWorld, Mexico….Tyler even asked if we were going to Africa or Australia. We had a lay over in Atlanta and they were convinced that we were going to Florida since we were so close. Even when we were on the plane and they announced where we were going…they said, “We’re going to New Mexico!” We laughed.

The view from our room.

The 3 Amigos with their slushies.

Jen & Tyler at the beach at night.

Dallas with one of the crabs he caught.

Dylan with one of the crabs he caught.

On the pier in Playa -- eating our yummy pineapple and mango

Playing at the beach


We went to Xel-Ha on Friday. We snorkeled, chased iguanas around, looked for shells, and Dallas and Tyler swam with the dolphins. Dylan said that he didn’t want to, but then regretted not doing it. I think once he saw that it wasn’t scary for Dallas and Tyler, he realized that he wanted to do it.

Posing with the parrots

Do you see the big iguana?

The dolphins jumping over all of them.

The dolphins dancing.

The dolphins swimming around everyone.

The dolphin kissing Dallas

Tyler dancing with the dolphin....so cute!!

Dallas with the parrots

Dylan at Xel-Ha holding a parrot and toucan...He is a little nervous.

They also held a big lizard...scary!!


Dylan and Dallas loved the beach. Tyler would rather have been in the pool the whole time. He didn’t care for the salt water.

Tyler playing at the beach

Shane and Dallas -- They seem to look alike today.

I think we all ate at least 5 gallons of ice cream while we were there. Every time we ate a meal, we had to get an ice cream cone for dessert. The resort that we stayed out was great. It was huge and they had golf carts to drive you from one end to the other. We just so happened to be on the opposite side of where the beach was. But we had a couple of pools right outside our room.