a 2nd quick vacation

Today we are leaving (at some point) to head up to northern Iowa near Spirit Lake. Time to visit the in-laws. We'll be leaving to head back to KS Monday evening. I haven't been blogging lately and am considering stopping.... seems like the blogging ideas are few and far between, and the comments are evening farther!

On a side note, I managed to get a group of 30 together to walk/run in the Susan Komen Race for a Cure on August 8th! A friend of ours mom just passed away a little over 2 weeks ago from breast cancer so I'm having shirts made in honor of her. That's about all the excitement in my life right now.

Oh, and Mini #1 starts 1st grade on the 18th, and I start my senior semester on the 19th.... can't wait to freaking be done with school!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

quick South Dakota vacation

We had a BUSY weekend. We left Friday at 1pm and drove to South Dakota. Our plan was to stop in Rapid City to spend the night and then finish our drive Saturday morning. Our plan went south very quickly! There was not a single hotel/motel with a vacancy for 100 miles. I do not lie. We drove and pulled off on every single exit and checked every single hotel, even the scary looking ones that in our right minds we wouldn't dare stop at. So our only option was to just keep on driving. Our final destination was Buffalo, SD (population 380).

We arrived at 3am SD time, which is 4am KS time.

Stayed at grandma's house instead of a motel, nice to save money, not so nice that people start showing up there for coffee at 5:30am and the guest rooms are right off the kitchen and not a single person thinks they should keep their voices down until at least 7am! No, I am NOT bitter at all!

We spent our Saturday in Camp Crook, SD (population 56). BTW this trip was because of a family reunion. So we did the typical reunion stuff, family lunch, golf, softball game, then dinner and a dance. I admit that my favorite part of these events is always the dance. It is all country music and every person on the dance floor dances with everyone and does all country/western dances. It's so much fun to watch. Sadly my husband and I have no skills with that type of dancing so we just watch, but that's ok too!

Sunday we hopped on the road at 9:30am and made it back to KS at 12:30am.... and I was back up Monday for a 9am funeral, not fun.

A few things I'm sad about: we didn't get to drive through the Badlands, no stop at Reptile Gardens or Bear Country, no 1880 town, no bloggie meet with The South Dakota Cowgirl (one of my favorite reads!)

Here are some photos from the trip, not much to see as I hated the camera that I had with me.

on the way we stopped in Sioux City, IA to play next to the Missouri River

we stopped in Chamberlain, SD to get gas This stop is right on the Missouri River, it's absolutely beautiful.

On our drive home we stopped on the other side of the river for our lunch, because of the dam it looks like a lake. The kids loved it!

guest blog!!!!

Hi friends!

Today I have the privilege of being a guest blogger for Ms E at E Myself and I.

She has such a cute blog!

Check her out, and of course, check out my post! :-)

Have I mentioned how cool this makes me feel? ;-)

yup, this cool!

oh heavens

I am just lost, is that sad to say? Pathetic sounding? I want to find a job so bad! But what sucks is that I start school again in August, my regular babysitter has opted not to keep my little guy for me this semester.... what am I to do? Sage has lost his job.... this economy sucks! Please tell me when the last time was that a construction worker didn't have work during the summer? My husband is actually an electrician but he works with all the new constructions.... Basically life is sucking right now. I'm embarrassed of the things we're putting on craigslist, things that will only help us get by but are enough that I'll miss them. Life is sad right now. I've lost my happy place. A close friend of ours lost his mother last night after a battle with breast cancer. She was in remission and went home from work with chest pains, later she sat up and coughed blood and then died. What a horrible time for that family. And here I am feeling sorry for myself? What kind of person am I? Sorry for the crying, I guess I'm reaching out to my friends out here, I need words of wisdom, advice, something to help me get it together!

devastation

It's official.... as of Friday my husband will be jobless.

I'm terrified.

No income.

Lots of bills.

Please think positive thoughts for my family

weekend recap

Firstly let me rewind to Wednesday. We woke up that morning and I loaded the kids up and headed to our local library for a childrens story time. I'm embarrassed to say that I've never been in the library! We participated in story time, afterwards there was a craft, my kids loved it! I took that giant step into adulthood and got a library card, my first ever! I am very excited! Logan got to pick out some books, then we headed the park to play, and off to McD's for happy meals. It was a pretty fun day for the boys!

Friday:

Woke up early and headed into the city to go to our Union Station, there is a Dinosaur Unearthed exhibit going on so naturally Logan just HAD to go! Riley on the other hand was not so thrilled about being there!

here is Logan brushing dirt off the fossils

once again torturing Riley trying to get a good shot of us! lol

there was a 3D movie about dinosaurs so we watched that too. Aren't they too cute? Man I'm a lucky lady!

After the dinosaurs I took the kids to Crown Center (a mall) and we checked out the Crayola store....

(this is all crayons on this wheel behind Logan)

while at the mall we stopped by Clifford the Big Red Dog's playhouse, the kids loved it!

sliding down Clifford's tail...

Saturday:

I woke up at 0'dark-thirty, well actually it was 5am... too early for a Saturday! I was signed up to compete in my 3rd 5K of the summer! Had I known what the course looked like before hand I would not have gone, but, I stuck with it and finished it in 40 minutes. Not my best time, but not my worst so I guess I'll be okay with it.

then at 11 am the concrete truck came and we finally got our patio poured! A HUGE thanks goes out to our friends and family that came and helped us get it done!

(I'll post a picture of it finished once it quits raining here!)

That night we went out to dinner with friends followed by drinks, we didn't get home until 3am. Just a little too late for my likings! I am just old for this stuff!

Sunday:

LAZY DAY!!!! 'nuff said! lol

home away from home

When I think of my childhood this is what I think of.

Watkins 'C' Ranch.

I spent every waking minute that I could out there, cleaning stalls, grooming horses, riding horses, giving lessons, helping break/train horses, going to rodeos, making friendships that are still going strong. Those were the best days of my life (well pre-child & husband!).

In yesterday's post I whined a bit about getting soaked while feeding the horses. This is a picture of the main barn. The long building to the right is the indoor arena. The main barn holds 20 horses. The end of the arena holds 3 more, and then across the pond holds 6 more (picture of the little barn to come).

see the tiny red spot that is hidden by trees? That is our little barn. There is a little "road" going off to the left, we have to go down that, cross a little bridge, and walk up the path to get to the barn. Hopefully now you can tell why I was so "happy" about having to go back and forth in Kansas's little monsoon that we had over the weekend! lol

When you walk into the main barn here is what you see, at least the aisles of horses. The other side is a trailer filled with sawdust, a few other stalls, a tack room, and a break room (which thankfully now has heat & ac!!! A luxury we didn't have when I was a kid!)

at the very end of the above aisle is my lovely Lady! I know I told you all that her official name was Kasey, but I was wrong. It is now "Lady", even though she isn't always so ladylike, I too frequently found myself calling her lady as I was talking to her so I decided to just stick with it!

If you walk just past her stall this is the view that you'll get. My horse gets to stare at this all day and catch the breeze, I'd say she's got the best seat in the house!

Sadly the guy who owns this beautiful property is sorta a D*ck and won't allow us to ride in it... bummer.

Here is our indoor arena. I spent many Saturdays as a child competing in raceo's here... and might I add, I kinda kicked butt!

here is a picture of me & Barbie from about 15 years ago, whenever I think about my raceo days this is the photo that I think of....

just thought I'd share! :-)

such a beautiful eye, the eye of a horse can tell you sooo much! (this is Lady)

such a pretty muzzle isn't it?

4th re-cap

Friday: the family and I took all the grandkids to see Toy Story 3, cute movie! I got soooo lucky and Riley slept through almost the entire movie! That evening we set off some day-works and night-works with my nieces since they were spending the weekend with their dad.... lots of fun!

Saturday: A very uneventful day! Both kids slept until around 10:30, how awesome is that?! We treated ourselves to breakfast at a local ma & pop cafe, oh how I love the biscuit scramble! Imagine a biscuit sitting on a large order of hashbrowns, topped with gravy, and then topped with 2 scrambled eggs. Oh my it is so delicious!

After breakfast we came home and took a family nap, wow I love those! Then I was off to the ranch to feed all the horses. I'm gonna go ahead and give myself the pity treatment now, I have to carry grain across our pond to feed horses in the little barn. As soon as I entered the little barn it poured rain. When I say pour I mean like a monsoon! Normally we keep hay stacked in the the little barn, as my luck would have it today there was none. So back in the rain to the big barn for hay, then back to the little barn, and back once more to the big one. You can imagine how lovely I looked soaked to the core, every bit of blowing dust stuck to me, pieces of hay stuck to me.... oh yeah, I was HOT!

So I took my hot self to Walmart on the way home to grab food for kabobs, thank goodness I didn't see a single soul that I knew there!

Dinner was fabulous.... kabobs with shrimp, scallops, steak, & chicken... corn on the cob, and rice.... oh I'm drooling all over again!

Then it was off to my parents house for a night of shooting off some fantastic large and loud fireworks!

Sunday: Up early, off to the store, home to clean and prepare for our bbq.

Off to the ranch to feed, and of course once again it rained on me. I swear this was not my week to have ranch duties! Mother nature has hated me!

Back home to shower and get chicken on the grill along with the brats for our bbq.

Hung out with the family for dinner, and then because Mother Nature has been so evil lately our firework show was cancelled... talk about a sad kid!

Monday: Day of laziness! I took Logan to see Karate Kid, he LOVED it and of course wants to know when he can start taking kung fu lessons! lol

Here are a few pictures from our weekend!

Enjoy!

yay for bubbles!

isn't this cake fabulous? I made it myself!!!!

oh watermelon, you are so yummy!