Labor Day Weekend

…better late than never!

This year we headed to the ranch for Labor Day weekend with the Sorenson Family.  Originally, we were supposed to head out on Friday, but Jarrad came down with a stomach bug.  I really thought we were going to have to cancel the whole trip, but by Saturday morning, Jarrad felt better and we headed out.  Seth, Suzanne and the kids met us out there.  I didn’t tell Meg that they were coming, so as we were pulling onto the ranch road, she saw their car and got super excited.  It was great. 

Both of us brought our yellow labs.  Dixie is 10 years old and Emma is 10 months old.  I was surprised that Dixie did so well with Emma, but they both just kept to themselves.  We took them both out for the afternoon hunt on Saturday.  Dixie was a fetching machine and got every bird that Jarrad shot.  Emma on the other hand, was a little gun shy and hid under the mule until Seth drug her out and took her with him. 

Dixie hunted so hard that she could barely get around, so she had to spend the rest of the weekend locked up in Joey.  She just can’t do it like she used to…poor girl!  

***Dixie***

 

***Emma***

***Colton, Tanner and Meg***

 

***Meg and Tanner***

 

***The kiddos perch while we were hunting***

 

***My sweet girl***

 

On the second afternoon hunt, we had to have the kids fetch the birds since Dixie was out of commission.  This was such a cute scene…Tanner, Colton and Meg were around this bird.  I can only imagine the conversation that was going on was one for the memory books. 

It seemed that finally a decision had been made.  Meg picked up the bird and ran it to Jarrad as fast as she could.  The look on her face is priceless. 

 

***Meg, Tanner and Colton***

Meg and Tanner were pulling feathers off of birds in Jarrad’s bag.  I’m not even sure he was aware what was taking place behind his back. 

 

***Seth and Emma***

 

***Two peas in a pod***

We had a great weekend with the Sorensons and hope we can make it out there again during deer season. 

Shells

Even though I didn’t want to go to the ranch for Easter, I do love watching Megan enjoy herself so much.  Meg loves everything about the ranch.  We were at the back tank and she went running off with Dixie.  (I stayed behind enjoying a beer).  She hadn’t been gone five minutes before she came running back down with two handfuls of shells.  She was so excited with her finds. 

I love this sweet girl! 

Canvas photos

My office recently moved to a new location, so I have been on the lookout for some decorations for my new office (actually, it’s a cube).  I knew I wanted to find a cute way to display pictures of Meg and the dogs, but didn’t want to use boring photo frames. 

Meg and I went to Michael’s for some supplies to create canvas prints.  I had originally planned on doing 5x7 prints, but found some 6x6 canvases and fell in love with them.  With a little scrapbook paper, mod podge and pictures, I was able to create some great canvas prints. 

***three canvases***

***one layer of mod podge***

***mod podge – matte***

***scrapbook paper and photo applied***

***mod podge starting to dry***

***the final product***

I love how the canvases turned out and think I will make some for the house.  Meme already asked me to create one for her with pictures of Megan and Luke. 

Camping continued

Saturday morning, Jarrad had to go into work for a few hours, so Meg and I decided to go exploring.  She grabbed a walking stick and we headed out on some walking trails in the park. 

After breakfast, we both got dressed, put on our boots and hit the trails.  Meg had picked out a perfect walking stick the night before and grabbed it before we left.  Of course, we got about 20 feet down the road and she decided to turn back and leave her stick behind.  I don’t think she wanted to carry it around. 

   

We got back to Joey about 2 hours later, just in time for some lunch.  Meg asked me to fix Reagan’s hair.  After I was finished with Reagan’s hair, Meg liked it so much that she asked me to do hers the same way.  I’m pretty sure that the 15 minutes that it took me to fix Meg’s hair was the only time that she sat still the entire weekend. 

After doing Meg’s hair and cleaning up our lunch mess, Meg and I headed down to the bridge so she could run around.   While we were down there, Jarrad and Dixie drove by and we went back up to the camp site.  Dixie was so excited that she barely let Jarrad get out of the truck before running to us. 

The weather on Saturday was absolutely beautiful.  After Jarrad had some lunch, we put Dixie on her leash and headed out to go walking again.  We walked through some of the “neighborhoods” in the park. 

Once we got back to the camp site, we decided to start a campfire and play some ladder ball.  Meg slowed down enough for me to snap a quick picture of her and her daddy, then it was off to explore a little more. 

Meg took a quick break to have a cookie and spend some time with her girls.  Rachael (baby) and Reagan went camping with us.  I love watching Meg interact with her baby dolls.  She’s so sweet, but doesn’t take any of their attitudes.  I actually heard her say “don’t roll your eyes at me little girl” to Reagan.  It took all my strength not to laugh. 

 

We had a great weekend camping and can’t wait to do it again! 

Gone to the Dogs!

Labor Day weekend was full of family, friends and fun…but I can’t forget our four-legged companions. 

***Old man Gauge***
 

***Parker***
 

***Gunner***
   

***Duncan***
   

***Sweet, sweet Dixie***
 

***Dixie & Duncan***

Fortunately, the only two dogs that don’t get along are Parker and Gunner.  They just avoid each other, so we never have any problems.