1st ranch hotel, 2015

Back during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally week (August 2-4), we took the plunge and rented our house out to some bikers. I spent the week before "spring" cleaning our house and getting it absolutely perfect for them. It was a lot of work but actually a great opportunity to throw junk away and get organized. And the whole thing mostly worked out. We were thankful for the extra income.

Since there were eight people staying in our house, obviously we couldn't live there. The ranch was the solution for us. Terry folks live nearer to Sturgis and I was a little nervous about driving on the interstate with thousands of center-line, double row riding bikers, but at least I only had to do it twice, unlike Terry who had to drive to work every day.

Anyway, we stayed at Terry's folk's place for three nights. They took good care of us but we were thankful to come back to our own house on Wednesday. It kind of reminded me of the days we lived out there before we moved to Nebraska.

We did our best to stay busy and four wheeling was a daily activity. Grampa supervised Noah while they were doing something up by the cows.

I think it was the second day that the kids were driving me and each other crazy. I forced them come outside with me and made up a game for them to play with the ball. I should do that more often... They had fun!

That evening Terry and I took our maiden voyage as a six pack on a careful four wheeler ride across Terry's grandmother's land, back where we got engaged. It felt so good to get out and about and the evening was beautiful. This is the stock pond behind Terry's dad's rental house that we used to live in. Terry hadn't seen it so full in a long time, if not ever, thanks to that crazy wet spring and early summer we had.

Panorama shot looking east, I think... 

We had all four kiddos along! This was Ezra's very first ride. 

There were these tall plants (weeds? i have no clue) everywhere. It was insane. Usually there are a handful of them, but again thanks to all the moisture, we were driving through forests of them. I tried to avoid them with my four wheeler. Terry however bowled right over them. Evie wanted him to. She said they were orcs and she counted how many they killed: 117! 

We passed this final pond on our way back to the road. Again it was very full!