Halloween 2024

Today was Halloween and while both boys went trick or treating, I was on the road headed to Frisco for a the Texas School Nurse Organization Conference. Thus, I was completely relying on others for pictures.

Casen and his friends all decided to wear super hero masks. Casen is the Spiderman on the left in the bright orange Under Armour shirt.

Camden asked to go hang out with Omar, Adityia, Sienna and her friends while they trick-or-treated. Since he was still on crutches, he knew actual trick-or-treating would not be an easy task.

Casen sent me a pic of his loot. He is always so thrilled with the full size bars!

Fall Dance and Football

Casen has had a busy month with football. He has been on the field the majority of each game since he is playing on both offense and defense. Despite his team not winning many games, he has really enjoyed learning more about the game and playing.

For the game against Bear Branch, he was one
of the team captains

Beautiful sunset over the football field

For the game against Magnolia JH, Nana and Poppa came to watch Casen play. Despite his team losing, Casen played well.

 

Casen went to his first Junior High dance. He looked very nice all dressed up! I drove him to his friend, Grayson's house where he went to the dance with his friends and then after the dance went back to his house to stay the night. While he didn't tell me too much about the dance, I have no doubt he danced and had a good time.

The boys are so crazy with their posing! Grayson's dad encouraged them to lay on the ground and pose. I hope those boys realize that the pic may show back up in a few years. LOL.

It is Bandtober and Melissa and Shawn have been busy with marching band. I was able to make it to one of the competitions and was able to hug Mason and Grace's neck. 

Casen's final football game of the season was against their big rival, Grand Lakes JH. He was looking forward to playing that game since he has several friends who play on that team.

I will always be his biggest fan!

I was able to snag a few pictures of Casen with teammates from his previous flag football team. If they all stick with it, these boys will end up playing on the same high school team.

Grayson, Casen and Cyrus

Cyrus, Jacob, Casen and Grayson

As we were walking out of the stadium for the last time this season, I couldn't help but be grateful that while he sustained MANY bruises, Casen did not receive any major injuries. Now, onto basketball.

Injury Follow-Up

I arrived back from Albuquerque on Monday in time to take Camden to the Woodlands for the MRI of his knee. Camden has definitely become more accustomed to maneuvering around on his crutches. I have been dropping him off at school each morning while Shane picks him up so he can avoid getting on and off the bus with crutches.

He had a follow appointment today with Dr. Brooks to discuss the results of his MRI and develop a plan to get him back on his leg and playing soccer. One of Camden's main concerns is high school soccer tryouts which are scheduled for the first week in December. 

Dr. Brooks reviewed the results of the MRI with us and showed us different pictures from the MRI which showed bone bruising as well as a small tear. 

The circled areas show the bruised bone

The results showed bone contusions from the patellar dislocation. It also showed a tear of the medial patellofemoral ligament.

Dr. Brooks felt the tear could heal on its own. He ordered physical therapy twice a week for the next six weeks in hopes that he will be healed and ready to go for soccer tryouts. He is to continue wearing his immobilizer and is to remain on crutches until the physical therapist feels he can go without them. He said he would then have him wear a different brace the remainder of the soccer season. We will be receiving a call in the next few days to set up the PT. Hopefully we will get started with therapy sooner more so than later.

Girls Trip 2024

Ever since our girls trip to Seattle last year, I have been looking forward to the next trip. This year's girls trip took us to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had a great time filled with laughs, good food and unexpected surprises. We left Thursday evening and got to Albuquerque sometime after 9:00. By the time we got our luggage and rental car, we arrived to our hotel, the Sandia Resort and Casino, sometime after 11:00pm. 

Headed to get our rental

We got ourselves to bed as quickly as we could so we could be up bright and early by 3:30 am in order to get ourselves to a church parking lot where we would catch a tram that would take us to the festival. We had a 5:30am reservation for the Chasers Club where we would enjoy a nice breakfast as we waited for the festivities to start. It was very cold as we started, but as the day progressed, the temperatures improved making it an extremely enjoyable day.

Me, Tiffin, Sarah and Bevin
waiting to catch the bus that will
take us to the Balloon Fiesta

The drone light show was beautiful

We were definitely novices when it came to the balloon festival. After the drone show, there were about 10 hot air balloons that inflated and took off around 6:00am while it was still dark.

 While that was beautiful, we were confused and disappointed. We had no idea why people raved about the festival if only 10 balloons take off while the others just inflated their balloons on the ground. Come to find out, those balloons were part of the Dawn Patrol which allows other balloonists to watch the balloons and get an idea of wind speeds and directions at different altitudes. Thankfully, after it turned light outside, the other balloons started taking off and then it all became very clear just how amazing this experience was.

The oriental lady was probably my 
favorite balloon - she had pearls that hung off
of her.

It was Kid's Day and they had a Special Shape Rodeo. There were so many neat non-traditional balloons. Some of the special shaped balloons only inflated and never left the ground, while most beautified the skies. It really was an absolute beautiful and intriguing sight. 

We were back at our hotel by 9:30 am and rested for a short time before we got ourselves ready for a food tour in downtown Albuquerque. After doing our first food tour in Seattle and absolutely loving it, we have decided we would do a food tour on every trip that offered us the ability to do so. Our food tour started at Hotel Albuquerque where we indulged in a margarita and traditional New Mexican posole. With Sarah being vegetarian, she instead was given a cheese quesadilla, which honestly was THE BEST quesadilla I have ever tasted.

Our next stop was High Noon Restaurant and Saloon where we had red chile beef bites, a street taco and a margarita or beer. While at this restaurant, we sat by two couples who were long time friends and live on opposite sides of the US, but came to Albuquerque to the Balloon Fiesta. They had spent their morning going on a hot air balloon ride which is something we had wanted to do, however had waited too long to book it so could not find an available ride. They spoke so very highly of their experience and their pilot and after chatting with them awhile, they gave us the information of the pilot and told us we should him a call to see if he could accommodate us. Bevin immediately contacted the guy and he was able to accomodate us for the following morning. Yay!!

The next stop on our food tour, was The Taproom at Old  Town where we had a green chile burger with handcrafted chips and a tasty concoction.

The final stop of our food tour was the Church Street Cafe where we had traditional Mexican Natillas dessert and coffee or water.

After the food tour, we walked around downtown for a bit before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the reservation we had to eat in the nice restaurant at the hotel that had beautiful views. However, after we got up to the restaurant and we were sat at a table facing a wall, we decided to leave the restaurant and go to the restaurant/sports bar in the hotel which had even better views and was definitely more our speed after a very long day.

Beautiful sunset

The red on the horizon are the hot air balloons
during the evening glow

We got back to our room at a reasonable hour and got ready for bed, knowing we needed to be up early again for our morning hot air balloon ride.  We had to be at a launching spot before sunrise and were up in the sky by 7:30am. Tiffin is afraid of heights, so opted to stay at the hotel and sit this adventure out. We watched the crew unload the balloon and get it all prepared for our trip. We took a pic with our pilot and the person we were entrusting our life to.

The basket was large and carried
~12 passengers

Our pilot was an absolute hoot telling jokes and chatting with everyone the whole ride. I don't think I have a picture of it but th After chatting with him we found out that he is from Texas and he visited Orange often as a youngster because that is where his grandfather, Coach Purcell (who was a tennis coach at my high school) lived. Talk about a small world! 

The ride was so incredibly peaceful. It was neat to be in the air and see all the balloons that had taken off from the balloon fiesta. 

We face-timed Tiffin so she could be a part
of our hot air balloon ride

Sarah and me

All the little specs are balloons - so many!

After being up in the air almost an hour, it was time to land. Apparently, due to the amount of revenue they bring the city, hot air balloons are allowed to land anywhere they want in Albuquerque. Our pilot opted to land on the fairway of one of the golf courses in town.

After we deported the balloon basket, there was another group there waiting that the balloon chasers brought to enjoy a beautiful ride. We headed back to the hotel to pick up Tiffin so we could head to get some breakfast. Since we had all been talking about and craving the amazing quesadilla we were able to have a bite of while on our food tour, we opted to return to the Hotel Albuquerque to partake in it again. While it was not on the breakfast menu, they were willing to prepare it for us. Soooo delicious!

While there, we opted to spend a little more time downtown exploring the shops and scenery.

We saw several roadrunners

Iglesia de San Felipe de Neri 
Founded in 1706

We had tickets to take the tram up the Sandia mountain at sundown, but we opted to go earlier with hopes of eating in the lounge bar. 

Poor Tiffin! She is scared of heights, but was willing to take the tram knowing the view would be worth it. While we stood the whole ride up, she remained seated, holding on to the bar for dear life. She referred to the tram ride as her death trip to the top of the mountain.

Once we got to the top, we put our name on the waitlist for the lounge. We were able to enjoy views from the top of the mountain and within 30 minutes were shown to our table. 

Sarah was done taking pictures.

After enjoying our time on the mountain, we headed back to the hotel. We made our way back to the sports bar where we spent time out on the patio playing cards.

Yesterday, we decided to get up and drive to Santa Fe for the day. While getting ready, we enjoyed seeing balloons outside our hotel window.

We made our way to the area where all the neat shops in Santa Fe are located. We were in awe of the different lamps and chandeliers in this one particular shop. Sarah loved them so much, she purchased two for her bedroom.

We visited the Loretto Chapel which is a beautiful chapel with a mysterious staircase. This particular staircase has two complete 360 degree turns with no center pole for structural support. 

We had fun posing with a cowboy and made our way to Tomasita's which had amazing swirl margaritas with sangria and sopapillas. 

After enjoying a day in Santa Fe, we headed back to our hotel to relax a little, play a few slots and enjoy our last meal. We were told that the sports bar in the hotel was known for their blueberry cheesecake, so we opted to try a slice. Much to our surprise, it was blue and honestly, not very tasty. Despite not eating it, we did get a picture with it.

This morning we were up early to catch our flight home. We crammed a lot into our trip and had a great time. Honestly, I don't think it matters where we would opt to land for our girls trip, we would have a wonderful time. Time with these great friends is good for my soul! Until next year!!!!