Weekend

Jenae, Aubree, and I met up with Kyle in Valentine on Saturday morning. We went on to Gordon and then back to Valentine for the rodeo. It was a beautiful day, I think it was only in the mid 70's. Not to bad for the middle of August! Kyle placed on his bronc in Gordon on a horse that had never been ridden. He did not draw good in the timed events. He was 10.2 on his calf in Valentine. It was a nice run but 9.8 was the last time in the money. It started rain really hard right before the bronc riding. The girls and I went to the trailer went we saw the storm clouds roll in. We missed his last 2 events. There was quite a storm that went through Chambers while we were gone. We came home to no electricity and some branches down. We received almost 4 inches of rain from Friday night through Sunday morning.

Chip and Marilyn are in Omaha today getting some test run on Chip that need to be done before they can do surgery on him. They are checking to make sure he does not have any blockage in his heart that they will need to take care of while they are in fixing his valve. Dr. Peetz (the surgeon who did the first 2 valve replacements) has recommended a Dr. Deeb at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is an aortic valve specialist and they said if he needed to have surgery right away that they would get him in. At Creighton, they thought he should have surgery ASAP.

It sounds like Jenae and Aubree had a good time with Grandpa Chip on Friday when he kept them. They went to the pastures and the feed store in the morning. The girls love going to the feed store with Grandpa. They usally get cookies and sometimes even get a pop. The excitement came in the afternoon when a wood chuck wondered on the ranch. Jenae was outside playing with the dogs--actually she was in dog kennel. Chip was in the house and heard this horrible dogfight sound. He looked out and saw Buster killing something. By the time he got out there, Jenae was on top of the kennel (chain link fence) and Buster had a woodchuck immobilized nearby. Chip came out with his gun and Jenae (who is petrified of loud noises) said 'don't shoot me Grandpa'!!!!!!!!!!!! Jenae thought Buster was really the hero and she had shut the other 2 dogs in the kennel in case the animal had rabies (she knew the day they took the dogs in to get shots that Ellie had hid and they hadn't taken her in). He is planning keep Jenae and Aubree tomorrow. Hopefully there will not be any wild animals visiting tomorrow!