More January - Bass Hall, Bunco, Girl Scout cookies

Our new Bass Hall season started and we kicked it off with a bang. 

 This year Matt & Rachel joined Box L and Matt made sure their inaugural show was unforgettable.

 He had randomly won at an auction a 18 person party bus. 

Apparently they were having a hard time figuring out when to use it...but, what's more classy than rolling up to the fancy Bass Hall theatre in a party bus!?!? 

Seemed like the perfect occasion. 

Group pic in the party bus. 

 

We had the bus take us to the classiest place we could think of for dinner first....Ol' South Pancake House, then rode up to the front door of Bass Hall in style. 

 

Asking them to take a girl pic and this is always what I get from someone. 

 

Neighbors for life!

   

Stuck with January for my Bunco month for many years in a row now. 

 This year's theme was "White Out" and all things NEW. 

 I had everyone dress in white and served white chicken chili, queso blanco, powdered sugar donuts, etc.

 I also had everyone write on the white paper wall about something NEW they would try in the NEW year.

   

 Dylan helping me unload the dishwasher in his White out hat. 

 

Another year, another Girl Scout cookie season. 

These two set up a private booth at Fuzzy's to make some sales and had a blast doing it. 

Anniversary Trip to Vail, CO

Ben and I spent our 12 year anniversary in Vail, CO.

We used airline miles and credit card points to fly to Denver and drive to Vail to stay at Hotel Talisa. 

 

Keystone is pretty much on the way to Vail, so we stopped there to have lunch and check out the condo that we are going to in March for Spring Break with my family.
 
We checked into our hotel and it is seriously the CUTEST hotel ever.
 If I ever go back to Vail, I will stay here again no doubt.
The decor is so chic and our room was just a picture of relaxation.
 The view overlooks the mountain and is incredible.

 We went out for happy hour the first day at Bart & Yeti's in the Lionshead village.
Vail has the cutest villages!
 Back to the hotel to change for a late dinner in Vail village.

Loved waking up to this gorgeous view for a morning coffee and quiet time.

Breakfast in the hotel before skiing.
Look at that view!

The hotel also has its own dedicated ski lift.
And the ski rental shop that you can use, if you need to, is in the hotel.
 They stored our boots everyday on heaters.
We literally walked from our room to the shop in our slippers and put on heated boots and walked out the doors to the lift.
SO incredible.

 On the lift with our hotel in the background.
 

The one (major) downside to this trip is that somehow after the first day skiing, Ben tweaked a nerve in his neck and was in pretty severe pain the rest of the trip.
 I tried to convince him not to ski a second day but he was trying to push through it.
Not even two runs in, we had to take a break and try to find the Vail medical center.
He's trying to smile but he is hurting BAD.
 
We found the medical center and got some Salonpas pads, some icy hot and some pain medication.


We decided to try to finish out the rest of the day because really nothing was working....so he might as well try to ski.
We stopped for lunch at the top of the mountain and enjoyed the view and some chili on a beautiful day.
   

We went to dinner that night in town and this was the only position that would give Ben any relief. Poor guy made the most of it and was such a trooper.

The next morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland. It snowed like 9 inches and Vail desperately needed it!

  

We got in the hot tub first thing and Ben tried to ease some neck pain and we watched church on my phone in the snow.

  

Riding the chairlift down directly to our hotel. 

 So amazing. 

 

Loved having a little time away with my man. 

12 years of loving him and can't wait keep loving him the rest of my life.

 

Kinley's Eye Injury

We had such a blast meeting up with the Booths and Barstads to celebrate McKenna's 7th birthday.
We met at Dave & Busters's by our house and played our hearts out, accumulated something crazy like 14,000 tickets or something, ate lunch and sang Happy Birthday.
 Then the Barstads came over to play.

About the time they were soon to pack up and leave, Kinley came running inside with blood streaming down her face saying "i'm ok, I'm ok, it doesn't hurt..." over and over.
But it was bad.

 Apparently she was doing the zipline and after she finished and was getting off the seat, it swung back and popped her in the eye.
 I think the big plastic seat was pretty much like a huge block of ice since it had been below freezing the day before.

We took one quick look at it and knew she needed to go to the ER.
I called mom and she came over and drove Kinley and I to the local urgent care and stayed with us until Ben could get there.
Kristen stayed with the rest of our kids until my mom could come back and relieve her.
We checked in the urgent care and they confirmed needing stitches but something just didn't feel right.
They told me a doctor wasn't even going to stitch her up, just the on-call nurse.
 No offense to her, but I was wanting a little bit more careful and detailed attention to a huge cut on her face.
 

So we packed up and left and went downtown to Cooks Children's Ft Worth.
As soon as we checked in there, they pulled up all our info from the urgent care center and got her back to a room. 

 

They also confirmed the need for stitches over glue and called in the Wound Care Specialists to do them. 

 This is the BEST news and the BEST thing about going to Cooks Ft Worth for stitches. Their wound care specialists are trained and work every day with plastic surgeons. They do this all day long, ever day, for years and are incredible! They brought in a child advocate to help Kinley calm down. She still very much remembers when she had to get stitches in her hand and is still traumatized from being held in the straight jacket. It was horrible. So this girl was incredible. She calmed her down and held an ipad for her to watch a show above her head the whole time. 

 

Our specialist was the NICEST man and he walked Kinley through every step and procedure and was amazing. 

He even let me take some pretty close up pictures after he cleaned the wound.

 Its pretty nasty if you zoom in.

  

She ended up needing 14 stitches. 

 More than her hand injury. 

Some under the skin and some on top. 

 

Only 5 days later they wanted to take the stitches out so that she didn't get scarring and railroad track marks on her face. 

 Everything is different when they do stitches on your face. 

We went back to Cooks, and again, a Wound Care Specialist removed her stitches so carefully. then she had to wear steri-strip for 2 weeks until it fell off.

Post stitches but before Steri strip. They seriously did AMAZING and approximated the cut so well.

 

  

Kinley was SUCH a trooper through the whole experience. 

And although it was not the way I would have wanted to start the New Year, I loved how brave she was and learning so much more about Cooks Childrens hospital. 

 I can't say enough good things.