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 :)

My near-tornado experience

Last night was a night to remember. Ryan had taken the kids up to Tulsa, and I was planning on doing some scrapbooking and taking advantage of the "alone time". Well, I was just getting ready to set up everything, and I noticed lightning and thunder going on outside. So I switched on the news, to see what was going to take place. It said that my town was under a tornado warning. A tornado WATCH is just where you are aware of the storm and keep an eye on the weather, and just be prepared to find shelter. A tornado WARNING is where you find shelter as quick as possible. Okay, I was expecting maybe a watch, but we were already in a warning, so I started panicking. Literally a few seconds after I noticed that we were in a warning, my mother-in-law, Sharon called and told me that we were in a warning and that I needed to find shelter. Luckily, I ran into one of my neighbors a few weeks ago on my road and he told me that he had a storm shelter, and that my family was welcome to use it, even if no one else was in it. So I knew that I could run to it. So I found a hooded jacket, and grabbed my cell phone and keys and locked my house up and headed across the road to the shelter. There was lightning crashing everywhere, that was scary enough. The rumble from the thunder was literally making car alarms go off. I could hear 2-3 alarms. And to top that off, the tornado sirens started blaring. So I was REALLY nervous. It wasn't even raining yet, it was actually peaceful, except for the lightning/thunder, car alarms and tornado sirens. Okay, maybe it wasn't really peaceful after all ;) I was in a panic mode, and got over to the neighbors house. I felt weird going in their cellar without them knowing. I knocked on their door, no one answered. I ran to their back door, knocked and no answer again. So I went ahead and ran to the storm cellar. There are no words to describe what is going on in your mind. You think that in a situation like that you would grab pictures, or keepsakes, but you don't even think of that when you are in a state of panic. I'm just glad I was able to get dressed and get over into shelter. My brain kind of went blank, because of the panic. Okay, so I opened the shelter door, it was heavy, and somehow when I was getting in, I hurt my hand by that door, don't know how it happened, but it did. I went down, and used the cell phone light to find a candle and lighter down there. I lit the candle, and sat down on one of the benches. I was expecting more people to show up, because he told me that any of the neighbors were welcome to use the shelter. But no one showed up. The sirens kept blaring for about 10 minutes. I called Ryan, my mom and mother-in-law to let them know I was in the shelter. They watched the news to keep me updated. After the sirens quit blaring, I waited for the rain to die down. I heard 2 rounds of hail, so I really wanted to wait until the weather died down. I was in the shelter for about 1 1/2 hours. Finally the rain slowed down and I ran back home. I was home for about 10 minutes and my electric went out. So I called my in-laws and asked if I could come stay the night at their house, and of course they said yes. So I jumped into my truck and headed up to their house across town. EVERYONE'S electric was out on my side of town. Even Main Street's lights were out. But luckily, my in-laws' side of town was fine. I got up to their house and turned on the news and watched the storm that had just left. It went DIRECTLY over my town, and it was a powerful one. I was very tired by this time, it was about 1:30 am and I went to bed, and slept great. It was definitely a night to remember.

Frontier City family fun!

Well, here is the 3rd day of fun that I mentioned in my last post or two. I thoroughly enjoyed my family being out here. They have all returned home, and I'm trying to get life back to normal. On June 1st, Blake's 7th birthday, my whole family, plus a couple extra friends all went to Frontier City, in Oklahoma City. It was Blake and Taylor's first roller coaster experience, and they did remarkably well. I remember my first experience was when I was 11 and my Dad was trying to get me on a roller coaster for about 15 minutes, and I whined the whole time. Then when I was done with that first roller coaster, I've NEVER stopped wanting to ride them. But both of the kids were very brave, and had so much fun. The funnest part about it was being with a big group, and the fact that I haven't done something fun with my family like that for a long time. It was a day to remember!

The group (minus Sue, who was taking the picture)The group getting ready to get on our first ride of the dayBlake had a fun but very exhausting day!