Toad

So I was weed wacking the front of the house the other day and something jumped out of my way.  When I stopped what I was doing and looked down there was a toad sitting there.  Now I understand that toads are pretty popular every where else but this is the first one I have ever seen in the wild.  So I grabbed the girls butterfly habitat and ran down there.  Boy was that fun for the whole family for about three days, catching bugs to feed it and watching it eat them and then eventually returning him to the wild.

We went wake boarding again yesterday and I think I actually ripped one arm off like I was scared of.  I can't raise one arm up due to some sort of shoulder injury and now when I try to walk my hip is forcing me to limp.  I keep reminding myself that it has to get easier but holy cow.  Everyone compares it to snowboarding but when you snowboard you are allowing gravity to take over and propel you down the mountain.  In wake boarding you are being drug behind a Chevy small block engine, much different feeling. But we managed to get together four boats including my parents so the girls hung out with Grandma and watched The Lion King while we wake boarded.  George even managed to try wake boarding and totally nailed it, apparently no one has told him that he is in his 60's. ;-)

Glendo Wyoming

We got back from the lake when Carole was here and one of our friends text and asked if we wanted to go to Glendo Wyoming boating with them.  Since we were still having fun from our awesome day at the lake we couldn't help but jump on the opportunity.  Glendo is a four hour drive from here if you aren't trailering a boat and stopping for two young children, so roughly 5 and 1\2 hours later we pulled up.  I have to be honest it started off kind of a rough.  The hotel on the water that we had reserved called us 20 minutes out and stated that there was a mix up with the bookings and they didn't have a room for us.  We ended up finding a gas station/motel in town that had one room left.  Then comes the boat dock.  Hold on to your pants for this one...I am a nervous person.  I know this shocks everyone reading this.  So we pull up to the boat ramp with most of everything that I love in the car along with a giant boat attached to the back end of us, the ramp it's self is much more narrow than I would like with a rock ledge on each side and a floating - raised walkway in the middle.  As you can imagine ideal for backing down a very large rig.  Luckily Joe is amazing and his anger fueled the most precise back down a ramp ever.  As we approached the water the whole rig started to slide into the murky depths.  Turns out there was a ton of lake muck on the dock and it was causing us to slide, Joe jumped out of the car I slid into the drivers seat and just put it in drive muttering to myself that there was no way it was going to drag me into the lake.  Joe slides the boat off and the girls and I drove the rig up to the parking lot...which was full...of course.  So we ventured down this little dirt road to a spot that looked like they wouldn't tow us and backed it into a grass hill.  I loaded up the kids and EVERYTHING we have to bring to have kids on a boat...and believe me the list is extensive.  And sherpa'd the whole load down that forsaken ramp.  Got on the boat, took off...made it about 300 feet - Joe cut the engine and said I need a beer.  So we sat just out in the middle of the lake drinking a beer getting right with ourselves before going over to meet our friends.  After all of this you would have thought that it would have marred the trip, but it turns out we ended up having a blast and will definitely be going back, this time probably just camping and we will launch the boat off a another ramp, one without algae on it. ;-)

Wanna know the definition of a fun boat crew?!?!?  It was Joe, myself, our kids, Brooke (Hoss' little sister), her husband, their 19 month old daughter and Anna (Brooke's best friend from high school).  Not one of us had ever wake boarded, nor had any of us driven the boat for wake boarding.  Someone suggested since we had all the stuff (the rope was still wrapped in the store zip ties) we might as well try.  Every single person was like, heck yeah sounds like fun.  Joe went first with me driving, he managed to get up on the third try and looked like a natural.  Next Brooke who was awesome and got up on her first try, then my drowning butt got in there and just about died a half an hour later still didn't get up and my arms are still too sore to do laundry today.  Everyone else got up and had fun which will make me even more determined next time we go to get up.

The next day the wind was so bad and the lake so choppy that we loaded everyone up on the boat and drove slowly to a quiet cove completely sheltered from the wind, we spent all day jumping in and out of the water and chasing frogs on the beach.  It was awesome.


Anna and Austin, in about 20 seconds from when this picture was taken Austin fell asleep.

Tyler would be the next to fall asleep here.

 Here's little Abby, who is the dare devil and refused to sit down even while the boat was in motion.

 Joey, Brooke's husband.

 The deer that joined us for lunch in the cove.

 Look at that peaceful cove!

 Little Goose eating her cheese.

 Brooke and Joe.

This Summer is flying by...

Just as I thought it would, this summer is flying by.  We just had the privilege of hosting Marmee/Carole for a week.  I was pretty worried about what the girls would act like when she left since they get so much extra special time from her but so far it hasn't been too bad.  While Carole was visiting we took a raining day and decided to head to the movies, a first for Tyler and only a second for Austin.   We watched Monster's University and it was super cute...Austin was glued to it and Tyler watched for a while before she had to start the up, downs on the chair and what not.  We also managed to squeeze in a trip to the lake, where Tyler actually got in the water for the first time.  It was like Marmee gave her super powers.

This was the end of the day, just moments before this picture Austin was also asleep on Marmee's lap.

 We fly a Colorado flag off our boat, I just loved looking at it whipping in the wind.

 Everyone waving to me on the boat while I make some lunch.

Look at that little Goose.  She has such a crazy little personality.

 Lunch time on the boat! Yay!

 Austin and Marmee while we are still by the marina so in a slow no wake zone.

 Tyler is still a little uneasy about the boat when it gets going fast but managed to smile like this before we took off.

 Front seat of the boat, best seat in the house!

 Austin and Marmee cruising along.

 Now we are going faster, notice the uneasyness of Miss Tyler Mae.

 I just loved this picture, even Ty is smiling...what a good ol' boy.

So many updates....

Wow, it's been a while huh?!?!?

Ok so let's start off with the fire.  So we had a horrible fire that started about a mile away from our house claimed 511 homes and two killed two people.  We ended up spending close to a week with Tadd again, he said that he felt like a parent to some college kids that just kept on moving back in. ;-)  Not one blade of grass on our property was even touched and we are so fortunate, especially since we hadn't even made one mortgage payment yet. D'Oh!  Here's a video that an evacuee took as they were driving off, this is taken one street up from ours which shows you just how bad it could have gotten.


Next, the definition of irony...in this case not the literal definition but the way that I see it now.  We share our property line with the Black Forest Fire Department (never thought that would be so important).  When Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jim came out to visit Lisa mentioned that we should go over and meet them and bring goodies.  So the morning of the fire I was busy making this cheesecake to bring over...now that's irony.  Needless to say they never received it and instead we all ate it over at Tadd's house that night but I will definitely make sure that I make it by that fire station with goodies.

So we get all moved back in and I am putting up the last of our suitcases from the evacuation when we get a knock on our door, sadly it's the Sheriff letting us know that a house fire has started 4 doors down and we needed to pack.  My eyes swelled with tears...make it out of a giant forest fire only to be taken out by a neighboring garage fire.  I took a deep sigh, put shoes on the girls, locked the cats and dog up, and started to repack everything.  Luckily 20 (and I am not exaggerating on that number) fire trucks came blazing down our road with everything they had.  They were able to fully extinguish the fire in an hour or so and we didn't lose our home - again.   Here is a picture of the fire trucks at the house fire, our home in one house behind the officer on the left hand side.

Did I mention that while we were busy packing for another evacuation that Adam was moving in with us and that Derek, Rachel, Lola and Lillian were driving down from South Dakota to stay for the week?!?!  Fire has a funny way of not scheduling it's attack with anyone in it's path.

We spent Wednesday at the lake with Ketelsen's, as you can imagine...one boat...four adults and four small children is less relaxing and more like a double dog dare.

Just look at those two little fisherman!

 Lillian driving the boat and eating chips...if you look closely you can see the grease on the leather and the vein popping out of Joe's neck. ;-)

 What you can't see in this picture is the 2 two year old's under the table making additional messes...but there's Joe's neck vein again.

 My two little girls fishing off the back of the boat.

Look at these fancy new beds we stole from Uncle Dane (they are supposed to be bunk beds but I think at this age they work better as separate twins), Tyler is still sleeping in her crib but I am sure we are just about done with that.  The second bed proved excellent for when Lola was in town.

Uncle Wells has a community pool with his new home so we played hooky one day two weeks ago and went to the pool with Carri and Kinsley.  My goofy girls are saying Hi to Dad in this picture.