Blazing A Trail

Woohoo! New stuff for the week is here! I hope you like it! Click HERE to go to my store.

Morning, girls! It's turning out to be a SUPER long day for me today. I'm feeling SO sleepy, and I'm not quite finished with my work. No rest for the wicked, eh? OK, fine, I'm not wicked. hehe. I try hard to be good :) I'm happy when I'm doing good. Maybe it should be No Rest for those Anxiously Engaged in a Good Cause? Whatever the case, it's past midnight, and I'm just now blogging. I did get most of my store loaded, though. Just waiting on a few files to upload...

I got up a little before 7am, said prayers, and got the kids ready for school. We said family prayer, and the kids were out the door. I hung with Captain America until he left for work, then got myself ready for my hike. Thursday is our new hiking day. After the SUPER fun hike a few weeks ago, it's now part of the routine :)

I got Jimmy all ready for the bus and school, left instructions for Jake, and here's me, in my hiking outfit. Either that, or I'm gonna rob a bank. Because I look all shady in my black. But maybe the pink Hello Kitty backpack gives me away. Too stand out-ish?

I grabbed some earmuffs and a scarf at the last minute. I sure didn't wanna freeze! It was 50, maybe, outside. And that's FREEZING for me, you know :)

Kari and I went back to the same State Park (Tom Mays) that we went to last time, but picked a different trail. It's actually the trail that Captain America and I and kids hiked when we first moved to El Paso. But it was MUCH easier this time. hehe. Amazing what even a little bit of getting into shape will do for a person :) It's SO beautiful up in the mountains :)








We hiked for about 40 minutes, then decided to turn around and go back. And yeah, we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because we soon lost the trail. But decided to blaze ahead. How far off could we be? hehe.

Here's a tarantella we found on the trail. We were staying WAY back, but when it didn't respond at all, we finally poked it with a stick to see if it was alive, and yeah, it was dead. I think if it had jumped, I would have peed myself. hehe.


So it must have been the "run out" part of the mountain that we were following. Because it kept getting more rocky and more narrow. And we still decided to push ahead. I wasn't worried. I had no idea where we were, but Kari seemed to have a WONDERFUL sense of direction.

We ended up climbing up the side of the mountain, and way below, past the valley, and up the next hill, was the trail. Yeah, I wasn't sure how we were gonna get over there, but it was ok. I really wanted to continue up to the top of the mountain/hill we were on, so we pushed ahead. And guess what? The parking lot was JUST on the other side. Good thing we pushed ahead, and didn't blaze a path down the mountain and up the other side. hehe.

It was SUPER fun. I was totally sweaty by the time we got back to the car, but it was WELL worth it. Great workout! And I had SO much fun chatting with Kari. She's originally from Wyoming, and is my kind of person :) Thanks, hon, for inviting me on your hiking adventures!

Kari dropped me off at my house at 3 minutes after Captain America got home for lunch. PERFECT timing. I changed my clothes real fast, and he and I headed out for lunch at El Taco Tote. I was supposed to go to lunch at the bagel shop with Terra, but she had other plans she'd forgotten about. And Captain America was supposed to be busy at lunch, but his schedule cleared up. So it worked out PERFECTLY :)

Here's me and my El TAco Tote food. I was STARVING from hiking, and ate a TON of chips. hehe.


Captain America had to be back on post at 1240, so we left El Taco Tote at 1230, but not before snapping a few pictures of ourselves.





Captain America dropped me off at the house, and went on to him meeting. Jake and I watched an episode of Fringe together, and I napped for 30 minutes before Jim's bus. And then I picked up Jim from the bus stop, and he and I went to Dollar Tree. Captain America needed more foot powder, and it's the cheapest place in town.

AND, I got some more bread. 50 calorie Natures Own, Whole Wheat, plus english muffins, and bagels, and buns, and all sorts of stuff. AND candy for the movie tonight. And bags to put it in, and water bottles and flavor packs.

And then, we headed back to the kids school. Thursday is my day for AQ pick up. But we ended up back to the school 20 minutes early, so we went to Big Lots. Because it's only 3 minutes from the school.

And I found a Halloween Mullet wig for $0.80, so I had to get it. And I got myself a new laptop sleeve. And a few other things. But I didn't buy these wreaths. I just posed with them. ha! And off we went, to get the kids.

I picked up Eme, Tom, and Bella, and we headed back on post. I dropped Bella off at her house, then headed home. The kids played nicely for about 30 minutes, then I cooked dinner. And made muffins. We were giving teacher gifts for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Muffins and Pumpkin Bread. I wish I'd have had more time to do it properly, but it turned out good enough.

Anyway, Captain America was home a few minutes later, and I dished up the kids' food. I left Eme making muffins, and Joe and Tom and Jim and I went to the elementar school for a Movie with Moms/Sons night. It was pretty good :)

We sat by Maggie and Little Jacob, and the kids had fun eating their candy and waters. I even had a bag of candy, too! We watched Toy Story 3, and were home by a few minutes after 7pm. I finally ate dinner, and an apple (trying to rid the chocolate overload from my body!), and helped get the kids ready for bed.

At around 8pm, kids were in beds/rooms, and Captain America and I headed out on a Mini Date night. He has a work function Friday night, so Thursday night it would be. Plus, he has most of the day off tomorrow, so he could stay out late. Me? Yeah, I'm gonna be tired.

Our first stop was the mall. He needed to get his vitamins from Vitamin World. And while we were walking around, we saw this display. I just now noticed that it says not to take pictures. Oops. Really, who would wear one of those???

Next stop, Howdys for a Diet Dr Pepper. Then on to the Montana Walmart. Far away, but worth the drive. Because it's new and well stocked and the workers are super helpful and friends.

Check out my cool socks and sandals, Maddie. Don't you like it? I know you're jealous :)
We were at Walmart WAY too long. Captain America and I enjoy hanging out, and browsing, so it takes a lot longer than it actually needed. I can get in and out of Walmart pretty quickly, if by myself. But, I guess we were counting it as a date, so it was ok that it was taking forever. Here's Captain America and I posing for a picture.

Whaaat? How are these any different than regular wipies?

We finished up, and paid, and headed to the car. Me, pretending to drink my soda. Yeah, it was WAY too cold for sodas. I wish it could have been a hot, herbal tea. Now THAT Would have been wonderful.

And me by the car with my new Poinsettia! Captain America bought it for me, and I LOVE it :)

And then the evening kinda fell apart. Captain America was mad at me when he got in the car, and I didn't know why. Apparently it hurt his feelings that I was playing on my cell phone. I tried to explain to him that I was just taking pictures of myself, then uploading them to FaceBook (just a few clicks), then deleting them from my phone.

Anyway, I think the real problem was that we were both tired, and we'd been at Walmart WAY too long. And that's what came out. Was grouchy in the car. And I didn't like it.

So, following the directions of my therapist, I called a time out on the conversation. We still needed to go home, I needed to blog, and load my store, and go to bed, because I had to get the kids up at 7am for school. But he didn't wanna end the conversation, but I knew that I could call a "time out", because that's something we've talked about during couples counseling.

SO, he's asleep, still mad at me, and I'm sitting here blogging. I'm gonna design a quick freebie, then go to bed. And hopefully we can get it all talked about in the morning, and be back on happy, loving feelings. Because he doesn't have many days before he deploys, and I wanna spend all the time I can with that man :) Because I like him, you know :)

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4shared - not playing nicely tonight....sorry :(
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