Saturday, February 12th

Today we went with the Etters and the Owenbys to see the butterflies in Valle de Bravo. They migrate from Canada every year and always come to the same spot. We rented ponies to get up the mountain, then the last part we had to hike so that the ponies wouldn't disturb them. It was really cool to see so many butterflies so close and all together like that! The only problem was the dust. It was like moon dust, you take a step and it puffs up around your foot. As you can probably imagine, the ponies didn't just kick up little puffs! We were all dirty by the time we got back down the mountain. The guides kind of took us each on our own, but a few of us didn't have a guide because they wanted to control their own pony. One of the people without a guide was Mr. Etter. He fell behind, and then his pony took the wrong path. We waited for him at the bottom for a while, but then people started to go out looking for him, and they eventually found him. He had come out a LONG ways away from where we had! After that excitement we went into the town of Valle de Bravo to have lunch and then went our separate ways back to our houses.

It's hard to see, but those tiny orange dots are all butterflies!

Sunday, February 6th

We got up at 8:00 again this morning, and had breakfast the same as yesterday. Then we drove to Monte Alban, an archeological site with a lot of pyramids. We were allowed to climbmost of them, and it was pretty fun, but started getting pretty hot near the end.

After that the parents went black pottery shopping, which wasn't quite so much fun. We went to the Oaxaca Zocalo for lunch, then bought a launching balloon and played with that for a while before going back to the hotel. We kids stayed there for the rest of the day while the parents went out again.

Saturday, February 5th

We woke up at about 8:00 this morning and went to the restaurant downstairs to have breakfast. From there we went carpet/tapestry shopping and saw a little demonstration about how they make them. I liked the demonstration, but the shopping got a bit monotonous. After that we went to Hierva del Agua, a petrifiedwaterfall. To get up there we hired a truck to drive us up the mountain. Fourpeople sat in the cab of the truck, while the other six sat in the back, which was completely open to the wind. It would NEVER be allowed in the States, and it was a lot of fun! Oh, and the road wasn't paved. It was a very bumpy ride. Once we got to the top, Wyatt, Ethan, Lucy and Nate decided to swim in the infinity pools there. Ms. Ranee and Abbystayed there withthem while my mom, dad, Mr. Marcus and I hiked down the the bottom of thefalls. I really liked the hiking, it was pretty strenuous, but a lot of fun! We went back down in the truck again and then headed back to the hotel.

Friday, February 4th

Today we left straight from school to go to Oaxaca with the Owenbys. After a 5 hours car ride we arrived in the capital, Oaxaca in the state of Oaxaca. We checked into the hotel, ate dinner, then went to bed around 10:00.

Saturday, January 22nd

Today we went to Nevado de Toluca with the Michaels, Noelle's family. Nevado de Toluca is a huge, extinct volcano that we can hike inside of. Two large lakes have formed inside of it, and we can see the lava dome. We hiked up the side of the volcano, down into it, across the bottom, up the other side, then all the way back! My dad got to an altitude of 15,300 ft., my mom and I got to 14,800. And at that point we weren't hiking, it was more like hand-over-hand climbing! The best part of climbing the volcano is going down, there are very fun screeing trails! Screeing is like sliding down the side of the volcano on dust and little pieces of rock, it's a lot more fun than it sounds! By the time we got back to the car, everyone was exhausted so we just picked up some McDonald's on the way home.

Breckenridge, CO (Jan. 2nd-Jan. 7th)

We arrived in the late afternoon, so we had to wait until the next day to ski. We woke up and got out there fairly early, we started out easy and slowly worked our way up to harder slopes throughout the week. By the end I was learning to tree and powder ski and had done my first mogul run! And on the last day I even tried a black diamond! It was cool to be able to say that I can do black diamonds (the one I took wasn't even that hard), but I prefer blues. My dad went up to the top of the mountain and did a double black diamond! Nate and Abby were taking all of the jumps they could find, and my mom was flying down the slopes! On the last day Nate was trying to take a jump, but got off balance and ran into a tree. He was okay but a bit shaken up, so he went back to the cabin for a while. It was a fantastic vacation overall!

Denver, CO (Dec. 30th-Jan. 2nd)

We arrived in Denver in the evening, then we had to drive to our friend's house, the Forces. We knew them in Dallas, before we both moved, and it was good to see them again! They live in a house out in the woods, their yard looks like something you'd see on a postcard, with everything covered in a thick layer of snow! While we were there we spent a lot of time playing out in the snow and then coming in to warm up and playing Settlers of Catan almost every night. One day we went out to skate on a frozen lake that was nearby. My mom and I didn't, but everyone else had a lot of fun! Nate had to be convinced that the ice was thick enough to support our weight before he got on. We saw a lot of beautiful ice sculptures nearby, and spent some time shopping as well. We had a lot of fun during our time there!