Black Hills Trip

We took a long weekend trip to South Dakota in early June.  First stop: Spearfish to see Grandma Fern and play at the city park and fish hatchery

Getting a ride from Grandma Fern

We stayed at a hotel in Deadwood and hit Reptile Gardens the next day.  Petting the python was pretty cool!

Getting a close up view of the prairie dogs

These giant tortoises were very cool!  This one was over 100 years old.

We then ventured over to Rushmore Cave.  This place was just about as fun as Reptile Gardens!

Maya and Joe rode the zipline after the cave tour.

I also ran the Mickelson Trail Marathon on Sunday and won!  It was a beautiful day and a fun vacation!

Jacob Turns 3!

This super sweet, silly boy turned 3 on May 30th!  We don't know what we would do without him!

These four kids have birthdays within two weeks of each other, so we celebrated them all with a big birthday dinner at our house.  The cake was for Jacob from Auntie Amanda.  :)

We bought Jacob a pair of chaps for his birthday.  He wears them everywhere!

:)

Maya Turns 7!

Maya's birthday was actually the last day of school.  It was a very busy week!  

with her first grade teacher!

Running fast at her Field Day with her classmates!

opening some presents!

She also got some foam curlers for her birthday!

Before!

After!!

Maya celebrated her birthday with lots of her buddies at the swimming pool!

Mermaid cake from Auntie Amanda

Make a wish!

Spring 2016

Here are some random pictures from my phone from April and May! :)

My sweet boy

Doing a little highway cleanup through the ranch. The pets joined in the fun.

One of our favorite highschoolers graduated!

Maya brought Jacob to her class for show and tell during her "Happy Hiker" week.  He was quite the little performer and loved being the center of attention.

Best Buds

We had a ranch Easter egg hunt once we got back from Cabo/Colorado and it warmed up a bit!

Jacob got pretty close to catching a bunny during the Easter egg hunt!

Mother's Day

I try to get a picture with my kids every year on Mother's Day.  This year, Hudson wanted to be part of the picture so badly.  Jacob is sitting in my lap in the top picture, but you can't see him since Hudson also wanted to sit in my lap!  Crazy dog!  We finally got him off after lots of laughs and bribing him.  He weighs about as much as the three kids combined.

Play ball!

Maya played another year of t-ball!  I was able to help coach again.  We had a pretty young and rambunctious team, but they all improved over the summer.  :)

Gabi played another year of "coach-pitch" baseball.  She was able to really slug the ball this year!

Gabi spent quite a bit of time playing first base and getting some outs!

Branding

Jacob spent some time making sure everyone was doing their job branding the calves...while eating brownies.  :)

"Here!  Try some nice green grass!"