Saturday, September 18, 2010

Glendo Reservoir

The last weekend in July, we planned a weekend trip to Glendo Reservoir. It's just a few hours south of Gillette. We teamed up with Travis & Linda, Krystal, and Dallas & Katie (our friends & neighbors of Travis and Linda) to rent a pontoon boat. We stayed in some cute little cabins right at the marina, for two nights. I think this was pretty much our only "big" trip this summer!

The view from our cabins. It happened to be a PERFECT weekend when it came to weather. Nice and HOT!

Jordyn relaxing on the porch.

We played lots of Corn Hole (bean bag toss game if you've never heard of it!). Those guys are all TOO good at it.


Dallas and Katie's dog Sunny. Our boys were obsessed with making her fetch stuff.

Out on the lake! There is lots of flooding this year so you could see lots of trees sticking out of the water.


Krystal (with her dog Charlie), Sumner (Dallas and Katie's daughter), and Carter.

Sunny, Evan, Dallas, and "little" Dallas.


Krystal, Carter, Evan, Linda, and Cole.

Me and Carter

Carter and Sunny.

There is a small canyon we took the boat through. Very pretty.
Tom & Evan, Dallas, Travis, Linda, and Katie.


Dallas and Jordyn. Looks like they are having a great time. I LOVED the pontoon boat because it's spacious enough to just bring Jordyn on in her wheelchair! How nice is that? And it wasn't too fast, which is great for Jordyn and all the kids we had with us!
We split the meals up for the weekend. One night Dallas made Cherry Cobbler for dessert, in a dutch oven. It was awesome! He even fed some to Jordyn and she gobbled it down... she loved it.

We found a perfect sandy beach and played there some of the day. Carter loved playing in the sand. He's still a little scared of the water unless someone holds him the whole time.

Evan loved the water. He kept saying,"I'm swimming!" It really was just the waves pushing him to the shore.

Cole and Clay on the tubes. Sadly the boat wasn't quite fast enough to pull tubes. Well, it probably was, but the tubes were too flimsy to use for tubing. Trust me.... we tried. Wish I had pictures of that, it was funny.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Visit from the New Mexico crew!

OK! Finally found the motivation to catch up on my blog...

Tom's mom (Ninny as we call her) is from New Mexico and much of her family still lives there. During the week of July 19-24 a bunch of the family came up from New Mexico to visit! I actually have not met all of Ninny's family so this was the first time I was meeting many of the family members. I think it has been at least 5 or so years since Tom has seen some of them too.
The number one reason for the visit was to watch Nalynn (Tom's 2nd cousin) compete in the National High School Rodeo Finals taking place here in Gillette! We were all really proud of her and excited to watch her compete. She competed in barrels and poles. She did extremely well and placed 2nd overall in Barrel Racing. She also was awarded Rookie of the Year. She is only a freshman in high school! Isn't that awesome!?

Here is a great picture of the crew, below. We weren't in this photo because I think it was the morning I was running my half marathon!

Back row starting at the left, we have Jerry, Blazin, and Nelda Rae. Then we have Clay, Cole, Ninny, Linda, and Travis. Front row, we have Ike, Whitley, Denim, Ace, and Darlin.
This wasn't everyone that came, there are a few people missing.


During the time that people weren't watching Nalynn compete, we would hang out and eat at Travis and Linda's house. Here is Chae, Tom, and Ace (Tom's cousin) talking.


Here I am holding Ace and Timber's daughter Darlin. Isn't she precious?!


Jordyn enjoying all the chaos!

All the family visiting made for a lot of little kids running around! But, they did great playing with each other. This is Blazen, Evan, Denim, Clay, and Ike on the trampoline.

Whitley (Tom's 2nd cousin) being a good sport and organizing a game for the younger kids.

Nelda Rae (Tom's Aunt) playing with Darlin.

Ninny and Nacona (Tom's cousin).


More of the guys: Wil (Nacona's husband), Jerry (Nelda Rae's husband), and Travis.

I threw this one in. I stole ALL of these pictures off Timber's blog! haha Crazy that I never snapped any pics while everyone was here. And I noticed she wasn't in any of the pics I used so... here is Ace and Timber! Ace, Nelda Rae and Jerry came to Billings when Tom and I got married. I was meeting everyone else for the first time. What a great family Ninny has. Everyone was so nice, fun, and great to visit with. Can't wait to travel to New Mexico some time and meet the rest of the fam!
Until next time....