Playing during horse lessons

While the kids did horse lessons with Dennis and Uncle Derek, everyone else got to play around the farm. The first pic is Mike with his sister Bianca tearing it up on the quad, then my beautiful niece Cheyenne reading, then Mike with Courtney and Jax on the quad, and lastly, the cousins hanging out in the shade.

More fun with the family

So Uncle Derek and Aunt Bianca were up here two weeks ago for Courtney's baptism and all the cousins got to go to Courtney and Jo's horse lessons. It was really awesome because Uncle Derek is an old cowboy and he got to help the kids with their lessons. Wish he was always here to do that! The first pic is Jo and Uncle Derek, the second one is Sunshine and Eli, the third one is Eli and Jackson, the last one is Jackson and Courtney.

The end of the rafting pics

Well, besides all of us surviving, we learned what a trooper Grandma Sylvia is! At the end of that adventurous tube down the river, she said,"Well that was so adventurous!" That is her trying to fish and tube down the river :)

More rafting pictures

White Water Adventures

Okay they were only Class II rapids, but it was still very adventurous (for the lucky people in the tubes!) We took out dad's raft, but were short a few seats so Jo, Mike and Grandma went on tubes (which we did last year without incident.) This year the water was higher, and those of us in the raft had a great, relaxing 2 hour float down the river. The tube brigade wasn't so lucky. Jo wasn't in her tube when they went down the first rapids, so Mike jumped out of his tube to help her and got pretty banged up. So he's a hero, and we all survived. Not probably going to be repeating that trip in the tubes though!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So, while the girls were gone at EFY, we had a lot of company! Uncle John was here (that's him with a teeny tiny burger he created), Uncle Rob and Aunt Melanie were here with our new niece Indigo, and later in the week Aunt Bianca came with Uncle Derek and their kids Cheyenne, Jackson, and our new nephew Jericho. Also Grandma Sylvia was here for the week on break from taking care of Aunt Kelly who is on bedrest. So what was the big occasion? Well Miss Courtney was getting baptized and it was a perfect excuse for everyone to converge here! More pics to come!

The big girls get a week away...

Sassy and her cousin from Texas got to go to EFY (Especially for Youth) for a week and stay at the dorms! It is a weeklong program for the youth in our church with special speakers, fun activities, and dances, etc. They had a blast and Uncle John(who stayed the week) made a new best friend of Sunshine.

The parade on the Fourth (Fifth) of July!

This year the parade was held on Monday the 5th since the 4th was on a Sunday. Mike and his brother John took Sassy and her cousin to EFY with Grandma Sylvia, so we went to the (very hot) parade. The kids got a ton of candy, and I got my legs sunburned! We left early (after 2 hours!) and had a barbeque up at mom and dad's with fireworks by Mike, Aunt Nikki, the kids and Uncle Eric for the finale.

Best concert ever!

This last week Mike and I were lucky enough to get AWESOME tickets to a concert that featured both a choir directed by Craig Jessop, and PETER CETERA!!!! For those of you who don't know Peter, he was originally part of Chicago and now sings solo (or duet)some of my favorite songs! Like "You're the Inspiration", "The Glory of Love" from Karate Kid, "The Next Time I Fall" with Amy Grant, "After All" with Cher, "Restless Heart", "One Good Woman", "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" and "If you Leave Me Now." If you can't tell by all the exclamation marks, it was the best concert we have ever been to! And The American Festival Chorus directed by Craig Jessop is always so spectacular, they just sound so amazing. So one of the reasons I am lucky to be married to a banker: we got the tickets for free just for taking clients because the bank was one of the sponsors :)