whoa horsie!!!

After family photos this morning, we went horse back riding....yes...I went too. I asked for a ladder to help me up...bad leg...but instead I just got a huge shove from a girl. I could not say that this was the most graceful thing I would have liked to have shown off!!

After horse riding, and once I could walk again, I took the girls for archery lessons. I was amazed at how good they were-no one was wounded-and they actually hit the target a number of times. We may need to look for someplace CLOSER to do this.

G0-Carts

It is the tradition that we go go-carting one evening after dinner. Today we we were not sure if this would happen because of the daily rain, followed by a beautiful double rainbow, but we were lucky and we made it. Ruth, Sara and I had a blast. Then the 20's-AKA generation 3-did some batting cage fun....only 1 injury resulted.

Settled in and ready

MONDAY MORNING

We settled in well and got some sleep. We decided to go to the craft shop and begin some projects in case we needed an entire week. Ruth began painting a ceramic dog, and Sara began a mosaic jewelry box.

Traveling time

We are heading out tomorrow at 5am for our family reunion. This first day will be about 12 hours, the second day about 7. We have packed a ton of DVD's for the girls to watch, and got a new batch of motion sick pills for Sara~~hopefully it will make her sleep too. My parents are coming into town this afternoon and staying at a nearby hotel, where I will take the kids to swim for a while and hopefully wear them out. Tonight is the ritual of the packing of the car, AKA mom's stress point will be broken-----look out world. It would be better if it wasn't so VERY hot outside. I now pay the girls to do most of the packing and thank GOD they are now old enough to really help and young enough to not know how to get out of it.....


I can not wait to sit out on the porch with a good book, stare at the mountains, and read....a little piece of heaven on earth.

Back in August.....

DOGGIE FUN

We are having fun with the dogs.

Notice all the are together...Jessie, Cooper and Puff.

Mermaid

Today Sara decided to get into our pool to cool off. She did not want to get her hair wet, so she got a red shower cap and put a rubber band around it. It worked fairly well. She is good at improvising and finding something that works for her needs.

Afterwards, she gave up and just got her hair wet.

LIGHT

Today we replaced the entry light. I guess that since I could not reach the 20' to clean the light in 6 years, then just get a new one :) We switched from gold to black. Luckily I put low wattage bulbs in or it would have been enought light to land a plane.

BRIDAL SHOWER

Yesterday my sister Lisa and I drove to Houston for our niece Jennifer's bridal shower. Jennifer's sisters Ashley and Megan co-hosted the shower. The food was WONDERFUL and Jennifer got a lot of things to begin their household. Jennifer has wonderful friends who were at the shower.

I have to admit I loved the 24 hours with adult conversation only. I do believe that every summer we will re-establish the girl's weekend out where no kids or males are allowed. We used to go shopping, but I think we will just go somewhere, probably my mom's, and visit ie-talk.

FINALLY RAIN

Today we had rain--after almost a month













do you see it? There is a drop! That's all!!!!!!!

Today we rose again early and headed for our destination. The 4 carloads of family, along with too much luggage, stopped in Loveland at SAM's to purchase the food for 41 people for a week. My sister made separate lists and we were off. It took 3 flats and one shopping cart at SAM'S to get it all, and now.......it needed to fit into our cars. I really wish I had a picture of this! We rearranged the luggage, stacked it up, sat on it, held it in our laps, just short of strapping it onto our hoods.....we looked like a bunch of back hills folks.....maybe like the Beverly Hill Billies, without the mansion, or the dog.

We arrived and there were a number of family already at the cabin who gratefully helped unload everything and the girls took all the luggage upstairs to our room.

We have used this cabin many times over the years. Upstairs is 4 bedrooms, sleeps 14 with 1 bathroom. Downstairs sleeps 6 with 1 bathroom.....of course this is the main house and everyone is there all day.....1 bathroom downstairs. We did fairly good.

JULY 4TH

God bless America!

We are having a quite 4th at home.