It’s really no secret by now that this family loves soccer and Jake has had the opportunity to be a part of the 2005 Kansas ODP team.  I really don’t know much about this program other than it stands for Olympic Development Program, it adds to our sports schedule, and it costs us more money.

This weekend Jake and Brian traveled to Memphis, TN to compete in several games against other ODP teams from other states.  It was a long drive and one disappointing 1st game, but overall, Jake had an absolute blast and played some great soccer (winning 3 of the 4 games).

 

The big bonus is he got to have some one-on-one time with dad, avoid all responsibilities at home, eat a bunch of snacks, pizza, and ice cream, play PS4, and go shopping.  What’s better!?

 

 

I love Valentine’s Day.  I love pink and purple and flowers and candy.  I’m a girl…I’m allowed to admit that!  I particularly love it because I get to do fun things for my family.  Any excuse to tell them how much I love them.  I’m all over it!   The last two years we have gone skiing around the holiday so we haven’t been very extravagant.  In fact, this year Morgan pointed out to me that I didn’t do much decorating for Valentine’s Day!!  What the heck!?  Actually, I really don’t have many decorations to speak of – so I guess she’s right!

Last year was my absolute favorite when I came home and Morgan had decorated for a family valentines party!  It melted my heart and I think it’s ADORABLE that she did that for us!  You ROCK MoMo!

This year I got up extra early to decorate the kitchen and make pink heart-shaped pancakes for the kids.  This seemed like a fabulous idea at the time.  First of  all, a bunch of pressure built up in my plastic bottle I was using to draw the heart shapes and blew the lid off – splattering pink batter all over me and my stove. I thought they turned out pretty cute for my first time but I think maybe a total of….well let’s see…one pancake…was actually eaten.  My kids don’t eat a lot of breakfast.  Don’t you think they could’ve choked them down just for me!?  I even had trays of chocolate chips and M&M’s out to pile on top of their pancakes!   Hmmm…maybe I should’ve just slept in instead!

Of course, I had their school valentines ready to go and I like to order them online with their picture on them.  I always thought they were super cute and different from all the rest of the school valentines.  Who knew that Jake was actually embarrassed to have his picture on his!!  Yep – after his school party this year he said…”mom next year can we not put my picture on mine because it’s sort of embarrassing.”  Huh??  How can this be!?  Well, lucky for you Jake, this is your last year doing school valentines since you will be in middle school next year.  And just for the record, Jake, I get a lot of compliments on these from other moms. 😉  He’s going to be really mortified when he’s like 16 and I’m still doing this.  I’m kidding!!

  Luckily, I still have a 6 year old that loves valentine’s day and could not wait to make an awesome box.  Hands down, one of my favorite things to do!

Brian told her to just keep it simple and not put a lot on it.  I quickly disagreed and suggested putting as much stuff on this box as we could!!

Morgan made these little heart sandwich cookies for Reece’s soccer team.  They loved them!

Somehow I found myself on the volunteer list to plan all of the 5th grade games for the school party.  I honestly do not know how this happened but I embraced it because this is Jake’s very last elementary school party!!  boo!  I spent a lot of hours researching and cutting out hearts and hot gluing.  I will forever have tiny scraps of pink and red poster board in every crevice of my van.  Luckily, I love arts and crafts.  I just don’t love them as much when I’m trying to pack a family of 6 for a ski trip!  I begged Brian to help me run the games because I had already signed up to volunteer in my 2 other classrooms.  This was definitely not planned out well.  Jake was so sweet, helping me decide which games would be best and trying them out for me in our family room.  Thank you, Jake, for totally being on my side.

Here are a few pics from my other valentine school parties…

We had several sports practices in the evening so we were forced into a super early 5PM Mexican dinner out and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.  Love all of my sweet valentines….

You’ll all be happy (and not surprised) to know that Reece spent half her Valentine’s day money on a mermaid tail for “Ellie” her stuffed animal…

Drew thought he was getting up early to go eat breakfast with his baseball buddies, but he actually was required to work the breakfast!  Oops…I may have forgotten to explain that minor detail!  His 3rd grade Bulldog baseball team had a fundraiser breakfast over the weekend and raised quite a lot of money for their team!  We certainly hope it made a large dent in the cost of tournaments they will compete in this Spring and Summer.  If I have to write one more check for our family’s sports fees, I might cry!

These little boys took orders, delivered food and drinks, and cleaned tables at Sombrero’s Mexican Cantina Sunday morning.  SO CUTE!  I’m told they did an awesome job (I couldn’t attend because I was handling other activities).  I was hoping someone would bring me a breakfast burrito but no such luck! 😉

Drew, I’m so proud of you for doing such a great job especially with only one arm available and THANK YOU fabulous friends and family for your support!

Adios Amigos!

 

Drew has a shiny new cast (which will be dingy, dirty, and smelly next week probably).  You would think a hard cast would be worse than a splint, but in this case, no way!  This cast is about a quarter of the size of that ER splint he had for a week.  This morning we drove him up to the Children’s Mercy Clinic in the Northland on Barry Rd. which was the only location that could get us in promptly.  We had a fabulous experience there.  We met Dr. Kevin Latz who was very informative and reviewed both sets of x-rays with us.  He didn’t think there would be any impact on the growth plate and thinks he will heal just fine.  He suggested no sports until his wrist is fully healed and cast is off but he leaves it up to parents to decide.  Since this is our 6th broken wrist in the family we are feeling pretty confident that he can play soccer without a problem.

He chose blue (his favorite color) for his waterproof cast and Ron, the Cast Whisperer, as they call him, had him all fixed up in no time!  He said Drew could be a cast model – he was amazed at his lean and perfect arm!  ha!

He really was spectacular and I hope we cross paths with him again in the future.  Hopefully not to get another cast!  But he was very friendly, great with Drew, and has a son that plays sports at Olathe Northwest, so maybe we will run into him with Morgan going to HS in the Fall!

Look at this cutie pie…he’s ready for all of your signatures (he’s keeping sharpies in his pocket).  It doesn’t get any cuter than that, does it?

My sister kindly gave us tickets to Arenacross in the Hallmark Suite at the Sprint Center Saturday night.  I jumped at the chance to take Drew to do something fun to get his mind off of his wrist injury!  I didn’t really know what to expect but we filled up my van with little boys and ventured down town.  I quickly discovered that Arenacross in pretty fierce! These riders are fearless and pretty talented athletes that race on an indoor dirt track.  I can’t believe how high they fly off those jumps!  And quite honestly, I’m mesmerized by the fact that they can transform the Sprint Center into a dirt pit and then turn around and make it an ice rink, or a basketball court, or a concert venue.  These cuties had the best time!  Love you Drew Boo and thank you Aunt Shauna!

Probably one of my favorite parts was watching these little 8 year olds riding dirt bikes…so stinkin’ CUTE!  Here’s a video clip I took…

Another elementary school music program in the books!  Jake and his 5th grade classmates performed 8 songs from various movies on Thursday night for friends and family.  The music was really great!  I’m going to be totally honest though, Jake was ready to skip the program all together.  Primarily because the car was packed and ready to head to Memphis, TN for the ODP soccer tournament he was competing in.  If this guy has a choice between music and soccer, he will pick soccer all day long!  But, I’m going to say this again, Jakers you have a really nice voice!  Some people cannot even carry a tune (as we hear weekly at church)!  You are so lucky to be talented in music and sports!

I had to include this photo because it absolutely cracks me up every time we come to these events how many people rush the doors to get in first.  They are now posting these signs to inform everyone that is standing outside an hour ahead of time…

We were a little bummed that we couldn’t see what looked to be one of the best parts – there was adorable dancing occurring on the stage but we couldn’t see it because the students on the risers covered it up!  I caught a glimpse every so often when the crack between the kids in front was just perfectly parted.  I, for one, am super happy you made a wise choice to not skip your program and belt out a spectacular rendition of The Lion Sleeps Tonight from the Lion King.  We love that song, don’t we!?  Awesome job buddy – now go on to Memphis and enjoy your weekend of soccer!

XOXO

How do we fly down an icy mountain on 2 fiberglass sticks and make it out unscathed and 3 days later turn up with a broken wrist on flat ground!?  This poor guy was playing soccer at recess today and broke his fall with his left wrist.  A few hours later we found ourselves at Children’s Mercy getting x-rays and a splint.  Next week he will get a permanent cast.  This is brutal for a sports fanatic!  I think he’s already bored to tears and we’ve only been home an hour.  Diagnosis:   compaction fracture distal end of the left radius.  Once again…

• Manchester Park Playground 1
• Drew Conley 0

What is it with our bad luck on this playground anyway!?  The cool part was Drew got to ride in a wheel chair out of the school building and Mrs. Vanderslice made an awesome splint out of a School Nurse Supplies catalog and was the envy of the staff at Children’s Mercy ER.  Way to go Bev!  And on a positive note, he’s right-handed so he’ll be able to do his school work or maybe that’s a negative depending on who you ask 😉

This was Drew in much happier times yesterday at his Valentine’s party at school…

 

We are looking forward to seeing this smile again very soon!  We love you Drewy!

We are up early in the morning to get ready for Day 2 of skiing and Reece and Drew are so excited that they get to ski with us and not have to be in the ski school!  Reece says several times…”I can’t wait to get back on my skis.”  I love it!  The weather is opposite of yesterday and it’s snowing hard, colder, and visibility is dicey.  I prefer yesterday’s weather for sure!

 We spent some time on the practice runs and almost lost Drew a few times.  This guy just goes his own way and hops on the chairlift by himself without a care in the world.  Meanwhile, I’m forever scared that Reece is going to fall off the lift because she just gets right to the edge and leans over and holy cow…she’s going to give me a heart attack!  It was pretty cold and my gloves are from Target (I should probably invest in a better pair of gloves!) so we had to make a pit stop to warm up and get our routes down for the day.

Drew already slammed down the entire lunch we had packed for him for the day and it was only 10AM!  Jake is forever ready to skip any kind of eating to get back to the slopes.  There is no wasting time in his world.  Later he will be so starving that he will eat everything in sight.   I nick-named myself snowball because of my full white ensemble.  It’s new and very warm (unlike my gloves) and the pants are 2 or 3 sizes too big – by the end of the day I was literally carrying them with both hands while they fell to my knees.  I guess maybe I didn’t ever try them on when I bought them?  We got quite a laugh that I was the shape of a teapot.  I’m a little teapot…short and stout…here is my handle…here is my spout…you know that nursery rhyme!?

We got back out on the slopes and had lots of fun.  I’m so impressed with how good the kids are already with just a couple times on a mountain.  Here are a couple you tube video clips…

What I’ve discovered about Vail Mountain is it’s probably not the best place for beginners. The trails aren’t super well-marked (or maybe it was just so snowy we couldn’t see them!), and the minute you get off track you are on a black run with no greens in sight.  Reece was pretty proud of herself for going down a few blues and maybe a black (completely by mistake of her tour guides…yikes!).  She is determined to be the next Lindsey Vonn.  This girl does not like to do anything good, she wants to only be the best and I love the drive but it’s hard to explain to her that you can’t immediately be amazing at everything you try!

Morgan would be an amazing ski instructor, she is so patient and helpful and she’s skiing like she has been doing it for years.  Way to go MoMo!!  And we know skiing isn’t a fashion show, but we’ve decided she has the coolest coat on the slopes!  She got quite a few compliments.

Jake is definitely a cool snow-boarder dude and I picture him bumming around on the slopes with friends every chance he can get (start saving your money now Jake!).  Whatever he decides to do, we are super proud of his dedication to learn snow-boarding.

Drew & Reece have really picked up skiing well after trying snow-boarding last year. According to them, it’s a lot easier than boarding!  The greatest fun for me is watching them do their thing and also saying a hundred times a day how cute all the kids are on the slopes (right, Morgan!?).  Their little snow gear and seeing them as they follow along their instructors in a little line – absolutely precious!  I’m mesmerized by the kids for sure!  

We found some really fun trails down the mountain but ended up off track somehow and we ended up at the base of the mountain on the opposite end of where we intended to be!  Jake and Brian went up the gondola without us and the rest of us were trying to find a bus to get back to Lionshead Village where we were more familiar.  As we are trekking through the village, I’ve got two sets of skis and poles over my shoulders and 3 kids trailing behind walking in those super heavy and uncomfortable ski boots.  Keep in mind, it is snowing crazy!  We got a few laughs and stares along the way as Reece had to take breaks often and Drew was having no part of her needing a break!  My bangs were iced down to my face and I just had to giggle and press on.  We made it back to our familiar village and by this time it was getting close to the lifts closing and Drew was ready to be done.  So I pointed Reece and Morgan in the direction of the right gondola so they could get in one last run and Drew and I turned in our equipment.  Apparently it was quite an adventure back down the mountain with those 4 as Reece had lost her stamina for the day and drive to be Lindsey Vonn.

This was the view from our room with the beautiful snow falling…

As you can see, the visibility on the slopes was pretty low so that can be a little challenging but overall, a really fun day!  Morgan spent some time with the littles doing smores and the pool/hot tub and the rest of us went souvenir shopping!  Morgan had her sights set on a cute sweatshirt and we searched all over looking for her size and/or trying to find an alternative.  Of course she was snap chatting with her friends to decide which one to get.  This girl cannot make a decision!  Jake got a really cool sweatshirt, Drew got this shirt,

and what!???  How did Reece end up with this hat!?  I thought we escaped it!?  Apparently Brian promised it to her to get down that last run.  There was no going back on that promise!  

We played our last night of family games and went to the Bully Ranch for dinner.  It’s a major hot spot in Vail in the Sonnenalp Hotel and it was Saturday night so we had to wait for over an hour.  We walked around Vail Village and picked up some postcards for Reece and Drew’s teachers (isn’t that sweet!?) and almost got this CUTE hat for Morgan.  In the end she decided she never wears hats so we saved ourselves 25 bucks 😉

As we waited for our table Jake was ready to dive into a plate of sliders and I was just purely amazed at the size of the lamps!!  Have you ever seen such a thing?

We had such a fun last night in Vail and I am so thankful for the opportunity to have these fun adventures with my family.  Thank you Brian for working so hard!  Reece wrote a very nice note to Brian thanking him for her crazy polar bear hat…

We all made a deal to get up at 5:15AM to get on the road back home.  It started out at 7 and kept getting earlier and earlier.  We joked that Brian was going to make us get up at 2AM to leave!

We ended up a bit delayed because the Marriott lost our van.  Huh!?  How do they manage to lose our van!?  There was apparently no record of it being checked in, they never charged us for valet, and couldn’t find our keys!  Oh boy, this was about to throw Brian into a frenzy but we tracked down the lost Toyota Sienna and got on our way without having to pay resort fees or parking.  Ok – maybe that accident was worth the $200 savings!?  We had a snowy drive out of the mountains and Reece slept several hours out of the trip.  It is positively the most boring drive!  The only excitement are those crazy gigantic windmill things…

We stopped in Hays at Gella’s Diner for lunch because Reece remembers it from last year (really only that the kids meals come in cardboard cars) and just cannot call the trip complete without stopping there!

We stopped for gas a few hours from home and Morgan went in for a bathroom break.  Pretty soon Brian is heading back out on the road and Jake says….”ummm are we going to wait for Morgan because she isn’t in the car!”  Whoa now that is not a parenting moment to be proud of!  We whipped back in the gas station before she noticed we had left her but there was no playing it off.  We were laughing too hard and she had noticed that our van was now facing a different direction!  Oops!

Finally, we are about to Lawrence and my phone starts alerting me that Reece has a 6PM soccer game!  Oh crap, can’t we just pretend that we aren’t home yet?  We were giving Reece the choice to go or not and she without hesitation was ready to go!  She wanted to move her legs – we had been in the car for 10 hours.  Back to reality in the blink of an eye!!

Another awesome and fun adventure in the books!  Morgan, Jake, Drew, and Reece, I hope you keep these memories forever!

I had great intentions of keeping this updated but I realized that was going to be near impossible.  There’s not a lot of down time on a ski trip!  Day 1 on the mountain was a success.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous!  Reece and Drew were a little bored with ski school but their instructors were glowing about their progress.  Way to go guys!  Jake, MoMo, & Brian had a great day with just a few unintentional detours along the way!  Brian made some appointments for me in the spa which I didn’t hesitate to take part in.  Other than the fire alarm test going off in the middle of my massage (that was a first!)…it was great!

It’s so BEAUTIFUL!  After skiing we couldn’t miss out on the smores and swimming again!. Jake put away 4 smores before we even realized it and Reece developed an obsession for learning how to dive.  If we don’t get her signed up for the Dive Team soon we are in deep trouble!  A month ago she begged me to sign her up for Swim Team and I’ve been avoiding it like the plague.  This family schedule is already almost unmanageable!

This little bare-legged cutie was determined to make me the most perfect s’more ever and she did!  Thank you Reecie!

If anyone can pull off an outfit like this…it’s Reece!  The firepits are really full today as we are now into the weekend.

I’m not sure where Drew is at this point but my guess is he was in the pool jumping in while catching pitches from Brian.  Or he was in the hot tub with a billion other beer-drinking adults taking a load off after skiing.

We had a great Mexican dinner at El Sabor in the Lodge at Lionshead and played some rounds of SkipBo and 5 Second Rule Jr. (we aren’t smart enough to play the big kid version!).  And of course a quick argument on who sleeps where – someone was forced to sleep on couch cushions on the floor.  But honestly, we’re all so tired, we may have fallen asleep standing up.  Thank goodness Reece brought her Mermaid Tail…she can’t live without it!

 

 

We’re here!  We made it to Hays by 11:30PM Wednesday night, a short sleepover there, and on the road 8AM sharp Thursday morning.  I love traveling with my 5 favorite people but this crew is not used to long road trips.  Our van is jam packed with snacks, ski equipment, and every electronic device we could scrounge up.  A few sibling arguments here and there and an overwhelming sigh of disgust when I made all of them read for 45 minutes.  I don’t really think that’s asking a lot out of a 10 hour road trip, is it!?  And I’m certain any of us could step in for Brian on a program at Market Source now, as we are taking in his conference calls.  We stopped in Frisco, CO for a late lunch at Greco’s Pastaria which is owned by a friend of Brian’s.  We always laugh that he literally knows someone EVERYWHERE we go! The food was absolutely delicious and we certainly hope this is not our last visit to Greco’s.

Shortly after lunch we pulled into the Marriott Vail Village and checked into our room (hiding kids in the corner so they don’t see how many people we are squeezing in one room!).  We are getting big enough now that we require 2 rooms.  However, for this short little trip we are squeezing into 1 so we don’t squander away all of Brian’s Marriott points.  It’s a lot of points to stay here right at the base of the mountain.  It’s absolutely beautiful.  Here’s the view from our room and our cute little fireplace.

We walked around a bit and got fitted for our equipment and already have our first souvenir…look at this adorable sweatshirt I found on a sale rack for Reece.  $15!  I’m so proud of myself since everything in Vail is about a million dollars.

And this crazy hat is what she really wanted to buy…thankfully we escaped without that in our sack!

We had quite a laugh at the ski rental because they had Morgan listed as “Mirgan” on the paperwork so we were all calling her “Mirgan” in a hilarious Norwegian accent, including the staff at Vail Sports (who were extremely awesome and helpful by the way).  We’re not sure Mirgan thought it was as funny as we did! 😉

On our way out to find the ski rental, they were serving Smores and hot chocolate by the fire pits and I literally could not stuff one more morsel of food in my body from our big lunch at Greco’s.  The kids were able to make room and enjoyed roasting their marshmallows and deciding which type is best…slightly brown and toasty or burnt. Everything is a competition you know…

The weather is gorgeous and the crisp clean mountain air is so much better than that farm smell and flat boring drive I made from Hays to Denver.  Not looking forward to that again on Sunday!

The kids were dying to swim so we had a little early evening swim!  Look at Morgan’s beautiful outfit.  Isn’t she cute!?

Too chilly for me…I ended up by the firepit and eventually inside waiting for them to finish up!

We played a family card game of Skip Bo and grabbed dinner at Tavern on the square.  I was still not very hungry from lunch!  I convinced Drew to use his Bday money to buy the game because I used to play it constantly at my best friend’s house when I was a kid.  I have to say, it didn’t come right back to me.  We had to do a thorough review of those directions!  I wonder if the Catalina’s still play?

This morning we got up early to make sandwiches (because eating and drinking here costs a small fortune), and get our gear picked up and ready.  Reece and Drew are doing ski school today and Brian is taking Morgan and Jake straight to the runs. Everyone is looking good!  We all got new ski gear on super sale after the season last year so they were excited to put it on.  Hoping for no injuries or sickness and lots of fun today!

We have one snowboarder in the group (Jake) and the rest are skiers.

I’m sure by now Morgan has taken a million selfies and snap chatted every detail on the mountain and we’re only part way through the day.  Teenagers.  😉

More to come on our adventures later!