Six Flags Over Texas

Hi again, it has been a long time, and I know it. I'm sorry... I have found other things to do when I am online and I have also been busy offline as well ;) I know I am way behind on everything, so I'm going to try to jot it all down. After returning from Colorado in July, we took a family trip down to Dallas, TX to take the kids to 6 Flags. We spent 2 FULL days down there, literally we were at 6 Flags from open to close. The kids had SO much fun. Ryan actually talked Blake into doing the Dive Bomber with him. Here is the video I took, please forgive me, I was sooo nervous taking it!

I did that with Ryan last year, so I knew how scary it was. But Blake did very well. And Taylor also did something very brave, she rode the Titan, which is a huge roller coaster! At closing time, the park did a glow in the dark parade. They turned out the lights of the park, and the parade was all glow in the dark. It was honestly the coolest parade I've ever been to! Then after those fun filled 2 days we came home and did normal things, like swim in our pool :) Then the kids started school on August 10th and life has slown down a little. But we are still busy here. I actually have to get 5 of my mom's rent houses rented, and then in October we are having a church camp here, and am really looking forward to it :) Other than that, not much has changed in our lives. We are really enjoying living in this area, and are probably going to be living here for a long, long time :) (That's good cause I don't want to move again! ;)

My time in Colorado

Hello, I know it has been a while since my last post. I'm sorry I am just getting to posting about my trip to Colorado. Well to start off, it was 100 degrees the day I left and very humid! I have to drive at night, because I have no air conditioning in my van. So when I actually left it was about 85 degrees. I drove to Dumas, TX and stayed the rest of the night. When I woke up, it was already cooler, and the closer I got to Colorado, the cooler it got. I was up on one of the passes and actually hit 59 degrees, it was SO nice! I arrived in Olathe, Colorado and it was nice and cool there also. So it was WONDERFUL getting to escape the heat and humidity. I immediately started helping my mom with her cherry harvest. I worked EVERY DAY but ONE. And we worked from DAWN TO DUSK (except for Sundays, we only worked in the afternoon). We would go to bed at night not even able to keep our eyes open, we were so tired!

I had taken the kids' bikes out there to ride in the orchard, and I'm so glad I did, they had such a blast doing that. Blake actually learned how to ride his bike with no training wheels, and he really did GOOD once he learned, which was quite an ordeal teaching him.

Every day was about the same, work work work. Then we had an opportunity to be a vendor at a BIG event in Olathe. It was a thing called "Night Vision". Basically it was a 2 day festival (July 3rd and 4th) and they brought in about 15 Christian bands to perform. Some of the bands were: Natalie Grant, Brandon Heath, the David Crowder Band, The Catinas, etc... (I can't remember all of them). So for those 2 days, we sold cherries and got to be at the festival and work at the same time, which was pretty fun.

I went to Colorado a little discouraged. Not too bad, but just a little unhappy. Well, I got to go to 4 baptisms and an ordinance supper, which really uplifted me, which I REALLY needed!

One of the highlights of my trip was getting to go to Ouray, Colorado (on my one day off) and spend the day with my sister, Peggy, who lives there. She took me and the kids WAY up into the San Juan Range. The terrain was SCARY, it was a one lane road (with an occasional part to pull off for oncoming cars to get through). There were rocks (BIG ROCKS) everywhere on the road, and cliffs all over. It isn't the most peaceful drive up into the mountains, but the views are BREATHTAKING! She took us up what they call Yankee Boy Basin, and it is just gorgeous there! (The mountains displayed on the top of my page is the San Juan Range, and we were on the back side of them) I really enjoyed that day, and I know it will be a great memory for me and my kids forever.

The first scenery picture is an actual picture of the road we drove on, pretty scary huh? The below picture is of me, the kids, and my nephew, Danny

Then after being in Colorado for 2 weeks, I was ready to come home, even if it was to heat & humidity. The old saying is true: There's no place like home :) I decided to go home through Denver and stop and see my brother-in-law and sister-in-law (Dale and Chantel). So we drove up to Denver, stayed the night, and it ended up working out that Chantel got to ride with me to Oklahoma and visit her family for a week, so I had company on my way home.

It was such an enjoyable trip for me. I got so much rejoicing while I was there, and was just glad to get to go :)

I will be seeing a lot of this in my future:

I'm heading to Colorado next week to help my mom and sister (who have 8 acres (combined) of cherry orchards) with their cherry harvests. I'm very excited about it! I can't wait to eat cherries and then more cherries!!! I will be in Colorado until around the middle of July. I do need some prayers though, my back has been hurting for 3 months now, and every time I sit down, it hurts severely. I am not looking forward to 15 hours of sitting, it will hurt BAD after that. So please pray for my lower back. I hope everyone is having a good summer :)

Valentines Day

I hope everyone had a nice Valentines Day!!! My husband is in Colorado at the moment, but I still got a present from him, he's so sweet! Thank you Ryan!
As for our trip to Colorado, me and the kids are probably leaving this Friday. We don't know if we will get to go to Oregon, it is a possibility, but we can't say if we are going to go for sure. (I sure do hope so!!!)

Henryetta campout pictures

Here are the pictures I promised. We had such a WONDERFUL weekend. It was a very uplifting weekend. We visited with so many brethren, and it was just perfect!Ryan and the kids in front of our tentUs and brother Paul, the guy that married us, he's so special to us!!!My Uncle Ronnie visiting with my father-in-law, Ollie.The kids with Grandma SharonA stick bug I found on my tire, these things are neat!

Catch-up pictures!!!

I have mentioned in my past posts that I would post some pictures that I wasn't able to, because I am missing my USB cable. Anyway, I made a disc and am able to upload. Here they are:We went camping at Silver Jack reservoir. I hadn't been camping since I was about 3 months old, which I definitely don't remember. So I was VERRRRY happy to finally get to see what it was like. And I LOVED it!!! I can't wait to go again.

We had a shapshot of our family taken. It will be on our Christmas cards this year. It isn't professional, but I thought it turned out really good!!!This is one of my very closest friends, Beth. She is great!!!We ran into some ugly weather on the way home from Colorado. This is about 1 hour from Denver. Yes, it is snowing in August, how crazy is that?!?!
And last but not least, here are my children on their first day of school. Aren't they CUTE!!!

My niece's wedding

Hello again :) I'm taking a small break, and just couldn't resist posting about my niece's wedding. I have a few pictures from my sister, and when I get more time I will upload some of my own pictures from her wedding. It really was a beautiful wedding. Taylor was a candle lighter and Blake was the ring bearer. I thought they were adorable ;) When it was time for the kiss, Trevor did something I have never seen before, he dipped her and then kissed her, I thought that was so romantic, and cute! They are definitely crazy about each other, and I gained a WONDERFUL nephew!!! Left to right: My sister, Sue; Me; My Mom, Nora; and my sister, Peggy

My sister, Sue and her family

I'm HOME!!!

YAY! I'm finally home. However, I still won't be on here a lot this week because I am going to be SOOO busy! I have a 1 1/2 month "bachelor" house to clean up after. This evening I have been mowing my back yard (I'm taking a break RIGHT NOW) and cleaning the swimming pool. Plus, our kids start school on Wednesday. So I'm also preparing for that. I will post pictures from my niece's wedding very soon. I will also comment everyone, but it may take a little while for me to get back into the swing of things. I was VERY homesick, and am VERY glad to be home!!!!!! We'll talk to everyone soon :D

1 week in Colorado

I have been in Colorado for 1 week and already have SOOO much to write about. The only thing I can do is start with the day I arrived and go in order in what I have done since I've been here. I arrived Saturday, June 28th and that evening I went to my cousin, Arlene's wedding. It was very nice, and I LOVED seeing surprised faces ;) The next day, I went to church in Montrose and LOVED the new building. For the last 17 years, Montrose has held meetings in a TEENY TINY little building that just wasn't the ideal place for holding meetings. But they were blessed with a church just down the road from the old building. It was a church that had caught fire (while the people were in there) and so our church had a lot of work ahead of them. It took almost one year of cleaning and rebuilding, but they finally finished. It is SOOO nice. I will try to take some pictures sometime and post them. But it was amazing being able to sit in a nice building for church. After church, I went to a double anniversary party. This is pretty amazing, the girl that got married on Saturday, it was her parent's 25th anniversary, and her grandparent's 50th anniversary. So they all were married 25 years apart. I thought that was neat. It was my Aunt and Uncle that celebrated the 50th anniversary. It was a VERY nice turnout, I think there was around 250 people there. I enjoyed it :) Monday, I didn't do a lot, but did visit with my immediate family. Tuesday, I went to see my cousins, Jeanette and Amber, they are also out of towners ;) I had a nice time visiting with them. Wednesday, I didn't do much, I had severe allergies :P Thursday, I went to see my good friend, Beth. We always have good things to talk about, and I'm so happy to have a friend like her!!! Then I left from her house, to my sister's house in Ouray.

(These are taken from my sister's deck)

Ouray is seriously the most beautiful place I've ever been to!!! My sister has lived there for around 13 years, and I don't think she will ever leave Ouray. It is a tourist town. Ouray has a big July 4th festival, and I had never been to the day festivals. I had been to the firework show once, and it was amazing. Every time a firework boomed, it echoed because Ouray is a valley town surrounded by gorgeous mountains! SO it sounded like thunder all around. My sister, Peggy took me up into the mountains a little ways. There is this one cliff that is SCARY. It doesn't go straight down, it goes in a little bit. I love looking down from that cliff, but it always scares me!!! So Thursday was basically a sightseeing day. Then Friday was the best day ever. There was a July 4th parade. It was a very fun parade. Lots of water was flung to and from the floats. They really get into water fights there ;) Then, to our surprise, 2 (1940's) fighter planes flew over us, and I was able to get a great picture of one of them. It made the whole town cheer, and it was a very exciting moment. Those planes were very brave to fly in between mountains like they did. It was awesome. The parade ended and we immediately went to the park for the childrens races. They had a lot of different races for different ages of children. Taylor won the sprinting race, and the gunny sack race. She got $2.00 for winning. She is my little athlete. Then after that, we (me, my niece, Kayla, and the kids) went back to my sister's house and ate lunch and rested for a while. Then we went back to Main Street for the water fights. When you think of water fights, you think everyone had a water gun and was shooting everyone with it. NOPE that's not what this water fight was... This one is where the firefighters hook up two hoses and they have groups of 2 people spraying each other with those POWERFUL hoses. They spray each other until the other team either falls down, or loses control of the hoses. It was very intense. They also sprayed upwards and drenched everyone in the audience many times. After that, we went back to my sisters house and rested again. Then I took my kids to a place called Box Canyon. It is a MAJOR tourist attraction, you walk right up to a VERY powerful waterfall that has carved a small canyon. It is one of my favorite places to go. After that we went back to my sister's house and watched the fireworks from her roof. They were so amazing, I LOVED hearing the rumble all around me!!!

The next morning, I woke up and my niece and I took the kids and went to Grand Junction for another wedding, Nicole and Jered. It was a short and sweet wedding. Then we came back to Olathe (where I'm from). Then Sunday I went to church in Montrose again. It is Monday again, and I'm ready to slow this week down a little. The last week was so busy for me, I was running so much last week that I'm just not wanting to do anything this week, except spend time with my immediate family.
Whew... Sorry for the long story of my first week here. I hope I didn't bore anyone with it ;) I hope everyone else had a great July 4th!!!

Surprize...I'm in Colorado!!!

On Thursday evening, Ryan and I were visiting about our trip to Colorado in August, for my niece, Savanna's wedding. He knew that I have been homesick for a while, and he suggested taking some of our tax check and head to Colorado early. I quickly told him, YES! We got our tax check and I headed out here on Friday night. I left home at 10:00 pm and arrived in Colorado at 12:00pm. I drove ALL night, not sleeping a wink. I am most definitely not a night owl, so I figured that I would probably have to pull over and sleep for an hour or so sometime. But after A LOT of praying, and caffeine, I didn't even get tired AT ALL. I drove through some very scary lightning storms and heavy rain. I was nervous at first, but I kept praying and I felt very protected. I could tell that my van could have hydroplaned, I hit LOTS of puddles of water, and never felt like I was losing control. It was a neat feeling. But anyway, back to my story. I didn't tell ANY of my family that I was coming, and it was SOOO fun surprising everyone! I'm going to be here for 6 weeks. Ryan will come right before Savanna's wedding. I am really going to miss him! But I'm really happy that I get to spend time with my family and friends :)

Please forgive me if I'm not as good at leaving comments. My mom's computer is 20 times slower than mine, and I'm going to be very busy, but I'll still try to get on here as much as possible. We'll talk to everyone soon.

We're back!

Hello again! We made it home last night and I was so tired that I didn't get on the computer, I was ready for bed!!! We had such a great time down in Dallas! We got down there Friday around 11am. We went straight to 6 Flags. It wasn't too awful busy, so we got to ride the rides fairly quick. We rode the Batman ride first (it has the railing on the top, instead of under you) Then as soon as we rode that, Ryan made me to the Dive Bomber Alley/Sky Coaster. I was SO SCARED!!! It is where you get strapped into a harness and they attach a cord to your harness. Then they take you up, & up, & up..... I'm not really scared of heights, unless I know I'm going to be free-falling, which is EXACTLY what you do!!! It was terrifying, I wanted to yell "STOP, I don't want to do this!!!" But I knew they wouldn't hear me, and I knew I was doomed to have to do it. My husband made me! So we finally make it up to the top and they have a speaker up at the top and it tells you. "3-2-1 FLY!" Then Ryan pulled the rip cord, and we went head first for 2-3 seconds, and then finally leveled out on our stomachs. After that it was actually fun. My poor heart, it was hurting so bad! Then after we got that out of the way (THANK GOODNESS) we went and rode all the good rides! I love rollercoasters. The Titan is definitely a little scary at first. But it is also SOOO fun. Our 3 favorite rides were: The Batman, The Titan, and Mr Freeze. Mr Freeze starts out indoors and they immediately shoot you out at 70 mph. You don't have much time to get scared. The whole ride lasts 45 seconds, not long at all. At the end of the ride, you are seriously going STRAIGHT up at a 90 degree angle, then you go backwards. It was all so much fun!

We went again on Saturday, it was SO busy, but we had so much fun then also. Then on Sunday, we went to church. I grew up in Montrose/Delta area and there are a few people from that area that have moved to Dallas. It was so nice getting to see faces that I grew up with. We went to my cousins, Rod and Lynell's after church and had hamburgers. Then after lunch, my cousin, Caleb did a ventriloquist act for us. He is SO good at it! We really enjoyed it. Then we headed home and stopped halfway home to see some other friends, Tom and Vanessa (also from Delta area) and we visited with them for a little while and came on home. It was a fun, but very tiring weekend! I'm so glad we got to go!

This is taken from our hotel room, in this picture, you can see the Titan (orange), the Texas Rangers stadium, and the new Dallas Cowboys stadium being built as we speak.

The Batman ride (yellow) and Mr. Freeze (red)

Please excuse my hair, it was wind-blown, I had JUST finished the sky-coaster.

9th Anniversary

Well it is finally here! Today is our actual 9th anniversary, but we're celebrating this weekend. It is also Dale & Gale's birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you both :) Today is going to be a very busy day of packing. We will go spend the night with Ollie and Sharon tonight, where the kids will be staying this weekend. Then tomorrow morning we will leave for Dallas and we will be at 6 Flags all day tomorrow and Saturday. Then go to church on Sunday and come home Sunday evening. I'm so excited!!! I do have to say that since Vickie passed yesterday, I will be thinking about her and feeling guilty that we couldn't go to her funeral, but we had 3/4 of everything paid for on our Dallas trip, and it isn't changeable/refundable. It really does make me feel bad. It is hard to enjoy yourself when a tragedy has just happened. I don't want anyone to think that all I care about is my own fun, because I guarantee that I will be thinking of her a lot.
But it is going to be a wonderful time. Of course I will post pictures and tell you all the details when I get back :) But do me a favor, and pray for my back/left shoulder. It has bee KILLING me for 2 days, and I really hope it isn't hurting tomorrow. That would be miserable! We'll talk to you all very soon :)