mud pie

this trip was initiated by emily. one night she asked 'when are we going to nana's again?' i told her we had a trip planned for anneliese's and nana's birthday. she replied with 'i want to go sometime when it's not a birthday'. i thought that was convincing enough to clear the weekend out and take the 3 kids packed in the back of the prius to the ranch house in oklahoma.

on saturday morning, papa was going to check the cows and grant and emily were going to tag along in the truck. as we were throwing on their clothes, grant whispered to me that he wished he had brought his cowboy boots :)

and they were rewarded by a true cowboy adventure. a just born calf stuck in the mud. they watched as papa pulled it out and then the day was filled with taking care of 'mud pie'

even with all the excitement over the calf-we still managed to get a short fishing trip in. the fish were not too eager, but it was a beautiful night. we listened as ryan called for owls and had to call it quits when it was too dark to see where our lines were stuck.

 it is a long-standing tradition to throw big sticks in the river. nana has started a new tradition/experiment of taking bits of food and setting them on the numerous ant hills on the road to the river. it is fascinating to watch them work together. the kids have been working and playing well together too-here is roy's satisfaction upon getting the gate open. it is a true rite of passage. grant and dale had already crawled under and cheered him on-

 this is a bunch of random summer pictures that i never posted. summer was bright and sweet, but we are looking forward to the leaves falling and the cool breezes.

together again

these kids fit together-
it was a short but fun weekend filled with 'farm sports'
more to come...

vacation reflections

i think one of the best parts about going on vacation is having it be somewhere you return in your mind for years and years to come. even if it only lasts a few days-it burns images into your thoughts and changes your inner landscape.
i still go back to hawaii-quite often and remember how i felt while i was there-how it smelled.
 one of the wonders of it all is that vacations are often stressful, but your memories are always  sweeter and the stressful situations get edited out.  the memory of emily running away from the beach, screaming, 'i don't like how my swimsuit feels' has faded a bit and now i mostly remember the kids running and playing in the waves and sitting in the sand with anneliese.
our last trip to colorado had moments that haven't disappeared yet-like driving from fort collins back to denver on a 100 degree day without air conditioning, passing an ice pack back and forth between the kids as anneliese threw up. but even as terrible as that was-the picture we have of emily and grant standing and pointing to a gigantic rainbow over the kansas prairie and grant at 4 1/2 singing all the words to "rocky mountain high"-will be what i remember.

last year we had to forego any real destination vacation because the construction, renovation, and moving that happened. we needed a vacation this year. nana and papa came through with a house in estes park, next to the river and very close to the national park entrance. but the most beautiful part about it was that we were ALL there.

we loaded up the prius with pipe cleaners, clothes pins, popsicle sticks and some john denver and headed west. the kids made all sorts of wondrous creations-i unfortunately packed my camera in the way back to make room for all the snacks in the front. we stayed the first night at a hotel in long mont. it was still daylight and they spied the mountains as we walked to a brewery 'oskar blues' that was across the street. there was live music, there was good beer, it felt like vacation.

the kids swam in the pool when we got back to the hotel. bobby declared that the lifeguard stand was located in the hottub and we talked about how cool it was that the kids were all able to swim on their own.

the next day we drove up to estes and arrived before we could check in to the house. we drove up to the national park and did a walk around sprague lake. we then went down to morraine park and i fell in love with the scenery. seriously i would have just spent the whole vacation there if everyone else would have agreed with me.

 we did lots of hiking-the kids were troopers. they all found a walking stick that was just their size.

anneliese found 'elkie' at the gift shop at the top of trail ridge road. she accompanied us on all our adventures.

on our hike up to dream lake-anneliese said 'my legs are too tired to walk anymore' and had to hitch a ride.

glaciar lodge managed the house we rented-so we were able to go use the facilities there. the kids were so excited to swim, but spent more time 'getting warm' on the concrete.

we may need to get a tether ball-these guys could have played all day

what a fantastic vacation-both in the time we were there and in the memories we will have for years to come. thank you nana and papa for making it happen-