Back in the Saddle

We went and watched Blake rope one night this week. He and Ryan {his roping partnah} just roped the hot heels, which is like a mechanical steer that's usually pulled by a four-wheeler. Stella loved seeing her daddy on a horse!



{She very much wanted to join her daddy}



Boys and their toys...

Last Saturday, Blake bought a new pickup. His old Dodge {which was only a 2007} had gone through about 3 tranmission repairs in a matter of a month. Come to find out there are issues with that model year's transmission. So, because of the nature of Blake's work he can NOT be without a working vehicle to haul the tractors around, etc, and so began the search for a new truck.

After the couple week search, he settled on a Super Duty F-350 and that's about as much as I know about the truck ;). I do know that he'll be getting some more bells and whistles {like cab lights, running boards, tinted windows, diesel tank, etc} put on it in the next couple weeks, and I know he's super excited to have a functioning, reliable vehicle! And nothing makes me happier than knowing he's excited and happy!

{Papaw playing with Stella in the new truck}

Last Weekend

This past weekend was pretty low-key compared to the crazy weekends we've been having. We had already made plans to have Stella stay with my parents on Friday night so when mine and Blake's plans didn't end up happening my mom still wanted to keep Stella. So, Blake and I had a little date night at Texas Land and Cattle. G-Mommy and G-Daddy took Stella to Petsmart since she is such an animal-lovin' girl and she LOVED seeing all the dogs that people brought in with them and the fishies!

Saturday, Blake spent most of the day at the car dealership buying a new truck {I'll do another post with pictures!} So, I got a little "me" time because Greg and Lori came to get Stella Saturday afternoon and took her to CB's {an awesome burger place in old Greenville}. Then, we met back at Blake's grandparents house and Stella played with her cousins, Carson and Allie, and got some lovin' from Aunt Brigitte!

Saturday for supper we had "snack night." I was craving a bunch of snacks and decided, why not?! Stella still ate a healthy dinner, but for Blake and I it was stuffed jalapenos, crostini's, and buffalo chicken dip! Cream cheese may or may not have been involved in all the recipe's!

Later that evening, since Stella hadn't seen the horses in a while, we took her to the farm to love on the "boys."

Sunday after church, we had lunch with my parents and relaxed over there for a while and watched the Olympics {I seriously do not know what I'm going to do with my life after the Olympics are over...I'm going to have withdrawals!}.

We had a great weekend and I'm already ready for another!

Celebration Park

I {FINALLY} took Stella to the splash park in Allen last week! Lauren and her two sweeties, Cutter and Avery, joined along. We had a quick lunch at Chik Fil A {since I didn’t really feel like packing one} and we got to Celebration Park around noon. I didn’t expect the huge playground that they had. Surprisingly, Stella seemed to be more interested in climbing around on the playground than cooling off in the water in the splash area. We only stayed about an hour just because it was SO hot, a little crowded, and Stella just doesn’t have a great attention span {i.e. NO attention span}. We had a great time and I’m glad I got to take her!

The Bonham Rodeo

Saturday night we went to the Bonham rodeo with Lauren, Cody, their two kiddos – Avery and Cutter, and a couple friends from Lauren and Cody’s hometown!

We ate some Mexican food and then got to the rodeo right on time. Can I just tell you how extremely hot it was? I’m really not a person who sweats that much {TMI, I know}, but Saturday night was an exception – I could just feel the beads of sweat running down my back. Eww, I’m grossing myself out just thinking about it!

The highlight of my evening was Stella riding on a pony. She’s sat one of our horses, Cadillac, a few times, but she’s never really gotten to “ride” before. {Please note – I feel incredibly guilty that she hasn’t been “riding” yet, but we just haven’t made the time to ride lately and with the 100+ heat, it’s probably not going to be until this fall that we get back out there}. But, the joy that was all over her face solidified our next horse purchase – a pony for Stella! Blake offered to buy one of the ponies there, but apparently they weren’t for sale!



{She was waving at her "fans" with the Lane Frost wave}



We sat down in our seats {with our handy dandy newly-purchased seat cushions ;)} and watched several events. We only stayed in our seats about 30 minutes, 1. Due to the heat 2. It was getting late and I like to have Stella in bed at a semi-decent hour, even on the weekends and 3. I was uber paranoid that the back of my shirt was drenched and that people were probably staring in disgust at me!

But, one of my favorite parts of the rodeo was the Cowgirl Chicks! These girls are amazing with all the trick riding they can do. I seriously wish I would have started doing this at a younger age because it looks so FUN!



{This pic is from the RFD website, but you can get an idea of how cool these chicks are!}



{Another pic from the RFD website}



We had a great time, though, even if we did cut it a little short! I love rodeos and I love hanging with great friends!

Cheyenne, WY - Part III

Our last morning in Cheyenne, we woke up early to head to the Cheyenne Depot Plaza where they were having a free pancake breakfast. You cannot imagine the crowd of people. The line was ridiculous…

So, after snapping a few pics we decided that no free pancake was worth that kind of wait and so we decided to go back to the little diner with the amazing gravy!

After breakfast, we left Wyoming and headed for Ft. Collins, CO to go white water rafting. We were all super excited for our rafting adventure. We didn’t realize how short the drive would be so we were able to drive around for a little while looking at the mountainous scenery. It was beautiful, despite the dryness and the fires that had burned acres and acres of land.

We finally headed back to the rafting headquarters and put on our swimsuits and listened to the safety briefing. Which, let me mention, can definitely freak a girl out. I was not the least bit nervous about rafting until they started preparing you for all that can go wrong and what you need to do in certain situations. I remembered that if I was to come out of the raft to get on my back or swim on my stomach, but NOT to try and stand up (because you can break a leg on the rocks or drown, basically). Now, I should also mention that our first rafting reservation cancelled on us due to the low water in the river. So, of course, we couldn’t leave Colorado without rafting, so we called around and found a place that was rafting on a river that still had high enough water (but even that river still had a very low water level).

Also, this river is the second cleanest river in the United States, however, because of the fires it had turned the river BLACK. There was ash and all sorts of debris in the river, so they said not to wear any clothes/swim suits that we couldn’t bear parting with if they got too dirty.

So, after all that we got onto the bus for the 20 minute drive to where we would put the raft in the river. There were 6 rafts total and we were the only raft without young kids. It was Lauren, Cody, Blake and I, and then also a lady and her teenage niece. Our guide was 20 years old and this was his 3^rd season on the river. We were excited to have the young, fun guide. On the bus, the guides pointed out the biggest rapid that we would be rafting through, a class IV rapid, which also happened to be the FIRST rapid.

We were the last raft in line to go through this first rapid. All the rafts made it through and it looked SO exhilarating! In hindsight, after watching the video, we were the only raft that came in sideways to this rapid. Unfortunately, the way the raft hit the rapid I was thrown from the raft as well as the teenage girl sitting behind me. She miraculously landed perched on a rock and waited for rescue. My head was being held under water by the raft and the surging of the rapids. Lucky for me my handsome husband was a rescue swimmer in the Navy for several years, so he’s very comfortable in the water. Blake was also in a bad way and couldn’t keep in the raft when we came into the rapid, so he let himself fall back into the water to pull me up by my life jacket and held us at the raft until the guide was able to pull us both back in. We paddled to the side of the river where the guide had to get out and walk back up river to throw a rope to the teenage girl to get her off the rock!

That was WAY more excitement than I had anticipated having on the river. And apparently the guide, too. He said he’d never had this much action this soon into the trip. I should mention that before the first rapid, the guide and another lady had already fallen into the river…I’m still not sure how that happened! Blake, of course, said he wouldn’t have thought the rafting was near as exciting had we NOT fallen in. I cannot say I share the same sentiment.

{please don't judge us for the crazy faces/looks we got going on!}

On the second rapid, we had to “highside” which is where everyone on the low side of the raft has to move to the high side of the raft to keep it from flipping over and dumping everyone into the river!

The rest of the rafting trip was thankfully uneventful. On our bus ride back we saw a black bear in the middle of the road. Once he saw the bus he scaled an almost-vertical mountain-side. I so wish we would have had camera’s on the bus, but we couldn’t risk them getting wet or stolen. But, seeing the bear was awesome.

{he was about this size!}

We left straight from the rafting outfitter and began our LONG drive home. We drove down through Colorado and stayed the night on the border between New Mexico and Texas. We drove through the Raton Pass, which was beautiful. We didn’t want to drive through the night again since we knew we’d have to be taking care of our kiddo’s and didn’t want our sleep schedule to be too messed up.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see Stella. That was, by far, the longest I had been away from her and I was literally aching to see her. When we picked her up at my parents house she kind of stared at us like it was just dawning on her that she hadn’t seen us in a while. Oh that precious thinger!!

We had such a GREAT trip that was full of awesome memories! I really hope we can make the trip again next year and take Stella, Avery, and Cutter!