For Memorial Day weekend, we went to the Ranch. We picked up 40 spruce trees about a month ago and needed to get them planted. My in-laws, who spend summers between their ranch and cabin, came up as well. It was good to see them--we hadn't seen them since they came up to see the clogging performance in March.
We didn't leave until mid-afternoon on Sunday because The Father had emergencies all Sunday morning. He didn't eat breakfast or anything before he went to take care of all the boarding animals. Anyway, we arrived at the Ranch about 4pm. Usually it takes about an hour to get there, but hauling all those stinking trees with a max speed of like 55 was really slow. The Father and his dad spent the next 4 hours digging holes, placing trees, and filling in holes. Fun for them. My mother-in-law and I spent about the same amount of time inside the house vacuuming up dead bugs (my brother-in-law let off a bug bomb and there were a whole lotta dead bugs) and getting plastic off beds so we could sleep at some point. We fixed dinner and tried to lure my f-i-l and The Father in to eat with pans and spoons like a dinner bell. Needless to say, it didn't work. They finished the last of the trees, came in, and we all ate. It was 8:30 at night, which is already 1/2 hour past the girl's bedtime. Nevermind that--"we're at the Ranch" (it's my favorite phrase) so lets go find a bunch of wood and start a fire so we can roast marshmallows! Hooray! Lets really sugar 'em up before we try to put them to bed! ;)
M3 had a great time. It was her first Mallow Roast. She enjoyed it but it scared me. She doesn't understand the danger of fire, she kept walking too close to the fire, you all know what I'm talking about. The Father "gave" her the cinder block to sit on and man is she possessive! M2 sat on it a couple times, and she would shimmy back to the block and say "Choo choo" which in M3-ese means "excuse you" so M2 would move. It was pretty funny. She was also so not patient. She didn't want to wait for the fire to be ready and kept asking Grammy for more marshmallows. She probably ate 6 before anyone else had had any. I have no idea where she gets her attribute of impatience. :-)
Finally we had the fire ready and we all got to roast marshmallows. By the way, roasted marshmallows at age 31 are not nearly as tasty as roasted marshmallows at age 5. In fact, they are nasty. On to the next M...M2 ate marshmallows equal to her body weight. It was ridiculous how many marshmallows she roasted and inhaled. Notice the bag in Grammy's hand (yellow jacket)--I think M2 ate 2/3 of the bag on her own. OK, I might me exaggerating a little bit
, but not much. As you can see, she really enjoyed her mallows. M1 liked it too, but she is such a seasoned fire-pit attender and marshmallow roaster that she was telling all of us how to roast our mallows. Which coals are the best, how slowly you need to rotate your stick, your stick isn't pointy enough--let me carve it for you (as she is pulling her pocket knife out of her pocket). It was pretty funny. As you can see by the color of her marshmallow, she really did k
now what she was talking about. Awesome.
So finally, we decided it was time to go into the house and wash up for bed. After all, it is almost 10pm. Crazy. So we all get into bed and go to sleep. M3 slept with me and man, I don't know about all of you, but I surely don't enjoy sleeping with a 2 year old. She kicked, and cried, and got stuck between the head board and the mattress, man what a bad night of sleep. The next morning rolled around way too early and the two big Ms were up before 7. Keep in mind they are usually in bed by 8pm and get up around 715. To bed 2 hours later, up early...I could tell it was going to be a long day. Luckily M3 slept in until 8. It was awesome. My m-i-l fixed a great breakfast that was great for my "diet" and we began our day.
M1 got her BB gun out (yes, she has a bb gun, and no, I'm not happy about it) and wanted to
practice shooting. She cracks me up is all I can say. She is getting too big--she is almost as tall as my shoulder, and she acts like she is 13...and she's only 7. It scares me because I already am at a loss of what to do when she says some of the things she says. But then she can be so sweet and thoughtful that I don't know where the other part of her comes from. So frustrating.
We decided that we needed to make ice cream. Obviously. We found an ice cream maker in a cupboard and thought we ought to go on a 4-wheeler ride to the snow to use in making our ice cream. We didn't have cream. We didn't have 1/2 and 1/2. All we had was evaporated milk and skim milk. To start off, M3 doesn't like loud sounds. You know, the kinds that 4-wheelers make. So 5 of us piled onto the ATV and off we went. Our adventure was exactly that. We sort of fell into a ditch (full of running water), we nearly lost the ATV (it tried to get away from us) after getting it unstuck from said ditch, we tried to cross a different ditch and got stuck, so we had to man handle it out. It was an adventure. My m-i-l and I were laughing so hard I almost peed my pants and she couldn't keep her hand on the break. It was an adventure. M2 and M3 both ended up crying because they were so scared, and M1 was laughing her head off (I think to ward off the fear). Needless to say, we got the bucket of snow back to the house and made our ice cream. And it was surprisingly good. My expectations weren't very high, but it was pretty good. I love home made ice cream. Did I mention that I love home made ice cream? I do.
So we had a good day. It was exciting, it was rainy, it was fun, and we had home made ice cream. We didn't get to visit any of our family graves, but we thought about them. Then we came home through pouring rain and got unpacked. We've got to go back to school tomorrow. Fun for us.
We had a great Memorial Day and I am grateful for those who are fighting for my freedom. I'm especially grateful for those who have died for my freedom and I'm grateful to their families. I know what it's like to lose a loved one, and I am sincerely grateful to those who have made that sacrifice.
We didn't leave until mid-afternoon on Sunday because The Father had emergencies all Sunday morning. He didn't eat breakfast or anything before he went to take care of all the boarding animals. Anyway, we arrived at the Ranch about 4pm. Usually it takes about an hour to get there, but hauling all those stinking trees with a max speed of like 55 was really slow. The Father and his dad spent the next 4 hours digging holes, placing trees, and filling in holes. Fun for them. My mother-in-law and I spent about the same amount of time inside the house vacuuming up dead bugs (my brother-in-law let off a bug bomb and there were a whole lotta dead bugs) and getting plastic off beds so we could sleep at some point. We fixed dinner and tried to lure my f-i-l and The Father in to eat with pans and spoons like a dinner bell. Needless to say, it didn't work. They finished the last of the trees, came in, and we all ate. It was 8:30 at night, which is already 1/2 hour past the girl's bedtime. Nevermind that--"we're at the Ranch" (it's my favorite phrase) so lets go find a bunch of wood and start a fire so we can roast marshmallows! Hooray! Lets really sugar 'em up before we try to put them to bed! ;)
M3 had a great time. It was her first Mallow Roast. She enjoyed it but it scared me. She doesn't understand the danger of fire, she kept walking too close to the fire, you all know what I'm talking about. The Father "gave" her the cinder block to sit on and man is she possessive! M2 sat on it a couple times, and she would shimmy back to the block and say "Choo choo" which in M3-ese means "excuse you" so M2 would move. It was pretty funny. She was also so not patient. She didn't want to wait for the fire to be ready and kept asking Grammy for more marshmallows. She probably ate 6 before anyone else had had any. I have no idea where she gets her attribute of impatience. :-)
Finally we had the fire ready and we all got to roast marshmallows. By the way, roasted marshmallows at age 31 are not nearly as tasty as roasted marshmallows at age 5. In fact, they are nasty. On to the next M...M2 ate marshmallows equal to her body weight. It was ridiculous how many marshmallows she roasted and inhaled. Notice the bag in Grammy's hand (yellow jacket)--I think M2 ate 2/3 of the bag on her own. OK, I might me exaggerating a little bit
, but not much. As you can see, she really enjoyed her mallows. M1 liked it too, but she is such a seasoned fire-pit attender and marshmallow roaster that she was telling all of us how to roast our mallows. Which coals are the best, how slowly you need to rotate your stick, your stick isn't pointy enough--let me carve it for you (as she is pulling her pocket knife out of her pocket). It was pretty funny. As you can see by the color of her marshmallow, she really did k
now what she was talking about. Awesome.So finally, we decided it was time to go into the house and wash up for bed. After all, it is almost 10pm. Crazy. So we all get into bed and go to sleep. M3 slept with me and man, I don't know about all of you, but I surely don't enjoy sleeping with a 2 year old. She kicked, and cried, and got stuck between the head board and the mattress, man what a bad night of sleep. The next morning rolled around way too early and the two big Ms were up before 7. Keep in mind they are usually in bed by 8pm and get up around 715. To bed 2 hours later, up early...I could tell it was going to be a long day. Luckily M3 slept in until 8. It was awesome. My m-i-l fixed a great breakfast that was great for my "diet" and we began our day.
M1 got her BB gun out (yes, she has a bb gun, and no, I'm not happy about it) and wanted to
practice shooting. She cracks me up is all I can say. She is getting too big--she is almost as tall as my shoulder, and she acts like she is 13...and she's only 7. It scares me because I already am at a loss of what to do when she says some of the things she says. But then she can be so sweet and thoughtful that I don't know where the other part of her comes from. So frustrating.We decided that we needed to make ice cream. Obviously. We found an ice cream maker in a cupboard and thought we ought to go on a 4-wheeler ride to the snow to use in making our ice cream. We didn't have cream. We didn't have 1/2 and 1/2. All we had was evaporated milk and skim milk. To start off, M3 doesn't like loud sounds. You know, the kinds that 4-wheelers make. So 5 of us piled onto the ATV and off we went. Our adventure was exactly that. We sort of fell into a ditch (full of running water), we nearly lost the ATV (it tried to get away from us) after getting it unstuck from said ditch, we tried to cross a different ditch and got stuck, so we had to man handle it out. It was an adventure. My m-i-l and I were laughing so hard I almost peed my pants and she couldn't keep her hand on the break. It was an adventure. M2 and M3 both ended up crying because they were so scared, and M1 was laughing her head off (I think to ward off the fear). Needless to say, we got the bucket of snow back to the house and made our ice cream. And it was surprisingly good. My expectations weren't very high, but it was pretty good. I love home made ice cream. Did I mention that I love home made ice cream? I do.
So we had a good day. It was exciting, it was rainy, it was fun, and we had home made ice cream. We didn't get to visit any of our family graves, but we thought about them. Then we came home through pouring rain and got unpacked. We've got to go back to school tomorrow. Fun for us.
We had a great Memorial Day and I am grateful for those who are fighting for my freedom. I'm especially grateful for those who have died for my freedom and I'm grateful to their families. I know what it's like to lose a loved one, and I am sincerely grateful to those who have made that sacrifice.
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