Home away from home on the range

No, we are not back home yet. I just had a little down time and thought I would let you all in on what we've been up to.

The first stop of our trip was at my Sister Jenn and her husband Chris's house in Colorado. They live on a huge cattle ranch, and it was a kid's paradise. Josh being included in that.

So many fun things to see and do. But the highlight of the trip for me was being able to visit with my Mom and sister and holding my new niece.

Do you know how hard it is to get little kids to sit still and smile for a picture? In the end it's better to just do silly faces. These are all the grand kids on the Morgan side.

Really, when your up in the mountains the possibilities for fun are endless. Everyone loved riding on the four wheeler, even Macy.

A little back yard jeeping.

Out at the barn waiting to ride the horse.

We didn't know how well Macy would do with the horses since she is terrified of animals, but being around them for a week really helped her loosen up. By the time we left she wasn't running from the dog anymore.

Riding horses at Auntie Jenn's house was all Samm talked about for months.

Josh and Bandit (the horse) bonded quite a bit when Josh rode him on a cattle drive one of the days.

While we were out with the horses, my brother-in-law's parents came out to say hello and his mom brought us some delicious watermelon.

There was a fire pit in the backyard so we roasted marshmallows a couple of times and made s'mores.

Josh and James spied a couple of bucks grazing one evening. There was also a wild turkey spotting one morning.

I guess I need to amend what I said earlier. All Samm could talk about was the horses until she found out there were kittens there.

James had fun playing in the sandbox and dumping it on top of the other kids. I didn't love washing it out of their hair though.

We also took a little drive to the rifle creek falls to do some fishing and exploring.

Apparently Chris will do anything to save his fly. (The fishing kind)

I thought this picture was too cute. Ava is a complete daddy's girl.

There was mucho cave exploring.

And other types of exploring

The waterfalls were beautiful

Macy and Ava found a little creek to play in.

I found this cute little bridge that I wanted to take pictures on, but Macy kept running away.

The Shideler and Rollins families in front of the waterfalls.

We went out in the backyard to shoot guns one night and the kids sat in the back of the truck and cheered.

Josh did pretty good for not having shot a gun in quite a while. (They were just shooting clay pigeons)

Neither of the kids wanted anything to do with the guns at first because they are so loud but Josh finally convinced James to try and then he was trigger happy.

After we were done Josh said "there's nothing sexier than a women holding an assault rifle!" only I thought he said "there's nothing sexier than a woman holding a salt lick!" I was not all that flattered. Then, later when we were looking through the pictures Samm said "Mom, you weren't very good but I was still proud of you!" She's right. I wasn't good at all.

And finally on our last night there Dad sent up a tent for the older two in the back yard so they could camp.

They even had a guard dog.

We had such a great time it was sad to leave, but there was more family to see.

Now we are in the land of mini vans visiting all kinds of family and having lot's more fun.