Summer Vacation 2009- Blanding

We made our annual pilgrimage to Blanding this summer for the Round Up. Tony's brother Kenny has a cattle ranch, and the family gets together in June to move the cows from the winter range to the summer range. It's always a good excuse to go camping, and have a nice time enjoying the beautiful scenery on the Elk Mountain. It's such a drastic difference in scenery, I love the contrast!

On our drive out to the mountain, we stopped to see some Dinosaur footprints. The kids had fun pretending they were roaring like a dinosaur!




Monday night we all went up the mountain for a fun dutch oven dinner with all the family. While we were preparing and getting ready for dinner, we had a nice visitor.


We always see deer around the camp, but never a BEAR!!!! Does anyone know what kind of bear this is? Tony's brother said it was a black bear.It was kind of exciting, but a little scary at the same time. I have never seen a bear in the wild like that except at Yellowstone Park, but that's different. Tony and Logan were camping in a tent that night, while Avery and I had the luxury of Grandma and Grandpa's trailer. I don't know what we will do next summer when Grandma and Grandpa are home from their mission! I have gotten spoiled being able to use the trailer!Now that's the way to camp! Anyway, I was a bit worried the bear would come back to camp that night, and it worried me about my boys being in the tent. The bear must have decided to get as far away from us as possible, cause he did not return...thank goodness!


Logan and Trace had fun with their matching bug barns!




Early the next morning, all the cowboys and cowgirls left to start rounding up the cows. The kids and I hung around camp with Aunt Alicia since she was weeks away from having her baby, and Aunt Marlene and Tanya. I took the kids up to the frog pond with Tanya to try to catch some frogs, but no luck. It was a nice way to spend some time that morning enjoying the beautiful scenery and fresh mountain air.






After the pond, we hurried back down the mountain to meet the cow-herding group for lunch, and to hopefully see them push the cows across the road. we were just a tad bit too late, so we missed watching the cows cross, but made it in time to see cowboy Tony come riding in for lunch. Avery acted excited about the horses until we tried to put her on it, and then she freaked out. Logan had no problems of course, and could have ridden around all day. After lunch, Tony headed back out again to help round up some stragglers, and I headed back to Blanding with the kids, where we were all very much in need of a bath!







Wednesday, we just hung out at Suzie's, and the kids played and played with their cousins. Tony and I started reading "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins while driving out, and took turns stealing it from each other to read ahead. I would tell Tony that I had read up to chapter 18, so he could read up to there and then he had to stop so we could be on the same page for the rest of our travels. Then he would read to chapter 20 before I would catch him and make him stop, so by the time we started driving to California, we didn't have a lot left to read. I read out loud to him while he drives to keep him awake. It's a good system.





We left Thursday morning to drive to San Diego to my parents house, and it was sad as always to say good-bye to the cousins! The kids had so much fun playing with them. Thanks again to Suzie for letting us stay with them, and taking care of the kids for us. We couldn't have left them in better hands, and what fun memories for them to have. I wish we could be closer to family. That's the one negative to living so far away! We always enjoy our visits to Blanding and seeing our wonderful family!

Summer Vacation 2009!

Wow! We have had a great time this summer, and it is hard to adjust to real life now that we are home! We left June 11 for our 6 week extravaganza. We got home almost a week ago. I have a lot to write about, so sit tight!

10 Year Anniversary

I almost can't believe it has been that long, but Tony and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary on June 11. We were fortunate enough to have Tony's sister Suzie watch our kids for us so we could enjoy a week-end in Durango, CO to celebrate. We left home Thursday evening June 11 and drove 5 hours to Colby, KS to stay the night. We drove the rest of the way to Durango on Friday, and got there around 6 p.m. Tony's brother Andy and his wife Alicia met us in Durango, and we had dinner with them to give the kids some time to warm up to them. They were nice enough to drive the kids back to Blanding to Aunt Suzie's house, where they stayed for two days! I have never been away from my kids that long before, so of course I was worried about how they would do, but they were great! They had a fun time playing with their cousins. I am so greatful for wonderful family members who I know I can trust to take care of and love my kids. It makes it easier to know they are in good hands.

Tony and I haven't had time alone without kids for 5 years, so it was a very nice break. We just wandered around Durango and looked at the shops, went and "listened" to a vacation package presentation at a campground resort and got free tickets for the Bar D Chuckwagon. We had a fun evening hanging out there, despite the rain! I am glad I convinced Tony to leave the umbrella in the car when we were packing for our trip! It came in handy for sure!

The next day we checked out of the hotel, and went down by the river for a while to watch some kayaking competition. It was pretty cool! There was a 7 year old little boy totally doing all these flips in the kayak, it was crazy! I could never imagine Logan doing anything like that two years from now. He barely learned how to doggy paddle!


We decided to head out of Durango, and spend the day at Mesa Verde. This place is way too huge to see everything in a few hours. I would love to go back again another time. It was really fascinating to see all these Indian ruins in one place...and many of them right next to each other. I can't imagine living on the edge of cliffs like that...how did the mother's stay sane with children living there? Yikes! It would have been neat to actually see this civilization living for real...history is so fascinating!Of course, I didn't even think about taking pictures when were in Durango. I never think about it until after the fact! It was our anniversary, and I didn't have anyone take pictures of us!I took pictures at Mesa Verde, but again didn't ever get any of us together.




There weren't people around when I thought of taking pictures of each other, and of course when there were people, it slipped my mind. I am a horrible photo documenter! So, sorry. Not many pictures of us.



After we left Mesa Verde, we drove back to Blanding to see Tony's siblings and their families, and our sweet kidlets who we missed terribly! When we got there, they didn't seem to have missed us all that much. They were having WAY too much fun! I am glad. I would rather them be happy and content, than sad about being away from us.