Special last two weeks

We've had a wonderful last two weeks. We had Shar's birthday. Oh, Oh, a quarter of a century! Us ladies went to the park for a noon picnic. We enjoyed each other and the kids loved the playground.

That evening we went to El Charro and had the back room. Both Shar and Preston, whose birthday was the 20th, opened some presents.

Then we had our 2nd roping on Saturday. We had 112 teams! Everything went off great.

Here's J.J. and Charlie. They got drawn together.

Lana and I watching from the sidelines.

Scott working the chute, and J.J. jumped in to turn that stubborn calf.

Shar and Karen Lines doing the announcing and bookkeeping.

After all the big cowboys left, the little cowboys got their turn around the arena. THANKS AUNT JODI! Lana and her boys took their turns too.

Hanging out after it was over.

Aiden wanted down in the worst way, so finally, Ciminy let Steven put him down and boy did he love the dirt!

Then today, Sunday, we had SCOTT'S 55th birthday.

Blowing out the candles

Opening the presents.




OH, what was in the purple box?

Can you see it?

Yep, it's a new puppy. Scott has missed his ride around in the truck dog, so I gave him one of our new pups. Of course, I picked the cutest one!!

Steven doing the balancing act with the cake!







After opening the presents, we played the sign game, where everyone has a sign and you pass your sign to another person in the group. They accept it by doing their sign and passing it on to another person all without the person in the middle seeing who did what!

Shar's sign was shrugging her shoulders.

Jodi's was pulling her ear.

I touched my nose.

Justin touched the top of his head.

J.J.'s was his little finger.

Ciminy's was an eye wink.

Sneaky Chauncy was "thumbs up

Scott finally agreed to play and became the "Smokin' Gun"

We've all had a great weekend and really do enjoy each others company. We are truely blessed to have such a loving family!

Our Black driver turns WHITE with fear!

OMG(Oh My Gosh)!!! Do you remember the tunnel on the Superior Mountains? You know the one-- where as kids we held our breath from one end to the other. How about coming through that tunnel with 80,000 pounds at least 70 miles per hour and NO BRAKES!! That's when our black driver turned white! The good Lord was with him because he said he was praying like crazy. This is what it looked like when the truck finally stopped.

Thanks heavens for:













After hours of waiting and calling several towing businesses and waiting some more finally:

Looking things over, deciding the best way to proceed.







Scott getting in the action, tow truck driver too slow! Jodi even got into action and helped pull the cable. The tow driver said to her,"Wow, you're not afraid of manual labor." He even flirted a little, but he had no teeth. YUCK!

INCH by INCH the tow truck pulled it back! UNTIL......

the cable broke!

Hours later they finally got it fixed!!

Inch by inch---inch by inch we pulled and pulled!

FINALLY-we're almost back to the pavement!











YEAH!!!

But all the while, what was I doing? I AM afraid of MANUAL LABOR!

One of my students gave me a book to read, so I'm taking advantage of quiet time that I rarely get to read!!

Life goes on.

We are all very busy but doing fine here. Shar is still sick with morning--no all day--well really mostly afternoon and evening preg. sickness. Kashley went to the eye doctor and doesn't have to wear glasses after all, but has to wear a patch on her eye 2--3 hours a day. I wonder how that will go. Riley has a stress fracture on the lower part of his body and has a soft cast--after a week they will be checking that out again. Our 1st real roping went really well. J.J. won third in the first draw roping. (We had 3 different ropings) We will be having one every month. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Time will tell. Teaching is a BEAR this year. My seventh grade classes are kicking my rear--so noisy and disrespectful!!! I'm stressed all the time. But the good kids are really GOOD, but there are way too many that don't care too much about getting an education.