Ruidoso Trip

Brent and I are both fortunate to work for companies that give us a week off at the end of the year. {I ended up taking just over 2 weeks off, and it was glorious!} Last year, after our first batch of snow {you know the one that was fun and not the one that knocked our power out on-and-off for days}, we decided with friends to go on a 'real' snow vacation and booked a trip during this dead week to drive to Ruidoso, NM. We wanted to go to a place that was drivable but also that would have snow, and Ruidoso is the closest place you can get. It was about 9 hours, and we went from almost no elevation to almost 7,000 ft!

We left at 5:00 AM on Wednesday {12/29} morning.

We had the kids rotate between screen time and car activities/books.

They did great in the truck!

There was no sleeping until the last 30 minutes of the drive, ha.

The view of West Texas - 

Paige gave me a science lesson of how these windmills work, ha.

We couldn't check into our house until 4:00, so we stopped for lunch when we got into town around 3:00 PM. We were the first ones at the house, and it was awesome! 5 couples with 10 adults and 11 kids meant we needed a big space, and our house had 8 bedrooms/bathrooms, a big living room, dining room and game room. It was great!

Terrible picture but view from mine and Brent's room!

Each couple signed up for preparing a breakfast and a dinner, so our first night we just settled in, ate dinner, and enjoyed being together.

Thursday, we decided to go snow tubing in town. There hadn't been any snow yet in Ruidoso, but the local tubing park was able to make snow! So we put on all our newly acquired winter gear and headed out.

Trent in his balaclava, ha

Waiting for Brent to get our tickets!

My view down the mountain with Paige!

Unfortunately, this was a super popular activity and the lines were long. We waited about 20-30 minutes for each ride which lasted about 20 seconds. After going twice, Paige was done. The big kids lasted 1 more round.

When Paige was done, she was done, ha.

In the afternoon, we hiked down to Lake Grindstone.

We got separated from most of the group because P forgot gloves.

You can see everyone on the other side of the lake!

I mean...how cute are they?!

Our second full day in Ruidoso was New Year's Eve and was also the dads free day. They went to a casino to watch football and gamble. We moms took the kids into town to a bar. Yes, 5 moms took 11 kid to a bar, ha.

Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots!

Games for the kids!

Everyone headed back to the house in the early evening for NYE celebrating!

This is out of order, but we let Trent toast at midnight with a bit of champagne.

This crew worked on a puzzle for 2 days and finished!

It's hard to understand how any of these guys are married. Sigh.

How cute are all our kiddos? {Minus Emmett who was already in bed.}

Love doing life with these ladies.

We had so much fun playing a game called Bananagrams.

Trent finally won and was so excited!

BEYOND exhausted and refusing to give up. Poor Drew!

Our whole crew!

We woke up to SNOW on January 1!!!!! We were so worried we wouldn't get snow on our trip but the forecast finally turned in our favor, and we had the best day! I won't caption every picture - we just PLAYED for hours in the snow! We ended up getting about 6 inches, it was awesome. [Shoutout to Emily for all her advice for what gear to buy so we stayed nice and warm while playing.]

In the afternoon the texture changed and it was like blobs of snow!

We were able to make snow ice cream and the kids loved it!

January 2 was Moms Day Out and also Drew's 9th birthday! The moms wanted to shop in town, so we had the dads drive us into town {getting down the mountain was a bit treacherous} and then the dads took the kids bowling.

Dez and I were twinning!

Of course there was wine!

We got home and it turned into celebration mode for Miss Drew. She loves lemon cake, so we bought everything to make lemon cake for after dinner.

The big 9 year old!

The most beautiful sunset!

Happy birthday, Drew Kathleen!

We left the next morning and waited a little longer than we originally planned because the mountain had iced some. It was a scary first 10 minutes getting down the mountain, but then we shot home with minimal stops. I was worn out and just let the kids watch movies the whole way home. #Momoftheyear

Paige took a tiny nap - otherwise it was screens!!!

We got home about 9:00 PM, got the truck unloaded, and got the kids in bed. They went back to school the next day, but I let them sleep in a little the next morning - it was tough to get back into the real world! We had the absolute best time, and we are already planning our next vacation!!