Recently Mike took Sophie to Kansas City for a fun dad-and-daughter trip. This was supposed to be all about an amusement park, a water park, and a baseball game, but it ended up being a "Hey Mom, glad you're not here" vacation.

I'm generally the wet blanket for Miss Sophie when it comes to junk food. And although her dad does the best he can with not giving in to her wiley charms (cough-yeahright-cough), he decided this particular weekend that it was going to be a free-for-all for his youngest daughter. And best of all: he'd text the photos to me to show his unbridled parental authority when I'm not around…

Hark! What's this I see? Something with nutritional value?

It looks like the two of them are sugar-crashing…

This is Sophie's all-time-favorite, more-expensive-than-Starbucks treat:

Someone was nice enough to take a great photo of Mike and Sophie:

They did manage to squeeze a few rides in between snack binges…

Now that they're back, I've decided to invest in a treadmill. And ban them from ever leaving town by themselves again.

I'm soooooo happy to have my Bean home again! My goodness, she's been gone since June 2nd and we've all missed her very badly. She even started crying when she hugged me in the airport, and then of course I welled up… My Sweet Sabrina is home.

And now… I need to get the rest of these Dallas photos posted!

As I mentioned yesterday, I didn't take my camera with me to Hurricane Harbor, so you lucked out on Day #2. However, Day #3 was spent in downtown Dallas with my camera in hand, and let me be the first to tell you – my sister is one hard chicky to keep up with. But we managed, and Audrey only had to ask us a few times if we were ready to call it quits yet.

Our first stop downtown was to the Dallas World Aquarium…

Here's Neenee, throwing a tantrum… poor Neenee!! (She was mad that Sophie could reach the information monitors and she couldn't.)

And here's Neenee a little while later, throwing another tantrum. (She was still mad that Sophie could reach the monitors.)

And now she's really mad, bc Sophie isn't getting mad back.

Or maybe she was mad that I was taking her picture while she was throwing a tantrum.

After the Aquarium, we drove further into the city and passed the famous Sixth Floor building…

…And then on to yet another cupcake shop: The Cupcakery.   

Neenee wanted Sophie to try her orange cupcake…

I could be way off base here, but I'm guessing she didn't like it.

Once we were in the car again, Neenee entertained herself with her new maracas that her mommy surprised her with…

 
(That was my favorite picture of her.)

Then it was off to the Country Marketplace for vegetables! Audrey makes the best roasted veggies with olive oil…

And she puts dill in absolutely everything!

Here are the girls, playing with a digital scale. Natalie is quite satisfied that she can "reach" this one…

Sophie adores her baby niece…

Audrey was NOT kidding when she told me they had hundreds of different kinds of cheeses!

And since I'm a sucker for olives, I had to take a picture of only a portion of the olive bar…     
 

The flowers were beautiful! Any kind you could think of! I loved all the signs over the different sections…

What a fabulous shopping center this is… there were so many samples of things to be eaten, one would never have to actually cook anything on the day one visited. :)  I wish we had one of these where I live… everything from the soup bar to the bakery to the vintage-style candy was outstanding!

We made our purchases, and out into the intense Texas heat we went again. In the car, Sophie decided to help Natalie cool off by covering her in baby wipes…

Since it was still going to be a few hours before dinner (roasted vegetables with angel hair pasta) was going to be ready, we made a quick stop for the best tacos I've ever eaten…

Oh my goodness. I want one of these where I live too. If you've never had a Fuel City taco, drive there now.

Home again, home again, to Audrey's house for dinner…

(That was its pre-cooked state.)

It was so much fun sitting around Aud's living room with Shaun and Paul and the girls, just chatting and laughing. At one point, I realized that Paul and Audrey and I were reminiscing about our childhoods, just like I would hear my parents and aunts and uncles do when I was little, and I was quite amused by the thought… except I never heard them say things like "Man, I remember the time Mom tried spanking you and you farted on her hand."

(My apologies to anyone who is offended by the word farted, which my mother had convinced us kids for years was the "f-word.") 

On our last day, Shaun drove Sophie and I to my brother's workplace so we could say our goodbyes to him… in typical fashion, as soon as the camera was put away, Paul was all smiles again.

 
(Btw, he was also smiling when he farted on our mom's hand.)

And now Sophie and I are back home in fit-for-human temperatures, still unpacking and wishing we lived closer to Dallas.  It was a lovely visit with family. 🙂

I had a wonderful time visiting my family in Dallas this week! I took over 300 photos while Sophie and I were there, and that didn't include the day we visited Hurricane Harbor (I refuse to take my camera anywhere near splashing children)… but don't worry, I won't load them all here. 🙂

After we drove the 45 minutes from the airport to my sister and brother in-law's home, we all went to an awesome Mexican restaurant called Abuelo's. This is my cutie-pie brother, Paul. I think he should apply to be on The Bachelor. (Oh quit rolling your eyes, Paul.)

And here's my favorite brother in-law, Shaun. On the drive from the airport, Sophie asked how long it would take to get to their house. "Twenty more minutes," Shaun said.

"It's only been twenty minutes?" Sophie lamented.

"Everything in Texas is bigger – even our minutes," Shaun said.

Shaun cracks me up. 

(Don't you love his shirt? I bought that for him.)

The next day we headed out for a day of shopping, our first stop being Sprinkles, which is a darling little cupcake shop…

Here's my sister, Audrey, holding our purchases…

Here's my favorite cupcake…

The heat was melting Natalie's chocolate-marshmallow cupcake before she could eat it…

After we were finished, we walked over to a nearby fountain that had caught our attention… it appeared as if someone had poured laundry detergent in it – not only from the enormous suds, but from the freshly-laundered smell!

 
Our next stop was the Galleria Mall, and the first place we came to was Saks Fifth Avenue, and the first price tag I saw was for $1,989.00, attached to a homely dress.

Saks Fifth Avenue cracks me up.

Inside the mall there was an ice-skating rink. Sophie loves to ice skate, but Natalie had never been, so Sophie put on her teaching hat and went to work on her little cousin… watching her learn to walk in the skates was the cutest thing… Audrey and I couldn't stop giggling at her!

Audrey and I chewed most of our nails off, nervously waiting for Natalie to get the hang of it. Sophie was extremely patient, but for the most part, Neenee didn't want any help. It's both a terror and a blessing when a child has no fear – depending on which emotion wears you out first.

For two hours, Neenee was content to make her way around the rink with a death-grip on the railing. Kind of like how I choose to ice skate.

I eventually ended up loaning her my jacket when she got chilly…

She loved "skating" as much as her older cousin did, but as worn out as Audrey was from the worry, I doubt she'll be taking her again any time soon. 🙂

The next day we went to Hurricane Harbor, as I mentioned earlier. The heat was insane, but it was still a super fun time, and Soph and I got to ride a whopping two rides in 3 hours! Here's a photo of the girls in their matching outfits before we left…

One of the cutest things about Neenee is that she loves to have someone play Super Mario on her Nintendo DS while she sits close to them and watches. It keeps her entertained for hours – literally. Sophie played quite a bit for her, but once in a while Natalie take over the controls and become engrossed in the game…

She truly is a delight.

And on that note, I suppose I'll go. I'll get the rest posted tomorrow, but for now I have lots of laundry and cleaning and some stitching to do! Deadlines loom, and my backside hurts from sitting here editing all these photos!

Btw, Sabrina called and said she's in Chicago now.. she'll be home in four hours, and I'm soooo excited to have her back!

When Mike took Sophie to the Keystone Snow Fort, Sabrina and I went off to ski. I'm not an expert skier like Bean (Bre is my snowboarder chick, and she couldn't go along with us bc she had classes to attend), nor do I aspire to be one. Although I love to go nice and straight and somewhat fast down a very easy bunny hill, I don't care for it when I actually have to try to control my skis. When that happens, the fun factor completely disappears for me. (And on the last run of the day – which also happened to be the steepest – I got to going SO FAST, I thought I was going to go airborne. After crashing down the mountain for what felt like 15 minutes of cartwheels, I opened my eyes to the bright sunshine, shocked that I was alive. The only thing that hurt me was my back, which got pelted with ice chunks when I started my own mini avalanche. A few moments later, Sabrina skied toward me and worriedly asked, "Mom, are you okay??!" I sat up and smiled, and she laughed and gave me the coolest compliment a teenager can give: "Mom, you are righteous!")

The next day, Sophie kept her promise to her dad and actually allowed he and Sabrina to teach her how to ski. They took her to a very small area to let her practice, and after only a couple of minor meltdowns, she got the hang of it and didn't want to stop. I, on the other hand, gave up after about an hour or so. Turns out my knee had taken quite a beating in the previous day's fall.

Here are some more photos from our trip…

I'm convinced that Colorado doesn't use roosters to wake up, but rather giant crows. This one was all the way across the parking lot on top of another condo, and I was wishing I'd had a slingshot each morning it decided to kaw-kaw-kaw-kadoodle-doo…

Why couldn't he be quiet like this guy, who was staring at him?

Here was Sophie, on Promise Day…

And here she was, a couple of days later!

One of our favorite places to eat is Bubba Gump's in Breckenridge…

Mike and I usually order the "Bucket of Boat Trash," but Sophie kept accidentally calling it the "Bucket of White Trash," which is why we don't let her place her own orders.

Outside of the restaurant there is a bench with a pair of Forrest Gump's shoes that you can put your feet into to take a picture. This year, however, there was only one shoe. We're thinking someone stole the other one.

When we're no
t eating out or walking in the village or skiing or sitting in the lodge, Sophie's favorite thing in the world to do is to swim in the outdoor heated pool when the temps are freezing. This is one of my favorite photos bc each night in the condo, when we were all worn out, we would pop in a dvd of The Office and eat popcorn. If you've ever watched The Office, you'll know exactly who Sophie looks like:

(Every time Dwight Schrute stares at the camera and smirks after saying "Assistant Regional Manager – same thing," I crack up.)

I also love this photo…

Sabrina scored some new goggles in a shop in Breckenridge. These suckers were expensive. Do you know how many Starbucks beverages I could have purchased for these things? Okay, not very many, but that's beside the point.

We also went snowmobiling on the Continental Divide while we were there. Once I got over the roar of the snowmobile and learned how not to be the slowest one of the group, it was a really neat experience. It's amazing how quiet it is at 12,500 feet. (That is, once Mike stops talking. For those of you who know Mike, you're laughing right now and nodding your head.)

Here we are with our instructor, Oz…

And here is Sophie, trying to decide whether or not to use the Port-o-Pines, as Oz called them, or wait until we got back home. 

It was a really nice spring break, and I thank you for stopping by to share it with me. My knee is still giving me troubles, but it's nothing a few hot cocoas won't take care of. And at least I got out of playing any bored games in the condo this year. (I'd rather have both of my knees blown out in a thunderous avalanche than to do that.)