Ride Together

One of the moms at Moms Together at the beginning of the month offered to organize a day for us to all go out riding together. The morning came after the first snow and really cold night. Thankfully, the sun was shining. It made for a beautiful ride...the trees were turning, the sky was brilliantly blue, the snow was glistening in the sun and the air was crisp and fresh.

We had a little brunch first. It was delicious!

Group picture!
Timber Creek and my big fat horse, Dually

Snack time!

Molly the Marvelous on a new horse of ours, Diamond Jim (Jimmy, I am wanting so bad to ride you soon but I guess we'll have to wait until I have time again!)

On A Sad Note

On a Wednesday night after coming home for Galaxy we received sad news. Our family friend and National Geographic photographer, Bobby Model, had passed away.

Two years ago June Bobby was in the passenger seat of a small truck in South Africa and a large piece of cement was thrown through the window and crushed his head leaving him fighting for his life. With the help of amazing medical care and his caring family Bobby survived several months in a coma, multiple surgeries, transporting from South Africa to New York to Denver and eventually home to Cody. He did come out of the coma eventually and began rehab to talk and become more mobile again. He was doing pretty well considering.

Unexpectedly Bobby took a turn for the worst and passed away. From what I understand he suffered a hemorrhage in his brain and it led to his brain shutting down the rest of his body.

We were able to join other close friends and family on the other ranch to celebrate Bobby's life and share in the closure of a service. I have great respect for Bobby's family. They graciously walked through this last 2 plus years. Our hearts and thoughts are with them.

Lapse In Photography Leads To The Unknown

My pictures stop telling my story at this point. I don't know who I am or what I have been doing since my sister-in-law's birthday party.

I just looked back at my schedule book. Now I know who I am and where I've been again. I had some great "girl's time" that next week. Faith the Fabulous and I went to see Julie and Julia. Loved it! The only disappointment was the fact that we couldn't go out for a gourmet, authentic (or even pseudo) French dinner afterward. We did go out for dinner though and it was awesome to be kid and hubby free for an evening. Although, we're never entirely hubby free since Faith the Fabulous' hubby seems to need to be connected through phone and text on any given occasion that the girl's are trying to be void of any testosterone in the air. : ) Love you Faith the Fabulous' wonderful husband, but come on! Open the fridge, choose a tupperware, set it in the microwave, push a series of buttons, and eat! She will be home soon enough!

We have an on-going inside joke that all he eats is burnt popcorn when she's gone. Sadly enough, its not really a joke. Bless you Faith the Fabulous...and at least you're not unsure of your necessity and importance around your house!

Anyways, back to girly-girls.

I got to spend a lot of time with Molly the Marvelous that week too. It was fun! We got lots of stuff done for Moms Together and her daughter's 12th birthday party. We also had to practice the Hannah Montana Hoedown Throwdown dance for the birthday party too. I don't know if I will allow for pictures or movies to enter this blog on that one. We'll have to see. : )

I think I am ready to move on to the next post. Wow! We're cruising now!

Happy Birthday, Auntie!

The day after Monica the Magnificent left we got to celebrate The Prairie Daddy's oldest sister's birthday at Mom and Dad's. (Wow, that was a lot of apostrophes!) It was a fun time to get the family together and hang out. We hadn't all gotten together since the end of Spring and it was high time for a family get together!

The Prairie Daddy's other local sister gave The Birthday Girl this awesome bird feeder! Neat, eh?

And this is what starting preschool, having company, and running around like chicken's with your heads cut off for more than a week does to a little guy...

And at this point I was feeling the same way...only at 6pm I wasn't able to conk out on the recliner like The Prairie Kid.

And Then What?

The last night Monica the Magnificent was in town we had a BBQ for her over at Cowboys With A Mission. It was a whole lot of fun. Many of our friends from the region came down and we had a great time. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

Oh Monica...I love you sooooo much!

Monica the Magnificent got to finally meet Brett's new wife, Angie

And my great friends (it is nice being friends with The Law!)

And my dear Molly the Marvelous. Smoooooch, girl! Love ya!

The Morning After

And after the crazy ride up the mountain we had a whole day off, lounging around, eating bon-bons, getting pedicures, massages, mud masks, and ..................................
Sorry, I just had a lapse of reality. The morning after the Crazy Ride The Prairie Kid had his first day of preschool! So we were up getting ready and making sure we were on time with our i's dotted and t's crossed. I took his cutie patutie little picture and he left with his auntie who is conveniently taking him to preschool the 3 days a week that he goes because she is already headed to town.
Here is The Prairie Kid on his first day of full-time, real-deal, 3 days, 3 hours per day preschool

After The Prairie Kid left Monica the Magnificent and I sat down to a cup of coffee and a good, long chat. It was a great time together and when we were done I decided to start tackling the list of things I had to get done before that evening...because it was the first night of Galaxy, the mid-week children's program I coordinate at our church! (Yes, I am crazy...I pile up loads and hoards of huge things to accomplish in one week on my plate and hope that I survive).

So...there I was...starting to accomplish the hoards of things to accomplish. And I looked at the clock. PANIC!!! The Prairie Kid's preschool had ended 15 minutes ago!!! "MONICA!!! WE FORGOT THE PRAIRIE KID!!!" And off I ran to the phone to call and tell them I would be there soon. I raced to get myself in the car and managed to get him picked up with my tail between my legs and my identity on a platter with a decorative title "Humbled."

Yep, I was the mom that forgot to pick her kid up on his FIRST day of preschool. Way to go, Prairie Mama!

We regrouped when we came home and I was a wild banshee accomplishing the tasks at hand and managed to get Galaxy launched. Whew.

Here I am helping the kids through the "Instant Drama"

Here is where the Red Sea crashed over the Egyptians after the Israelites were safely across...
And God only knows what we were doing here...

Whew. I am exhausted just recounting this wild week that we had. I think I need a bon-bon.

Where Were We?

I might finish catching you up by next Spring at this rate. I do want to get caught up though!
Did I tell you that Monica the Magnificent came to visit on Labor Day weekend for a whole week??? Well, she did! I was in friendship/girly-girl heaven with her here. It was great!

Labor Day Weekend ended with Monica the Magnificent and I taking a dip in the hot tub to enjoy a relaxing evening. The Prairie Daddy came out to join us. He mentioned that plans suddenly came up for him to go over to Dad's ranch and help get the cows and calves pushed back up on the mountain. And they were short of help. And that he had to leave our ranch at 4:45 in the morning. And the next thing we knew we were all scurrying around like crazy people trying to get ready for the next day.

Why were we all scurrying around? Because it so happened that The Prairie Daddy took us up on our offer to help and now we were in "get ready for a big adventure tomorrow" mode. It was 8pm when I called a friend to come stay the night so that The Prairie Kid actually had supervision when he woke up the next day and Mom, Dad and Auntie Monica were gone. So, we made lunches, breakfasts, gathered up hoards of clothes, coats, boots, etc. and went to bed to get up at 4am and head out by 4:45. Thank God for coffee!

We got saddled up and headed out with The Cowboys and proceeded to right hard for hours. It is 9 miles to get the cows where we want them...and it isn't an easy 9 miles. It is through timber, downed timber (thanks to our lovely Forest Service's lack of healthy forest management...yes, I am on my soap box), sharp turns up mountain slopes, and up, up, up. I warned my dear friend that this would be the chance of a lifetime that also came with severe consequences...and we both paid for that hard ride for days to come. I seriously was in better condition after bearing The Prairie Kid then after getting out of my saddle that day. But it was worth it!

This ride is one that I hadn't done since I was first married. And although the hardest that we do around here (in my opinion) it is also a beautiful one.

When we made it to the upper barn we got our horses assigned to us and all ready to go. Here is The Prairie Daddy helping get Monica the Magnificent all set. She was on Smokey.

And I rode Tonto.
We gave our cows and horses a little break after awhile

This is looking back at where we'd ridden...and a view of Rattlesnake Canyon with Buffalo Bill Reservoir in the background.

My dear father-in-law. 70 years old and still tough as nails.

Another terrible view...

Snuggling with my Honey Bunny at lunch (he looks like a Honey Bunny, doesn't he? : ) )

My kindred spirit...Monica The Magnificent

Shabby view, eh?

The top of Heart Mountain in the background. The cows were left on the top of Rattlesnake Mountain until we bring them home next month.

Hanging out to make sure the cows are pairing up with their calves

All done pushing the cows and heading home

The terrain on the way off the mountain (because we take a shortcut) is so steep that it's best to walk your horse down. There were times that I thought my jello-like legs were going to buckle underneath my body! But like I said, its all worth it! (Although I am in pursuit of my own saddle...and one that fits me! I have been riding in saddles that are too big for me and it feels like my hips are going to dislocate. I think I'd like to keep them in their sockets and get a saddle that suited for me!)

We Even Offer A Drive Thru Service

In our local town Labor Day weekend is BIG. This is when the town has it's annual "shin-dig" of parade, BBQ, dance, picnics, rodeo, ropings, fun, festivities, races, etc. It was a perfect opportunity to get the word out about our Moms Together program and make some money! We had a great collection of baked goods brought in by lots of awesome moms and made a nice chunk of dough (hee, hee, nice play on words, eh?) to start off our year.


Somewhere in the craziness of getting things set up I lost complete track of my son. This wasn't too worrisome for me because #1- he isn't a wanderer, #2- I'd last seen him was with our pastor friend. However, after realizing it had been like 15 minutes since I'd seen The Prairie Kid I thought it would be a good idea for me to actually be a Moms Together mom and locate my child. Sure enough he was soon located...

...in the parade! And that Fabulous Float Waver on the left is our pastor friend with his oldest son in the cowboy hat.

I feel so stinkin' blessed to be on the Moms Together leadership team with 3 amazing women. Love you gals!

We got creative on our marketing scheme and recruited the kids to walk around with baskets and sell stuff...we also had samples and they REALLY helped...
And toward the end The Dads took it upon themselves to stop traffic headed to the rodeo and make the people buy stuff before they'd let them go by!!!

Way to go guys! Who knew cowboys were so good at selling Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting!

And off we were to the rodeo...in which there are no pictures.

The Best Anniversary Present

The Prairie Daddy swept me off my feet for our anniversary this year. He planned a really, really special adventure. He took me on a flight over our ranches and the local area. What a treat! A wonderful man from church worked with The Prairie Daddy to take us out on our adventure in his plane.

The Men had to chat about The Plane before we headed out

Cheese!

Come on, pull that plane outta the hanger!

All set in the back seat

After taking off we headed to Carter Mountain to fly over Foster Reservoir where we can store water on the mountain

And we headed to our ranch...this picture shows the creek bottom and you can barely make out where the shop, barn, etc. is...

See our house?

A picture of much of our ranch...see our house this time?

Flying over the Absaroka Mountains toward the end of the South Fork

The Buffalo Bill Reservoir coming down the South Fork of the Shoshone River

This is flying over the ranch The Prairie Daddy grew up on and where we got married

And a field being burned

Landing

We have a lot of video that I may actually get around to looking at sometime in my 80's so if I am still blogging at that point I might post some of it for you. There were lots more pictures but this is what I will leave you with for this post!