PLAYTIME ON THE LAWN

Magnus & I joined the dogs outside yesterday evening (or did they join us?) for a bit of playtime & a private radio controlled heli show. It was put on by none other than our beloved Capt. Joe Smith. He rocks! (Note the heli in the background of the first picture...

one of his "collection".)

Magnus & Mommy

Magnus & I are missing Joe again (I just faked a smile for the camera, in case you were wondering). He was home Tuesday for one WHOLE, glorious day, but now he's gone for another 6 days. He's been away from home every day this month (except Tues.), but thankfully we've been able to "follow" him to a couple places so we could be together some. (Like our Dallas trip) We miss him terribly! Hopefully his schedule will get better soon (it should). If it doesn't, I'm going to move us to WV & we're going to live in a little shanty way back in the sticks. We'll raise kids & coonhounds, sell non-alcoholic moonshine, & hunt deer from our back yard... I'll learn how to make squirrel & dumplings & find out which mushrooms & greens are edible. If that doesn't work, there's always Welfare!

Sportin' Levi's

Meet Jake...

This is Jake. Age: 16. Type: Belgian. Occupation: hay-burner & pasture ornament. Previously employed as cart horse & trail mount. Now on disability due to Degenerative Joint Disease. Years Jake has been my buddy (& eating all my money just for me to later find it lying in the pasture collecting flies): 11 years.

What was it like?

Lori's blog post got me to pondering (again) on what it must've been like to be a mommy 100 years ago.
You had to go outside to do the laundry, right? Did they have "bouncy" seats to put the baby under the shade tree and just hope that the birds didn't shower them? Or did they just lay them on a blanket with all the ticks & ants? And it HAD to be hot (or cold!) outside - were their babies super-tolerant, or did they just quit screaming after a couple hours? And how did they keep their infants from getting more than their alotted 15 min. of sun a day?? I guess if you only had 2 dresses it would simplify the laundry issue greatly... But it still makes me wonder how they got ANYTHING done! Especially if they didn't live any near family (as we don't) & didn't ever have a babysitter! You know there was a garden to take care of, food to cook, clothes to mend, firewood to bring in & *gasp* CLOTH diapers to change. How did they do it?? Obviously they probably never even have time to blog... what a pity!

Erika's "Truck"

I love this picture of my neice Erika on her little Gator (er, excuse me, "truck"). Her favorite thing to do with it is sit in the gravel and just spin the tires, slinging rocks everywhere! Her Driver's Ed teacher is going to have a time with her in about 12 years!

PEEKABOO!

This is the smile that steals our hearts daily!

JUST LIKE DADDY

Magnus looks all grown up in his baseball cap!

Slate River Ranch, Weatherford, Texas

http://www.slateriverranch.com/

Check out this ranch we stayed at one night while we were in Dallas! The owner (Glade Knight) owns one of the the Learjets where Joe works, and Joe has flown Glade a lot in the past. This ranch is a real working/breeding farm where they raise, train and compete (on National levels!) cattle cutting horses. We stayed in the "bunkhouse" in the Outback Suite (pictured above). It is totally cool! We got some neat ideas for when we build our next house. It was so relaxing to stay out there on that huge ranch and walk around visiting all the horses. Their breeding barn is really neat - they have their own lab & do artificial insemination, and even use "surrogate" mares for all the foals, since they compete with their champion mares and don't want to mess up their game, so to speak! Very, very cool!!

Um, Dad?? I think that buffalo's about to charge!

Joe and Magnus were trying out some of Bass Pro Shops' merchandise (the kid carrier) when they came across this dangerous looking buffalo! They warned the large fuzzy creature that if he so much as stepped a hoof in their direction that they'd turn him into a pair of buffalo briefs! Needless to say, Ol' BuffyLo stayed put. Magnus thought the backpack carrier was GREAT fun... for a little while! Then he wanted out, like NOW! He was pretty worn out though, and watching dad and mom try on shoes just wasn't making his day any more bearable.

Sit BooBoo! Stay!

Magnus is sitting up so well now! He still gets excited waving his arms around and topples over, but to him that's just part of the game. Here he is sitting on our king-size bed in our Homewood Suites' "home away from home" out here in Dallas. Joe has flight safety training all week, so Magnus and I have a week of shopping and relaxing planned!