Weekend

We had a nice weekend. Actually I don't ever remember not having a nice weekend. I love all weekends because I am with my girls and not at work :-).

Speaking of my girls I finally got them back from my parents on Thursday evening. It was so good to have them back home. I really missed them. I was so busy missing them that it was not until I got them back that I realized how nice it was to have a couple days to myself to get caught up on some house work. It sounds like they had a fun time with my parents. Back in the day when I was a little girl my Grandpa and Grandma Noble would have us come stay with them a couple days every summer. We got totally spoiled and had a lot of fun. They only lived 15 miles from us but Grandma always called it our "vacation" with them. My Parents now do it with their grand kids. I asked Jenae "Do you think Grandma and Grandpa were ready for you to go home?" She said "yeah probably, but I think they enjoyed having me there too!" It was such a grown up thing to say! Sometimes I forget she is 6.

Marilyn made it home from Denver on Thursday. She is doing amazing after her surgery. I am so happy for her. It is really nice to have her back home again.

Friday night I had to meet Kyle at North Platte on his way home from a rodeo in Santa Fe, NM. His ride ended there. My wonderful in-laws kept the girls so I did not have to have them on the road so late. I did not meet up with Kyle until 12:30 am and did not get home until 4:30. Hope reminded me of how when Kyle & I were dating I found this lifestyle exciting. 10 years and 2 kids later....not so exciting anymore to me :-). I am now more excited to get sleeping time in instead of driving time.

Saturday we got up early to watch Jenae practice run the barrels and poles. She is getting ready for her first Jr. Rodeo. It was so hot and muggy on Saturday she wanted to ride right away in the morning. Kyle & Chip took off around 10:00 to head to Buffalo, MN. The girls & I had a relaxing day. I worked in my garden while they played in the sprinkler. The flood we had a few weeks ago has made it impossible to go play in the creek. It is still really deep and not safe to have the girls in it, so to get our water fix we have been opting for the sprinkler.

Saturday night we met our friends Matt & Heidi at the new cafe in Chambers for supper. The Main Street Cafe is AWESOME!!! Some of the best food I have ever had. It is worth the drive from about anywhere to try out! The kids had a lot of fun together.

Sunday Kyle rolled back in to our place around 6:00 in the morning from Buffalo MN. It is nice to have him home for a couple of days before the 4th of July run. He was pretty tired so I did not put him to work too hard yesterday. I do have some "projects" around the place I need him to help me with before he hits the road again.

The biggest event of the weekend by far is that Kassie is back!!!! My girls love her so much. Kassie is Kyle's cousin, Melinda's, daughter. She is staying this week part at our house and part of the week at Hope's house. I heard Aubree tell her last night "You are my Kassie, nobody else's Kassie" it was cute.

Last night the girls wanted to ride their horses. It was an eventful night. Speedster bit Jenae when Chip was cinching him up & a little later Aubree fell off Beauty. I am not sure what Kassie thought of it all. We usually do not have that much excitement!

We are excited the puppies are starting to open their eyes. I will try to get some more pictures of them to post.

The Kids eating ice cream at my Aunt Jean's house. Yesterday was my Grandma Noble's birthday and we went over to help her celebrate.

Happy Belated Father's Day

I am very lucky to have an awesome Dad! He has been the best dad I could have ever asked for. He as always been very supportive of anything that I wanted to go after. I am also very lucky to have a great Father-in-law. Chip is always willing to help out with things and takes such good care of the girls. Especially with Kyle gone so much we rely a lot on Chip for things.
My girls are lucky to have Kyle as their Daddy. He is so good with them and loves them very much.

We had a very busy weekend. Saturday went to the North Platte Rodeo with Kyle. Chip came along with us and we met up Kyle's cousin's wife, Elaine Zutavern, and their boys on our way. His cousins Mat and Kelcey joined us a little later. It was a lot of fun. They kids always have so much fun playing together and Elaine and I enjoy visiting. We took the kids over to the carnival for a ride. I am pretty strict when it comes to carnival rides. I only let the girls go on one ride if they get to go to the carnival at the rodeo. Several of the rodeos have carnivals at them and the rides are so expensive that if I did not set a limit it would be scary how much money we would spend. This carnival was $4/ride, but I think they enjoyed it.

Kyle did not have any luck at the rodeo but we are still glad we went.

Yesterday we got up and went to my parents house. My parents had a cook out for fathers day. All my siblings and their kids were there too. It was a nice time. I think it was the first time I have been to my parents house on Father's Day since I have been married. That does not say much for what kind of a daughter I am! My Dad knows we are busy so I don't think he holds it against me :-) It was nice to get to see him on Father's Day once!

Yesterday was also my Grandma Noble's birthday. I was really glad I was able to go see her on her birthday as well.

I left the girls at my parents house for a few days. They always like having the girls come stay for a bit in the summer. I thought this would be a good time since Marilyn is not home right now. My house is so quiet with out my girls! I do not know what I am going to do with my time without them home. I talked to my Mom this morning and is sounds like they are keeping busy and having fun!

Marilyn is doing so good! I am really happy for how good she is getting along after her hip surgery. The surgery was on Tuesday and yesterday she and her sister went to a Colorado Rockies Baseball game. It sounds like they had a great time except for how the game ended :-)Marilyn is staying with her sister Sandy until her 1 week check up. Sandy is taking good care of her!

the girls having fun in the sun!!!! I told Jenae to jump the sprinkler like a hurtle. Aubree said ''ok I'll run like a turtle'' and she ran really slow through it.

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I talked to Chip & it sounds like Marilyn is doing good. They have her up in her room now trying to eat a little something.

Prayer Request

I have a prayer request. It is for Marilyn. She is going in for her 3rd hip surgery in the last 3 years. Please pray for a successful surgery with a speedy recovery.

Flooded

It is hard to believe this is the quiet little creek behind our house that we have so much fun in.


Weekend
It has been a very eventful weekend at the Whitaker Ranch. We were very excited to have some company this weekend. Marilyn's niece's, Melinda & Raquel, and their kids came up for a visit. My girls LOVE their kids. Kassie, Karsen & Alec are so good and kind with the girls. Aubree really took a liking to Alec. One time during the weekend she could not see where he was and she said "where did the boyfriend go?" another time during the weekend she asked Alec to marry her. He was very good with her. I am pretty sure that Jenae wore Kassie and Karsen out. She had them doing things the whole time they were hear. Jenae cried for an hour after they had left she was missing them so much.

We woke up Saturday morning to a flood. Kyle & Chip were gone so it was just us girls at home to tend to things. Luckily all of the livestock is ok. It is one of the worst floods Chip has seen here. The water is not going down very fast. It still rains everyday. Tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny. Hopefully things will start to dry out before the next round of rain. I was not able to make it to work today because of all of the flooded roads. Thankfully our house and Chip & Marilyn's house sets up high enough to not be effected by the flood waters.

Today Lucy had her puppies. They are purebred Australian Shepherd puppies. I think the girls are going to have a real hard time when it comes time to sell them.

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Garden City, KS

Kyle talked the girls and I into going with him to Garden City, KS. He told me he it was only 6 hrs down there. Well it actually was 400 miles away which took us 7 1/2 hours to get there. He was up yesterday morning in the slack. We left around 7:00 Tuesday evening and got home around 7:30 last night. We had fun time while we were there, it was a lot of driving time and not much time actually there. Of the 24hrs we were gone 15 hrs we spent driving. The girls did good traveling on the way down there, but not great travelers on the way home. Kyle made a good run in the calf roping, he was placing when we left but not sure it if will hold up or not.

It has been raining/storming every night for the past week it seems like. I am not a good sleeper when it storms outside. I worry about the lightning with the horses and cattle. I do not know what good it does to worry but I can't help it. Right now the sun is shinning hopefully it will say that way for awhile to dry things off.

Ranch work

We have been keeping busy at the Whitaker Ranch. A week ago Jenae and I went along with Kyle to a rodeo in Minnesota. It was about an hour north of the Twin Cities which is 9 hours from home. We left Friday about 9:00 at night and got there at 6:30 the next morning. He rodeoed that night and we turned around and come home, well actually back to my parents house. I knew it was going to be a lot of driving in a short amount of time and knew Aubree would not enjoy the trip enough to justify taking her so Jacque and Lacey picked her up and took her to Newman Grove with them. Kyle doctor released out of the Bronc riding due to his hip that he hurt a few weeks ago in Tennessee. He drew the worst steer in the pin in the steer wrestling and had no luck but he made a nice run in the calf roping and was 3rd with a 10.5 sec run. Jenae was really excited to get to go along and extra excited when she found out that her friends Bridee and Lainee were going to be there. The girls had a good time playing together. We left after the rodeo and got to my parents house about 7:00 Sunday morning. It was my Grandpa's birthday and we had a family reunion that day. It was nice to get to see Grandpa on his birthday. We did not stay real long we were all ready to get home after 2 nights of all night diving. For some reason I think Kyle let me do a little more than my share of the driving. I like to think of myself as a relief driver when he can't go any more I take over so he can get some sleep he thinks of me as a co-driver and I need to do my share of the driving. :-)

Monday afternoon the Zutavern's came up for a visit. My girls always have so much fun playing with the boys. It was so nice to have them up for the day. Bryan was really good playing with Aubree. He played with her and lead her around on Cinnamon. Then they got busy catching toads. Jenae and Aubree have been busy catching toads ever since. My sweet little girls playing with toads!!!! I have even caught Aubree giving the toads a kiss on the lips. Maybe she thinks they will turn into a prince???

Kyle went to the doctor to have his hip looked at on Tuesday. He has had a big lump on his hip and the Doctor was afraid it would have infection in it and if that was the case he would have to have surgery to remove it. Luckily for Kyle there was no infection. The Doctor started to drain it and he said if he could get 100 cc's out of him that they would be doing good. Well Kyle set a record and they took out 250 cc's of fluid. It has made a huge difference on how he feels. He entered the Bronc riding in Licking MO last night and was a 79. It sounds like he made a nice run the calf roping as well. Unfortunately in the steer wresting the judge said he knocked the steer down instead of throwing it and did not get a time.

The past week AIing the cattle has consumed a lot of time for Kyle and Chip. For my blog followers who don't know AI stands for artificially inseminate. Jenae really enjoys getting to ride and help sort off the cows. Wednesday was the last of the AIing and they put the bulls out. We moved the heifers to another pasture and the neighbors bull went a little crazy when we rode by him. He was running along the side of the fence calling out to the heifers.

Jenae said "Why is that bull acting like that?"

Chip said something about the bull being interested the heifers and I said something about the bull was looking for a new girl friend.

Jenae said "Grandpa, I think that bull just wants to breed our heifers!" So much for Chip and I trying to be subtle about it!

I am looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend. I need to do some yard work and some painting around our place. I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend!