Spring Break 2016: Salida, CO

First order of business: A HUGE shout out to my husband for my new most excellent blog header! Isn't it lovely? It only took 24 hours to complete and I'll spare you the details. But I love it! Yay.

We aren't the type to take vacation on Spring Break. You know those kind. The awesome one's. We're more what you call, extremely cool, which is just shy of awesome.  But this year I was needing a break. A break during spring. So we set out for a two night stay in Salida, CO. It's not considered to be a ski town, but people who ski stay there because it's a short jaunt to Monarch Mountain which is a popular skiing destination for those who can't afford Vail or Aspen. By afford I mean you won't charge the trip to a credit card and then ask Dave Ramsey how to pay it off  before you retire. We haven't gone skiing since moving to Colorado. Hey! Maybe I can win a ski trip!

We're off!

Take a look at this action. That's right! 78 degrees on our road trip. Which lasted until we got to Salida. But still.

Views from the drive. I was bored because I finished the book my sister gave me.

Everyone needs a selfie in the rear view mirror of the car. Just don't do it while you're driving. No wait. Try it. Let's see what happens.

As soon as we got to the hotel, we just dumped our stuff and walked downtown to find food, which was only a mile or so away. See. Here's a shadow of me carrying Evan while taking pictures of Jason and Dawson walking. Creative I tell you.

We passed this house which looks like a mini version of the house we called "The Old House" where I grew up. Legend has it that the house was haunted. I also heard rumors that one or two of my sisters walked around inside it after it was abandoned. I wish I had a picture of that house. It has since been remolded, which means the ghosts are probably stuck behind the new dry wall and can't get out!

We ate Amicas, a fun little pizza joint. You can call them if you want. 

The boys were not keen on my desire to photograph the entire 2 days. 

It was nearing dark by the time we walked back so we went back to the hotel and called it a night. Poor Evan. We had to bring his breathing treatments along because he was having a rough time sleeping at night due to his cold. That has now become MY problem. Boo.

The History Channel wanted to know "What was the Republic Carrying"? Did anyone watch that show? I really want to watch all the episodes of "LostHistory". Just sayin.

The following morning, I thought it was a great idea to capture our surroundings from our hotel window.

Dawson kept begging me to watch HSN now that he knows his mom is famous from calling them.

We went for another walk to pass some time before going to the Salida Hot Springs Aquatic Center .

If you listen carefully, you can hear the swing squeak.

The Salida Hot Springs Aquatic Center is an indoor recreation center that has water piped in from hot springs 5 miles away in the Rocky Mountains. And now Jason is annoyed that I keep asking him to let us do that. I don't see any reason we can't dig until we find hot springs.

This large lap pool is kept at around 83 degrees and I thought I would go into hypothermic shock after getting into it from the 100 degree pool.

This picture is actually of Dawson and Evan in the pool at our hotel but I crack up seeing Evan in goggles. So I'm inserting it. 

And... that was all we did. Really. We were only there for 2 days. So.
I did snap a picture of this cool shed-barn (sharn?) that was right beside our hotel. I love old buildings. Especially if they're abandoned. Maybe I should be a squatter.

That Time I called and talked to Christie Brinkley

Some of you might remember the blog post I wrote a month or so ago about the cool stuff I've won in sweepstakes. Just in case you were too lazy to read that one, I'll give a brief summary, which will help explain what led to my bestie status with Christie Brinkley.

Hair2Wear had a sweepstakes on FaceBook:

And.. I had a typo in my answer and I still won! Yay Me!

 

 When I sent my response to Hair2Wear with my color choice and shipping information, I asked if they would mind if I did a blog on my win, because I was so excited. And this was their reply:

They LOVE my blog! 

I'll admit that had me question if they actually read it.

 But just a few days later at 6:14 pm Mountain Time while I was at worship team practice, I received this:

I was basically jumping all over the stage at church and the other team members thought I was trying to start a mosh pit. Now they know.

I received several calls from Home Shopping Network with specific instructions regarding the phone call. The big day was set for Thursday 3/17/2016 at 2:40 p.m. (my time).

Then I contacted everyone in the world to ask if they have cable with DVR capabilities because I don't have cable. Or DVR. Or a phone. Just kidding about that one.

2 days before the phone call, guess what I got in the mail.

Did you guess? 

Was your guess a coupon for a free bag of Skittles? Because that came last week people.

This came:

EEEEE! A BOX!

Want to know what's in it? Huh? Do ya?

 

I spy with my little eye a big toe with a fresh coat of red nail polish. Because I was too lazy to crop it out of the picture. 

 And look! A big white bag with pink paper! What's inside? Is the suspense killing you?

No really. If the suspense is literally killing you, you have issues.

 

 It's my Hair2Wear Prize Pack! 

A little blurry due to my excitement and all.

The small vase in the left corner is a genuine, authentic super awesome Jonathan Adler Vidalia Bud Vase. He'll probably ask me to call him next. There's a waiting list Jonathan.

I didn't waste any time. Straightaway (say with British accent please) I ran upstairs with my loot to try everything on. I do mean everything.

Here's the ponytail. I know I look like I'm in a huge cathedral. That's because I was. In my mind. I also look serious, but my freckles seemed rather ostentatious. Don't I look awesome though? Pretty much exactly like Christie Brinkley. Except with different hair. And a different face.

Then Dawson wouldn't leave me alone. "Mom! Let me try it" over. and over. and over.

I'll be he regrets that now.

I was told that the extensions were going to be the discussion on the show during the call, so I real quick ran and grabbed some pink lip gloss and applied it. 

Here I am with the extensions in! My hair was actually straight and I had it tucked back. All the curl is from the extensions. Aren't they fancy? Are you as amazed as I was that they match my hair perfectly? And super easy to put in. 

The reflection of me in my glasses taking my picture is a freebie for no extra charge.

 

Here I am in car pool line just before it's time to make the call. Note that I'm wearing green because it's St Patty's Day and all. I'm a great mom.

You can't tell by the picture, but I was nervous beyond all reason and wanted to vomit.

It was time to call.

I talked to the producer who said they were waiting on my call and I was put on hold until they acknowledged me, but I could hear everything they were saying while I waited. Pretty soon they said hi to me and then all manner of rambling, and dorkiness ensued. I'm actually embarrassed to share the video but felt I needed evidence that I'm famous.

A special shout out to my sister Karen who has cable and DVR and took the time to take video on her cell phone to share it with me. The pressures of having a famous sister.

Dear Christie:

Since I'm certain you'll read my blog now that we're besties, you are more than welcome to come stay with us since you love to ski in Vail and we live in Colorado Springs. Please don't use the downstairs bathroom though. I have all boys, you know? I'd also like to take this time to suggest that you add a mullet hair piece to your Hair2Wear line. My husband threatened to take my 16" extension piece and wear it around, so I think the mullet line would sell out.

Lots of ♥, Joy Wilkins

I wish I would have heard her make the comment about her love for Colorado because I wold have squeezed in the invite over the call. 

And that's the true story of the day Christie Brinkley and I became best friends.

Another King

I haet tie-poes.

There. I thought if I got one massive typo out of my way, I'd be less prone to converge on several more in this post. Totally nailed the use of converge in that sentence. Probably.

A few weeks ago Jason and Dawson  went to the Rock & Worship Roadshow at the World Arena to volunteer for Compassion. 

And since they were being all good and spiritual, I took Evan to get Chinese food because I was hungry.

Look what I had in my fortune cookie:

At first I thought God was using this to reward me for being so awesome. Like the one time I had the idea to help my friend remove her tattoo by using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Actually, that didn't really happen. But I wondered if it was possible the other day when I was using one to clean the shower. 

Then, I realized it's not much of a blessing to inherit an unexpected sum of money if someone has to die off  so I can get it. Unless it's someone rich that I don't like, of course. Which makes me wonder if I'm related to royalty. Totally feasible since I have good hair. 

And this talk about royalty made me think about men who have been kings, which leads me to the discussion for today. Beautiful segue. 

I'm doing Beth Moore's bible study "To Live is Christ". Yesterday's reading included Acts 17:5-9, which talks about Paul and Silas convincing some Jews in the synagogue to be followers of Christ and this is what happened...

⁵ But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd.^{[a] 6} But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, ⁷ and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” ⁸ When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. ⁹ Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.

For reasons I still can't figure out, that phrase "saying that there is another king, one called Jesus" flew off the page at me. Only it wasn't in blue italics. 

Little did they know or care while screaming it out in the chaos that Jesus isn't just another king. He's the King of Kings. I wonder if I'm the only one who's ever been disturbed that the rioters opted to use the word "another" as an adjective to describe Jesus.  Who does that? Hadn't they read Isaiah 9:6? Read Matthew 27:11, before you go throwing around adjectives about Jesus that's what I say. Because I read the bible.

After all, the Bible is God's blog. 

Sort of but not really.

Lightly Sweetened

This is my problem.

I haven't been able to create a blog post header that I really really like. 
Who wants to create one for me? Something awesome. I'll give you a shout out AND try to win you something cool in a sweepstakes *disclaimer: It's very hard to win cool things in sweepstakes in which case I will offer you unconditional love which is subject to daily mood swings.

That being said, I'm using this new one for now. And that's all I have to say about that. 

As I've mentioned before, I don't particularly care for the taste of artificial sweetener. As a result, I tend to avoid products with labels that broadcast a product as lightly sweetened. I'm saying give me the full sweet or give me death! Patrick Henry would be so proud. Recently as I was mulling over my dislike for products that fit the lightly sweetened category, my rather random brain navigated it's way to people that fit the bill.

I'm wondering if anyone knows people like I do that are perpetually in a bad mood. 
Grumpy, if you will. Something like this (minus the sunburn):

Not this:

Actually, my grumpy face didn't quite have the frown I was going for, but I'm not great at whipping out my phone for a selfie when I feel like karate chopping happy things. 

Evan on the other hand, has fully mastered the frown (as seen above), but that is not the grumpy frown. That is the "givememymomrightnowidon'tlikestrangerdanger" frown. Please keep the two straight. Sheesh.

This all came up because this verse came about in my bible study last week:

Ecclesiastes 8:1(b) New Living Translation (NLT)

Wisdom lights up a person’s face,
    softening its harshness

Immediately thoughts of grumpy people I know flashed across the screen of my mind. Because I have one of those screens. Mine is HD full color. So. 

I really do think there are unhappy people who could use a little boat load of wisdom in their life to brighten not only their day, but the day of those they surround themselves with. It's wise to seek God's direction in your life. It's wise to choose God's way of living rather than the world's way. Actually, I have a picture to illustrate this that I've been dying to use (not literally).

Most people relate those words to marriage, and of course that can be true, but I don't. When I came across this picture, the first thought that came to my mind is how true it is spiritually. If you take the time to invest in reading God's word and spending time with Him in prayer, guess what. The grass is greener on God's side. Sin doesn't look so appealing anymore. 

Ha. Wisdom.

That makes me smile.

I used to work with a lady that won't be named even though she doesn't read my blog. She was negative all day long until negative ran out and she had to rely on her pessimism reserves to finish out the day.

Now I firmly believe if she only had a little wisdom, she'd have been able to turn that frown upside down. Like this, see?:

On the other hand, I have a friend who is wise. You can tell by her smile.

That's Stacie and her wise friend Me. Stacie has helped me navigate the torturous waters of school and the influence it has on children. Ha. "torturous waters." Totally made that up. Who cares that it makes no sense. We've had long talks about the power of prayer and how to win sweepstakes. And how to pray to win sweepstakes. (kidding!) Something I feel compelled to reveal about her that I just recently discovered...is this:

That's right friends. Stacie eats the tops off of muffins. 

That's when I really knew she was wise. Just read  Proverbs 25:16 in the ESV:

If you have found honey, muffins eat only enough for you,

    lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.

(paraphrased)

Speaking of food. We have a this awesome doughnut place in Colorado Springs called Amy's Donuts.

Don't they have a pretty box?

Wisdom told me not to eat 5 doughnuts in rapid succession.

Clearly wisdom runs through my veins like blood and coffee because smiling's my favorite.