Easter on the Prairie!

Jason and I have been waiting for spring and for the prairie dogs and squeakies to come out. We planned to take the kids camping for our anniversary weekend and to welcome spring. We went looking for them the first weekend in March and saw a few but obviously they needed a little more time to decide the weather was warm. So we postponed our trip to give them another week. However, we wanted spring here more than it was ready to be here; a winter storm was in the forecast for the weekend, and then another the next weekend. Easter weekend looked good - it had to be good, it was the beginning of SPRING BREAK!

We left Friday afternoon and stayed until Monday afternoon. The sun was shining yet the wind was blowing and cold. We didn't see any prairie dogs in our favorite spot, but found some new spots not far away.

Abriana was eager to shoot her gun! She took a few shots and then we remembered her sights needed some adjusting. When Dad adjusted her sights, she set up cans almost 50feet out and practiced. She needs a lot more practice, but she is getting there.

Saturday night we dyed eggs in anticipation of the Easter Bunny. Cheyenne couldn't decide if she wanted to be by the fire or make a mess with the dye. The other two didn't want to quit with all the stickers and colors. We found a camo dye set that had something like 147 stickers. Yup, they used just about every single one!



All day and all evening the girls kept discussing where the Easter Bunny was going to hide the eggs and where were their baskets going to be hidden. Well, he did a pretty good job at hiding those 30 camouflaged eggs. The grey colored eggs were actually the same color as the dirt! The teal colored ones turned out to blend really well into the sage brush. It was hilarious watching Cheyenne scream, "EGG EGG!" as she ran around following her sisters. I helped her out a little bit to find some of her own. She was so excited when she found some she took the two in her hands and smashed them together screaming, "AHOO AHOO!"

Since the wind was blowing pretty hard most of the night, the Easter Bunny found a clever spot for those baskets filled with goodies - inside the jeep! On the front seats were 2 Reester Bunnies (Reese's peanut butter and chocolate bunnies. Mmmm...) and 2 pudding cups - for Mom and Dad. In the back were the three sought after baskets (actually buckets) full of pudding cups, granola bars, fruit snacks, cheese and cracker snacks, a box of animal crackers, juice bottles, a solid chocolate bunny, bubbles and sandals.

Cheyenne found Dad's "feetball" in the motorhome and all three girls kept themselves entertained with it. And they entertained us! Chey kept wanting to get right up close to Bri when Bri was throwing it, so she would tell her, "Stay there." The little parrot that Chey is started telling her sisters the same thing when it was her turn. She'd clutch the ball under one arm, put her hand up with the other to signal to stop, and say, "Day dere!"

Then the kiddo's got goofy...

Maybe you noticed the tires on the jeep. Eh? New ones! Mud ones! So, of course, we went wheeling! We went up one of the canyons north of camp and found a little mud and some snow one day. The next day we went south, towards Moab. Jason was really wanting to find some area to test out the new tires and see how much we could tear up the jeep.

We had the maps with us, and picked our way by looking at the terrain at each fork, or from the top of a hill. We passed some old mines and found some rocks to climb. The tires are awesome! Now we need a lift...but then we'd need bigger tires, hmm. Well we ended up in Arches but really couldn't see much since we were on the 'wrong side.' I'm sure one could backpack through there, but there are no roads to speak of. We picked our way down the slick rock and found some cool rocks for the front yard. Then we came across a miniature grand canyon.


Jason jumped the crevice to get a better look at everything below. He was helping Kayla over when she looked down and decided NO WAY! It was about 2 1/2-3 feet wide and oh, 30-40 feet down. The rock wasn't sheared completely from the mountain and was 5-6 feet wide itself. And looking off the edge of that was a sight I didn't have the guts to see. I was fine with my feet being where they were. I am afraid of heights when I am not in something. That is most likely because I am a klutz and I know it, therefore if I have something to support me, I'm ok. Besides it didn't help me much when Chey was curious and wanted to look over the edge. My stomach did things I have never felt before!

I probably would have jumped over if I didn't have the kids with me. The over-protective-mom kicked in and I wasn't ok unless I had all my chicks under my wing. Cheyenne did jump over with Dad and even though she was safe with him, she wasn't under my wing and my stomach continued to do crazy things.

The older girls and I went down past the crevice and looked down. We all stood like 3feet from the edge, too scared to get closer, but it was still gorgeous. Trees and grass and a creek running through it all with what was left of someone's cottage from decades ago filled the bottom. You could see where the water would run off the edges and create waterfalls. Kinda wish there was a waterfall to see.

On the way back to camp, we were flying down a straight stretch of dirt road and I got some cute snapshots of the girls.

We had great fun. It felt so good to be out of the house. Nobody wanted to come home, not even the motorhome. It decided to overheat with no warning. Quirky thing will have to be fixed before our next trip in two weekends.

The Mitten

Kayla was in another play, this time with her morning class. They did 3 short plays to accommodate all the students, as well as, to illustrate the stories they have been reading in class. Kayla was the badger in 'The Mitten.'

It's a story about a boy who really wanted Grandma to knit him some white winter mittens. She refused because she knew he would only lose them in the snow and not be able to find them. After many pleadings, Grandma finally gave in and knit him the mittens he so wanted.

One day he went out to play and sure enough, dropped one of his mittens in the snow. During the night many of the animals in the woods saw this mitten and thought it would be a warm and cozy place to snuggle up. The mole was the first one to curl up in the mitten. Then the rabbit hopped in. The hedgehog crawled out of her burrow and into the mitten. Then the owl swooped by and joined the trio. The badger came out of the snow and said, "That looks warm and cozy. I'll want to go in too!" And she was able to cuddle up in the thumb of it.

(If you can't tell, Kayla is the one on the far right.)

A fox came to investigate and climed inside the mitten. And then the bear heard the commotion and thought he should be in there too. A meadow mouse came along and said, "Wait for me!" As the mouse scurried in, he tickled the bear with his whiskers and made the bear sneeze. The force of the sneeze shot the mitten up to the sky.

The little boy saw the mitten in the sky and ran towards it. He showed Grandma his two white mittens and she said, "I am glad you still have your new white mittens." However, one was kid size and the other was all stretched out.

~THE END~

Forgive me if it sounded a little broken up. Kayla helped me write it. It was all her words, I just tweaked some of them. She even insisted I write 'THE END.'

After the plays, the kids put on cowboy hats and sang a few songs.

I decided to see how the video worked on the digital camera and found out I couldn't zoom (that is the clicking you hear), sorry about the heads.

It was cute and again, she had a lot of fun.

The 1st Annual Thomas Tiny Ranch Round-Up

We are planning the family camp out for the weekend after Father's Day. We are hoping the weather will be perfect by then and that everyone can make it this year. We should also be able to find the camping spot we were in search of last year. You know, the one that is in the middle of no where surrounded by trees with the possibility of a pond or lake nearby and no fee.

I'm sure it goes without saying, but every one who has a wheeler should plan on bringing them. We, however, will be in our jeep.

So the dates...June 20-23. We are making a 3 day weekend out of it and hope you can too. We will let you know more details as we figure them out.

Grades are in and the girls are doing awesome. I am so proud of them!

Abriana needs to learn to keep the talking to a much lower level, as well as bring her homework home. But other than that, she continues to be a smarty.

Kayla was put in all day kindergarten since her assessment showed she may need a little help to pass at grade level. Well...it is working; she is above grade level! She is reading, doing math and learning how to tell time. She's so funny with 'the clocks that have hands.' It will be 3:20 and she'll tell us it's almost 4!

The grey line is the target goal, where they should be to be at grade level. The black circle is where they are at!

And as you can tell, I got the scanner working. Simplest thing. All it needed was a little reset; unplug for a few seconds and presto! I came upon that little tidbit on accident. Thought maybe the power strip was going out so I plugged the scanner into the wall and the candle warmer into the outlet the scanner was in, and all of it worked. So I put all the plugs back where they were to start with and I'm a scanning and printing now.

So Cheyenne starts screaming this morning, "MAAAAHMMM. BUUUUUG!" over and over. I go and get the bug swatter as she was scrambling up in the chair still screaming "BUG! BUG! MOM! BUG!" and found this:

I told her, "Honey, it's a sticker!" She looked down from her crow's nest and said, "Oh." then climbed down and had a much closer look at it. Her nose was about 2 inches away from it when she decided it was safe. She picked it up, put it on the table, and was off to continue to play with her cell phone.