Our first family rodeo - YEEHAW!

We were so lucky to have the chance to go the the River City Roundup Rodeo.  We had so much fun watching all of the action!  We all dressed in our best cowboy/cowgirl gear too!  So much fun watching the bulls!  Skyler liked the bull riding the best.  Lily liked the the bull lassoing the best.  I liked the bull riding and the bronc riding!  Chuck liked the bull riding the best.  We were a little disappointed because there were a lot of disqualifications and we weren't sure what all of that was about, but the action was awesome!

Camping Again

We went camping again a few weeks ago and had so much fun.  There was no one there again and we had all 300 + acres of nature all to ourselves.  We did a lot of hiking and some chilling too.  We also did some animal catching.  We caught a toad that Lily decided was her best friend in the world.  She carried him with her for some time on one of our hikes, but when we finally told her it was time to let him go, she was not too happy, as you can see from the pictures.  We got some incredible views of the destruction caused by the tornado of 2008, the same one that hit at the Little Sioux Boy Scout camp.  They have spent the last 2 years cleaning the park up from the destruction and it makes me wish we had seen it before the tornado because I cannot even fathom what it used to look like.  

Lily recovered from the toad loss after she caught a monarch.  She was upset when we had to let him go too, but recovered even quicker when she found her friend "cricket" who for some reason didn't want to leave her and just stayed right by her for over 2 hours!  The last night we were there a thunderstorm struck.  We survived it fine, but I was a little creeped out by it.  The kids slept through the whole thing.  By the time we needed to get up and go it was still raining and the water was just starting to creep through the bottom of the tent, so even if we hadn't planned on leaving at that time, we probably would have.  

We later found out that Chuck got into some poison ivy and he is still trying to get rid of it!  I loved this campsite better than our other one, we had the perfect toilet all set up!, but I am pretty sure we will never camp at campsite number 7 again, as it has scarred Chuck forever and I guess we will either go back to friendly number 2 again, or try out number 6 next time!

Lovey Dovey

There really isn't much I can say here, except that I love it! We took a walk last week after a rain storm down by the creek and these 2 were like this most of the way. They were deep in conversation and it was just adorable. Why can't they be like this all of the time?

Monarch Tagging

We went to the Hitchcock Nature Center last week and had the pleasure of participating in their monarch tagging event. We love doing this each year.  We took our butterfly net and went searching for monarchs.  We were so surprised at how many different kinds of butterflies we saw this year, some kinds I haven't ever seen before.  We had a blast chasing those darn monarchs!  It was a successful adventure, as both Skyler and Lily both caught a monarch, tagged it, and released it.  Now we have 8 more tags to put on monarchs that we catch on our own.  We plan on going camping this weekend, so hopefully we will be successful monarch hunting then!

Our camping trip

We decided at the last minute to go on a camping trip to celebrate the three day weekend.  We have had our eyes on a great camping location for a while now, but it was closed due to tornado damage and cleanup.  Well, we were so excited to find out it was open now.  There are only 8 camp sites, they cannot be reserved, and they are hike in only.  We left right after school and were the first ones there!  We so thought we would not get a site since it was a holiday weekend and the forecast was so nice, but we did.  We have decided that our little camping site is a secret little gem out there and not many people know about it.  We plan to keep it that way.  We got there and did some hiking to decide which camp site to take, hiked back to our car, hiked back to the site with most of our gear.  We left the kids at the site to look for kindling while we went back for one more load.  We got back to the site, Chuck and the kids got the fire going and then set up the tent while I got the food ready.  After a bit, I cooked the burgers on the grill and then we ate!  After that we went on another hike in the semi-darkness.  Lily scared and we decided to go back.  We sat around the fire and I read some stories and then we had s'mores!  It was at this time that we started to hear the coyotes.  I felt a little freaked out about it, but kept my cool!  We cleaned up and headed to the tent for bedtime.  We were all pretty tired!

In the morning, we got up, started the fire and decided the best thing to eat for an appetizer to breakfast was s'mores and hot cocoa!  We then went on another hike and would have loved to go further, the kids were having a blast, but we had to be at the nature center for Monarch tagging, so we headed back.  We decided to skip breakfast.  We all got changed, cleaned up the camp site, packed up and hiked out.  It was everyone's favorite camping trip and we can't wait to do it again soon.

Omaha Nighthawks Practice

I took the kids to watch the Omaha Nighthawks practice. Unfortunately, it was the hottest day of the week, but we still had fun. Skyler got to see some very cool plays and players and asked a lot of good football minded questions. I got to see Ahman Green and Jeff Garcia up close and personal! It was very exciting! I have loved football for as long as I can remember and have been a fan of both the Packers and the 49ers for many years. Seeing two famous players from those teams within 10 feet of me was wonderful and we plan to go to a few games of theirs too!

Lily's first day of school

Lily was so excited for school to start. She had her open house a week before school started and everyday after that she would ask so excitedly, "Is this a school day?" I would tell her no and she would be soooo sad. When the day finally came, it was the only day she didn't ask if it was a school day. When she finished breakfast and walked past the couch, she saw her special first day of school outfit and then she finally asked if it was a school day. When I told her yes, she ran to Skyler's room and said, "Skyler, today is my first day of school, it is finally a school day for me! " She was just too cute about it. The hard part was keeping her occupied until school started!