Glorieta Vacation

Since our summer has been a little hectic with moving and getting settled in Amarillo, we decided to take an easy, relaxing vacation to somewhere pretty close so we headed to Glorieta, NM, just a little east of Santa Fe, in the beautiful NM mountains. James and I had both been to the Glorieta Conference Center before, but this was the first trip there for the boys. FBC Amarillo has an incredible lodge that we were able to stay in for the week and we had it all to ourselves. (The lodge can sleep 100!) The boys were immediately enamoured with the lodge itself, complete with ping-pong tables and an upstairs loft area.

On our first day after we unloaded our stuff, we drove in to Santa Fe to get groceries and just show the boys a little of the town. Once we got into town, we realized neither one of us really knew where we were going, but we managed alright and were glad to get back to Glorieta.

Here are the Booth boys standing in front of the FBC Amarillo lodge.

On our second day, the boys were ready to play and explore. The boys chose baseball for our first activity. We had a great time playing baseball as a family-James pitched, I fielded, and the boys took turns batting and running the bases. After our game of baseball, we set off to play a round of miniature golf .

We brought the boys bikes from home, so after lunch and a little down time, the boys took a bike ride while we walked to the game room at New Mexico Hall. They enjoyed a game of air hockey before we were off on what William liked to call "Our Next Adventure."

We took turns taking the boys out in paddle boats. James paddled William around the little lake, and then Jeffery and I had our turn. Fun time!

On our third day, we started the day shooting some hoops, but then decided to go for a hike before it warmed up too much. We hiked up to Glorieta point. I was so impressed with the boys on their first ever hiked. They never complained, and William was a great little encourager, just like his daddy. We made it to the top and enjoyed the views before we headed back down.

The boys wanted to try their hands at tennis, so we headed to the tennis courts for our next adventure. Afterwards, we decided to play our daily round of miniature golf.

(I think this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip!)

Our last full day we went on another hike on a different trail that wound up lasting a lot longer than we had hoped but we made it back down four very hungry hikers. We played another round of miniature golf, just me and the boys. After supper that evening, we took some bread to the lake to field the ducks, but the fish liked it as well as the ducks!

Here James and the boys are on the dock with a great view of the worship center across the lake.

After feeding the ducks, we joined the first part of the Centrifuge camp's worship service. Singing along with Mighty to Save and How Great is our God, we enjoyed some great worship!

We completed our night, as we had every night, with a trip to the Chuckwagon (Snack Bar). The boys enjoyed riding their bikes around while James and I sat and enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere.

Our last day we packed up and cleaned the lodge before heading out. We took this picture on our way out. We had a great week relaxing and playing together.

Fourth of July Weekend

I think William caught the spirit of this weekend of celebrating the birth of our nation!

We were very excited to be able to relax and enjoy this weekend. Let me take you back since the previous post so you can understand why. The Tuesday after Father's Day, our packers (6 of them) came and packed all of our stuff in about 4 hours. (What a treat!) Then Wednesday, our loaders (6 of them) came and loaded all of our stuff into the big moving truck in about 4 hours. (So amazing!) Once they finished I got busy cleaning and staging the little bits of furniture we left there since our house in Burleson is still for sale. I was so worn out by the time I finished, but we wanted to enjoy our community pool one last time, so I took the boys to the pool which I did enjoy.

On Thursday, I drove the boys and my mom to Amarillo. We were able to spend the evening resting up for the coming days. On Friday, our moving truck arrived at our rental townhouse, right on time! They unloaded all of our stuff, also in about 4 hours, and even had our beds set up. We were able to get right to work unpacking right after lunch. The most difficult part of the unpacking is that we are temporarily downsizing by 500 sq ft which includes the boys sharing a room, so we had to decide what to keep out, what to pack up for later, and what to get rid of now. Not a bad problem, just mentally draining. Mom and I were able to get the boys' bedroom all set up which was probably one of the toughest tasks as we combined their two rooms plus the play room into one room and one closet. They were quite excited and wanted to spend the night there, so we went back to the missionary house (see previous post) to get our suitcases. We all rested well that night!

The next several days involved much of the same: Saturday-unpacked the kitchen; Sunday-master bedroom; Monday-living room and bathrooms; Tuesday-worked to organize garage boxes; Wednesday-hung pictures. Needless to say, we were very exhausted by Thursday and took it easy. During all of this, we were so thankful for the church staff families who stopped by to check on us and brought us food and also thankful for my wonderful mom who worked tirelessly alongside me. What blessings!

On Friday, my dad drove up to Amarillo for the weekend. The boys were so excited to see their Granddad and immediately had plans for him. We were all glad for some fun and relaxation. All of the guys really got into playing horseshoes in the front yard. Our townhouse literally is between the guys on each side; a quaint 2 bedroom, 1 LR, 1 eating area, but we really do like it.

The master horseshoe thrower in our bunch with his protege!

Friday evening, we ate supper at one of our local favorites: Blue Sky. They have great burgers, onion rings, and William's favorite: milkshakes! Then we headed out to Palo Duro Canyon for the TEXAS show. We stopped at a lookout point to take in the beautiful sites of the 2nd largest canyon in the country.




We got to the theater a bit early since we decided we were too tired from the week for a hike, but we enjoyed the live music they have in the courtyard area.

Here are some cheesy boys waiting for the show to begin with the incredible backdrop of the canyon behind them.






The TEXAS show was truly a wonderful experience for all of us. They even performed a couple of extra numbers at the end to celebrate the 4th of July and had extra fireworks as well.

On Saturday, we took it pretty easy since we got home very late from the TEXAS show. We all slept in and did not do much until after lunch. My dad helped us out with a few projects around the house, but also got involved in a watergun war with the boys. We all enjoyed an evening game of baseball in the front yard before heading to watch some fireworks.

Jeffery, Granddad, Mimi, and William waiting for the fireworks.

Jeffery, James, Me, and William

I just love this one: James holding the little fella watching the fireworks.

(Ear protection works wonders for the little ones!)

On Sunday, we all headed to church for a wonderful patriotic worship service. Then we enjoyed a great lunch at Abuelo's before my parents headed back to Fort Worth. The weekend was nearly perfect, but we all missed having my sister with us for the 4th. We will hopefully see her next month.

This week, James and Jeffery are busy with basketball camp in the mornings, and we are working on getting our stuff in our garage moved to storage so we can use our garage for our cars especially when the weather turns bad. We are also enjoying settling in and finding our new sense of normalcy. Sure, there are people and things we miss about Fort Worth/Burleson, but we know that God has amazing plans for us here. We are trusting in Him and His perfect will.