Hickory Hills Halloween

It was the Halloween weekend at Hickory Hills last weekend and it was a gorgeous weekend for it.  Craig, Sarah and the kids came out, and Matt & Erin and Ryleigh came for the weekend.

We had Tai as a horse with a jockey rider. He did okay with it, probably because he’s used to wearing cloths anyway, but he wasn’t too sure about all the other dogs so he didn’t get to stay out too late.

And we had the Mario Brothers Mario and Luigi, complete with Princess Peach, Toad and the Koopa (turtle). (you know that I had to look the names all up on the internet!)

And we had Matt as “Ranger Al”. Everyone thought it was cute. I don’t think Al thought it was quite so cute.

Erin dressed in a buck hat (to go along with Ranger Al) and Wally dressed up as a flower to go along with Ryleigh’s bee.

It was a fun day. Now we just have to wait a couple weeks to go to Joe & Lauren’s for the real Halloween (of course because no-one ever comes to our house……can’t imagine why?)

On the road

After weeks of anticipation, we are finally on the road. We packed our shorts & flip flops and left the cold and snow of Iowa on Friday.

We are headed to see this:

But of course, on the way we need to first drive 1,300 miles through Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

Tai is doing pretty good. He was pretty mopey the first couple days without Roxie, but he’s doing better. He has the entire platform in the truck to himself, which he likes. Although he still feels the need to put his head on Al’s arm.

It’s been nice to not have him go nuts when someone comes up to the truck, or when we are walking him. We don’t have to worry about him going after another dog or person. (I’m thinking positive!)

We stopped the first night in Carthage, MO (home of Precious Moments, in case you needed to know this) at a nice little campground. They didn’t have the water on yet, but it was almost full of campers & motorhomes when we got there at 9:00.

When we first started doing this trip a few years ago, I looked on Diner’s, Dives and Drive-in’s website to see if there was any of the restaurants featured on our route. Clanton’s Cafe in Vinita, OK is one that we have thought about stopping at before, but the timing just didn’t work. This year we decided to actually stop and see how it was on Saturday morning.

It was completely full when we got there with only one booth left. It was good, and very quick. I don’t think we were there 20 minutes from the time we ordered until we were done. And the total bill was only $9.00.  When we left to go back to the truck, there was a truck and horse trailer parked next to us with a bull in it that was not at all happy that we were there. He wanted to climb right out of the trailer. I’m not sure if he saw Tai, or Al, but he wanted to get at one of them.

We only had one small calamity with the camper this year. One of the doors in the kitchen evidentially came open as we put in the slides and bent the hinges. We don’t use it anyway, so we just took the door off.  Not bad compared to what we have had in years past, so I will take it.

More tomorrow…

Tai and the egg

Every time we gather the eggs from the chicken coop the dogs jump up trying to see what we have in our hands. I suppose there is a smell or something on them. 

Last night I was planting some flowers and found that one of the chickens had gotten into the flower bed and laid an egg in one of the day lilies. She tore half of the plant out as well trying to make her nest.

I'm not sure why she decided that was a good place to do it, they have nice cushy nest boxes already!

I put the egg in one of the plant trays until I was done planting. I went around the edge of the house to plant some more, and I could hear a noise on the deck. I came back around the corner and Tai had the egg out of the tray, and was pawing it around the deck. He was very gentle with it, he was just rolling it around. I went into the house to get the camera, but by the time I came back out the egg was broke.

Both dogs were then just trying to figure out what this weird thing was.

Goofy bad dog!

Wyoming, cousins and what's important.....

It was a nice, short weekend to be able to go to Wyoming last week. We left Wednesday, and drove back Sunday. It's 720 miles each way. We have driven this trip so many many times the last 20 years that we finally have it down to where we stop for gas and to eat, and it usually works like clockwork. It's usually not too bad if you leave at 5:00 am, you get to Wyoming at 5:00 pm. Long day, but manageable.  And so much cheaper than flying.  I do miss this, though. You definitely don't get to see this in the middle of Iowa!

This time, however, was a teensy bit different. To start off with, my dog, Tai, has epilepsy. He has to take meds twice a day, every day to (hopefully) keep him from doing his "stevie wonder dance". He thinks flies are flying around his head and has fits trying to bite them. We also give him Valium sometimes in between to fend off the fits that come between the daily meds. Whenever we travel he gets worse, but he's even worse if he's at home in the kennel. So we had to take him. We had to give him two Valium on the trip out. (only 1 on the way back, maybe he knew we were going home!)Then you put a 4 month old baby in a car for a long drive. Then you top it off with a (actually very well behaved on the trip) Chihuahua who Tai doesn't care for.  And then you put Sarah in the car. She just got off a 12 hour shift at the ER and had had no sleep. Then you put us all in a Tahoe for a 12 (at least) hour drive! We couldn't leave until 8:00 am. To say the least, the trip out was a bit long. It took us almost 14 hours, and it usually only takes 12. I just wanted to snap my fingers and wish I was already there, but sadly it didn't work.  I usually drive when we go to Wyoming and it's fine, but this day I was wishing I wasn't doing all the driving.

But it really was nice when we got there. I got to see new babies of two of my cousins, and everyone got to see Ava. Mandy's baby McCoy is so all boy. He is 10 months old and just loved Ava's toys and Ava as well. He's a big guy, just like Matt was. I'm not sure that either of the girls thought too much of him yet, though, although he had a great time!

I think Mandy's older kids, Markie and Mason really wanted a little sister, as well as a little brother. (anymore on the way Mandy?) Markie just packed Ava around everywhere we went.

My other cousin Jamie has a girl Jacie, who is 6 months old. She was very quiet. She's a big girl, too, and very laid back. Except when McCoy decided to check her out.  Then she didn't really care for that. Keep it up Jacie. Boys are bad!

Even Uncle Blake got in on the act, although not by choice. I just plopped Ava on him and he didn't have a chance. She was happy to see him, though. 

Aunt Susie made her laugh and giggle like crazy. Maybe it was the new boots she bought? I think Ava is just telling Susie that she liked them.

But the best one to get to see her again was Great Grandma Pat. It was nice that Ava is older now and able to laugh and smile and interact. It makes it better to be able to see that, especially since we are so many miles apart.  Ava found out that she can ALMOST grab what she wants while we were in Wyoming. It was fun to see her try to find her feet, and to see Great Grandma help her.

Overall it was a great weekend.It was nice to see everyone and let everyone see Ava.  There are some other things going on right now, that I'm not going to get into, but I just want everyone to make sure and cherish your family because you never know if they are always going to be there or not. And you do not want to be wondering "what if only....".

Trick or Treat!

Since we don't live in town, we obviously do not get trick or treaters. And this year there  was a special one that we really wanted to see, but the only way to do that was to go to CF (her mom said it was TOO far to go to bring her to us!) This actually didn't work out too bad, though because Lauren loves to hand out candy and Joe ditched her to spend the weekend with Matt and Matt in DSM, so we kept her company.

She had the walk and porch ready...

and the dogs in costumes. This is Violet, I missed a picture of Clover in his Broncos shirt.

There were over 75 kids that came. (she said this was a record for the last 3 years that they have lived in the house.....I'm not telling how she knew that, and I'm not going to post the photo I took to prove it, either!)  Love ya Lauren!

But the cutest one by far was the giraffe that visited at the end.

 

To be fair about the dogs in costumes, I did do that with Roxie last year (she's a bit too grumpy now to mess with that). I know, pretty silly, but oh well. 

 

Tai doesn' t really need a costume, he pretty much always looks like a freak. Although he's a very loveable freak.

Grilling

We had all the kids over last night to grill. It was beautiful weather and we hadn't done it for a while and it was Lauren's birthday on Friday. We had shrimp that we brought back from Texas that we needed to use, so we made shrimp and fish tacos with all the cool toppings. They were actually very very good. Will have to do it again sometime soon. Craig said it was the best meal he had ever eaten at our house! I guess that's not bad, seeing he has only been eating at our house for 3 years! It was very good, though.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Matt brought a present from Des Moines......two foam dart guns and a kid's bow & arrow. Goofy kids! (although I did get a shot or two in myself!)

It was a beautiful night to just sit out by the fire.

and Roxie REALLY liked the fire.

Tai just liked his new chair!

4th of July

We went to Joe & Lauren's for the evening of the 4th of July. This is about the only time we see Lauren's parents, and Lauren's sister Emily and her husband Chris were home from the UK, so we saw them as well. I bought a new "point and shoot" camera because my last one finally pooped out, so I was experimenting and some of the pics didn't turn out like I wanted, but you will get the idea.

Joe and Lauren have a nice, older house, in Cedar Falls. They have done a lot to it since they bought it two years ago, including this week new concrete countertops, but the worst thing is NO YARD. But it actually works pretty good to just sit in the driveway that is off of an alley to grill.  It's nice to set your chairs on concrete and not in the grass with all the bugs.

This is Lauren, Lauren's mom Susan and Matt getting the grill/food ready:

Al, Emily (Lauren's sister) and Mark (Lauren's dad). I know, not a great picture, but you get what you get to get everyone in the blog!

Emily's husband Chris, and Olive, the first Chinese Crested in the family. She is Lauren's parent's dog. She really just looks like a tiny Tai: almost the same coloring and almost the same amount of hair, just smaller, although like Tai, she's a little challenged. She has one eye that doesn't go the right way. She's a doll, though, and likes almost everyone, especially if you have food.

 

Chris is from England and he had a shirt from Old Navy with patriotic stuff on it. In his English accent he said that he was an "American Patriot" for the night! But only for the night. We will give him that one.

Matt was leaving for Des Moines the next day so he was a little funky that night. It's a big step for a young guy. He's the one who calls almost every day and still the one that comes and sees us the most often (he's the baby!). This is going to be a little weird without him around. (Love you baby!)

Joe was at an all day volleyball tournament (like mom USED to be able to do!) so he was hot and tired (and maybe a teeny bit grumpy). Not too grumpy, just obviously tired and ready for bed. Leave me alone!

 

We have the second Chinese Crested in the family, Tai.  He, of course is the epileptic one that cannot stand being without a shirt. If I do say so though, he is the cutest one!

Then Joe and Lauren have the next two in the family. Clover is basically blind. He can see shapes, and he really does pretty good for not seeing anything, but every now and then if he's confused or doesn't know where he is, he will just start turning around in circles. He really is a nice little guy, though.

Then comes Violet. She is the last one (for now!) of the Chinese Crested dogs. She really is the only real normal one in the bunch!

We didn't ever end up going to watch fireworks. I was a little bummed, only because my new camera has a "fireworks" setting on it and I wanted to try it! Oh well......

For whatever reason, at the end of the evening, the guys had to see who had the biggest muscles. I think Al is just trying to keep up with the boys. He does do a pretty good job for 48, but I think Matt has finally passed him up! And the 20 lbs he lost when he was sick doesn't help, although he does look pretty good!

 

Although I do think Lauren is right there with them! Nice ones, Lauren!

:)