Sunday Drive…

Today we took a drive South of Rawlins to a place called Bridger Pass. It’s basically just a bunch of wild land, out in the middle of nowhere. But it was SO pretty!

All over Wyoming are Antelope. There are actually more Antelope in the state of Wyoming, than people (563,626). Or so I’ve been told. These two were right on the side of the road when we drove by and we got some really good, close-up pictures.

We also saw about 15 deer. They are still shedding their winter coat, so they look pretty scraggly. But again, they were RIGHT there! And they’re all over town as well; we see them eating grass and bushes and plants out of peoples’ yards. I was just telling Joe the other day that I hope I don’t ever get tired of seeing deer… They really are majestic.

We pulled over to this little spot where there was still a bunch of snow so Haylie, Connor and the dogs could get out and run around. Haylie had been BEGGING us to stop at some snow so she could play in it. When we got out, Maggie had a bit of a soggy bottom, so we stripped her (hence the diaper and pants in hand). She was happy as a clam to be airing out!

See? There really is life in Wyoming!

I really love my Lady. She makes me so happy. I love to see her so happy. The last couple of times we’ve taken her out to explore new territory, for a few minutes she has become a puppy again. I made her sit right here for a picture because the sky was incredible today. It was so blue and the combination of the blue and the clouds was just breathtaking… I just couldn’t stop.

You can just barely see the look of pure joy on Haylie’s face. Lady got excited all of a sudden and took off on a dead sprint (notice the muddy “pootfrints”) and Haylie just stood there and laughed. I love it.

Now, how can you not like this face? Doesn’t he look grown up? I don’t know why, but I just don’t see a little boy in this picture…

Another picture of my favorites of the day: Lady and the blue sky.

This is about all I got of Lucy for the day. She took off as son as we got there and only showed her face (briefly) once or twice. She had much more important things to do like chase birds.

Too funny! Haylie was throwing rocks in the little reservoir there. I just happened to look over as she was throwing this gigantic, circular rock out into the water. I didn’t think much of it until it floated back up to the top. And then I knew… I said, “Um, Haylie? That’s cow poop.” In the first picture she’s looking at her hands for any sign of poop. The second, she’s looking at the floating pie in the water and the third she got a little embarrassed. (Oh and for the record… I did not dress her today. Personally, I wouldn’t have put hiking boots with stretch pants, but that’s just me. ;)

The only other time we saw Lucy, was while the kids were throwing rocks in the water. She was off about a half a mile away when, I’m guessing, she heard the rocks hitting the water. All of a sudden, we saw her at the top of a hill, sprinting full blast towards the water. She jumped in, swam clear across the reservoir, and fetched a piece of wood that Connor had just thrown in.

This gives a better idea of where we stopped. All of the brown stuff to the left of the snow is mud. And not just a little mud… It was like pasty, orange-brown, deep, THICK mud. And all of the melt off from the snow on the mountains was flowing right to it.
Haylie has always been our explorer. She loves it. And I love watching her love it. It makes my heart happy. :)

My favorite picture of the day.

Isn’t he beautiful?! Someday, I will have a million of these on a gigantic ranch… OK, maybe not a million.

This beauty walked right up to my window and let me pet him. It seriously made my day… He loves me, I’m sure. I would have taken him home, but he wouldn’t fit in the suburban.

What a wonderful day. So relaxing. :)

~1~

Little Maggie turned ONE on Thursday! I really cannot believe it’s been a year since we brought her home… sounds so cheesy, but it’s true. So much has happened this past year; all for the best and hopefully helping us head in the right direction.

With everything going on these past couple of weeks, Maggie’s birthday sort of snuck up on us. So we decided that we would celebrate her birthday the day after when Joe’s mom and dad were going to be here. Unfortunately, Joe and I were headed to Green River on Friday to meet with his uncle/counselor at the college. My wonderfully, amazing, talented, patient, beautiful, awesome sister-in-law planned a HUGE party for everyone while we were gone. I seriously don’t know what I would do without her… (she better go on a date with her hubby soon, so I can at least feel like I’ve paid her back a little). There were streamers, delicious food and drinks, TONS of presents and LOTS of people! We roasted hot dogs and “smarmeshlows” on our little fire pit and had our first watermelon of the year, potato salad, green salad and chips and salsa.  Everything looked so wonderful! OH, and did I mention that my SIL, Rachel, watched Haylie and Connor AND her two girls all day long while planning this party? She deserves a huge reward!!

 

Joe and I got Maggie this fun car! My brother had one when he was little and he called it, “My Cah.” They make ‘em WAY better these days… there’s a handle on the back so that we can push her around, AND a little tray that goes under her feet so she won’t slide out.  She LOVES it (And so do Haylie, Connor, Lucy and especially Naomi)!

I promised my mom I’d post the video of Maggie eating her cupcake. It took me a while to figure out how to download it, but my amazing SIL, ONCE AGAIN, saved the day and showed me how. I think Maggie likes frosting.

After cake, Maggie had a bath (trust me, she needed it). Then we opened presents! (Side note: Rachel and Steve have these awesome little kid chairs from IKEA and Maggie is constantly throwing little fits if she wants to get in one and there’s already someone in it.) Gramma Tami got Maggie her very own little chair. It has Tinker Bell on it and she LOVES it! When she saw it, she got up and practically ran to it, hugged it and then buried her little face in it, saying, “Ohhhhhh,” over and over. Once she got up into it, she just kicked back. She had this little smile on her face the entire time and kicked her little legs like she didn’t have a single care in the world!

Maggie was screaming in this picture because Naomi made a bee line for the chair when Maggie stood up for a split second. I am always SO surprised at Maggie’s feisty personality. I just don’t remember Haylie or Connor “knowing” what they wanted at such a young age. Let me tell you though- if Maggie wants it, she is not afraid to make a little noise!

Auntie Rachel got this little dolly for Maggie.. It wasn’t even out of the package yet and she was rubbing kisses all over it. Notice how she is still in the chair?

Haylie, Connor and Lucy each got her a little toy as well. She will like those a little more once things die down a little bit. It was already 9:00 by the time we opened presents and Maggie had had it. What a wonderful 1st birthday party!!! We are so grateful for our wonderful family!

[Funny story: Rachel told me that she took the kids to the little store here in town and told them to each pick out a toy to give Maggie for her birthday. The girls, of course picked out dolls and stuffed animals. Connor picked up a sword and some trains. When Rachel told him that he should probably look for something a little more girly, that Maggie would like better, he simply told her, “I KNOW Maggie will LOVE these.” Rachel’s such a softy… Connor came home with the trains.]

Thank you, thank you, thank you Rachel and Steve for such a wonderful, stress free (for us) birthday party! It was perfect and we are so thankful for you guys. We love you!

Counting down the days…

When we were deciding on our big move to Wyoming, one of my main concerns was Haylie. Her school, teacher, friends, ROUTINE, and attitude were all things that I knew were going to change. I grew up in a tiny town my entire life and never had to change schools, other than going from elementary to middle, and middle to high school. Everyone kept telling me, “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s just kindergarten. She won’t even miss a beat.” But let me tell you- it has been ROUGH. Today I got a phone call from one of the office ladies saying that Haylie wanted to come home because she had a sore on her upper lip. Last week she told me that it was too hot in her classroom. Her second day she said she didn’t want to go back because the monkey bars hurt her hands. Another day, she had a tummy ache. Her attitude is rotten! It is a constant struggle to get her to do anything! Before, she was up and at ‘em, getting ready for school, eager to get to her class and her favorite teacher. Most days she’d stop mid-sprint and come running back for hugs and kisses. Here, we fight over clothes, breakfast, jacket or no jacket, etc. etc. It’s driving me crazy! Granted, I know she is going through a big change and she probably doesn’t really know just why she is acting the way she is acting. I am trying to be patient with her and am trying to be understanding… I had a really hard time with the move, so I can only imagine what a 5 year old must be going through. The other day, I was invited to a little activity at her school called “Muffins for Moms” in honor of Mother’s Day. It was so sweet! I was late because I was stuck without a car, and when I finally got there, she just gave me a little smile. We argued when it was time to go and in the car on the way home. I’m getting SO frustrated with this “new” Haylie. I want my old Haylie back. We’ve got 3.5 weeks of school left… they better fly!

Tallest Building in Wyoming

The tallest building in Wyoming is at this power plant in between Green River and Rawlins. I was told it’s like 12 stories tall (no joke) and it’s out in the middle of NOWHERE (And by “No joke,” I mean it’s not that tall).

Out & About

This last Sunday the 9 of us loaded up and drove about a half hour to the neighboring town of Saratoga. CUTE, fun town! Rachel and Steve took us to a fun little park with a really cute bridge. How could we pass up this perfect photo opportunity with such cute little kids?! Naomi would have jumped right into the river if we’d have let her.

Wyoming is SUPER cold still. We’re talking heavy snow. We were all dressed in long pants and coats and hoods and these boys thought it was like the middle of summer! We saw this truck and trailer full of high school boys drive by a few times and finally Joe said, “Get a picture!” So I grabbed my camera and as soon as I put the camera up the boy with the sunglasses and no hat waved at me. I was just thinking… ‘Oh great. This kid thinks I’m “taking pictures of HIM.”’ Come to find out, these boys were hauling sand bags down to the river that is expected to flood. It’s called the North Platte River and apparently it’s expected to flood severely from the “way more than normal” snow pack.

Maggie wasn’t allowed to play on the bridge so she just played by this rock. She was ok with that.

 

Just a cool picture. I actually took this picture in the car while we were driving. How lucky is that?

After playing around in Saratoga for a while, we drove up the road a little bit, through some mountains called The Snowy Range. BEAUTIFUL. The contrast of colors at this spot was amazing- I couldn’t help but take a picture. LOVE it.

Joe took this picture… we thought the big snow drift was really cool set against the blue sky. Wyoming really is a beautiful state.. you just have to search to find the really pretty parts.

We drove as far as we could go… there was still too much snow to drive all the way to Laramie. There was a little clearing where a snow blower was parked, so we all piled out! 4 adults, 4 kids, (Maggie was sleeping) and 3 dogs.

Now, I know it looks like it would be cold. But it seriously wasn’t. I was wearing flip flops… It was cold on my feet, but the sun was SO WARM! As you can see, Connor isn’t wearing a jacket and he didn’t complain once! Well… if you don’t count his cold hands.

I ended up taking more pictures of the dogs, than kids because they were having SO MUCH FUN! I could have stood out there all day watching them wrestle and run around.

Brutus is Rachel and Steve’s lab. And we have Lucy (she’s an English Pointer) and Lady (our slightly overweight Beagle).

I just couldn’t stop taking pictures of Lady. She was having so much fun! She is 5.5 years old and has started to get a wee bit lazy. I loved seeing her act like a puppy again.

I’m positive she has a smile on her face in every picture.

Lucy probably ran 5 miles in the short 20 minutes we were there. This girl can “RUNNOFT!” (For you, Chels ;)

Great times had by all! Can’t wait to explore some more new territory!

Happy May Day From Wyoming!!

Brrr……

(More to come from our first week!)