One Hand Planks in Mud

One overcast morning last month I was invited by a friend to go mountain biking here in town at M Hill. I am not a very experienced mountain biker, but I enjoy it. But man, it is hard. So much harder than I imagined. 

We were hoping the sprinkles that were present when we first started up the hill would stop as we went along. We were wrong! Rain = mud = poor biking conditions.

We were coming down the back side of the hill when we all stopped to walk across standing water. I foolishly tried to ride through it on the grass on the side. My bike got stuck in the mud and I just tipped over, catching myself with one hand with the rest of my body suspended over it, still on my bike. My hand sunk in way deep but I managed to get off my bike and get only my feet wet and not my entire body. We were laughing about it later and they gave me a nickname; something like One Hand Planks in Mud. That made it seem less embarrassing somehow. 

A little farther on we came to some really thick mud, like gumbo. We were just going to plow through but several people couldn't go any farther since their tires were so jammed packed with mud that they wouldn't even turn anymore! Here is Denise helping Brent wipe his tires off. We had to cup our hands into a C shape and pull the mud off.

This is Terry's bike when I got done with it. Most of the thick mud was already gone since we went back to higher ground and rode out of there. Every part of the bike was mud splattered, as was every part of me. There was even mud inside my camelback.

While the mud was still soft and wet was the time to clean it so we all dumped out bikes onto the overflowing creek bank and got to work.  

Paula, Brent, me, Kyle and Mary.

I was so ready for a shower when I got home. 

Noah's 2nd trip to Rainbow

A week after Terry returned from his two-week mission trip in mid-May, we dropped Noah off for his second ever week of camp at Rainbow Bible Ranch. It was definitely strange having him absent from the house during that week. It was so quiet! I think it was good for all of us to have a little space though. We were glad to have him back at the end of the week.

Like I've mentioned, we've had a very wet spring/summer. Therefore, the corral at camp was super muddy and soupy. They could only use a fraction of the total space they had and even that was still pretty thick.

They went alphabetically so we got to see Noah right away. When Larry was introducing Noah to the crowd he nearly called him Terry. He went on to say how Noah looked so much like Terry and how Terry spent a lot of time there as a kid. 

When Noah was getting off his horse in the back and the next kid was going, Larry became distracted by what was going on behind him. He laughed and said something like how he wished we could see what was going on back there. Turns out it was Noah - he had fallen in the mud after he dismounted!

We knew that the afternoon would be a long one since the drive was 40 minutes, there was a rodeo, dinner, and then a show. But for some reason we didn't think to leave the two littles with someone. We took them along. Ezra was happy in the stands for about 10 minutes... 

Then Ez got bored. He came down on the ground with me and spend a lot of time playing in the sandbox. Then he wanted to climb the fence and fall into the mud. We compromised and I held him above the mud. 

Shari, her girls and Grampa came out to watch as well. Here's Evie and Grace by the sandbox. 

Grampa and Sarah.

It was a large group and took a long time for all the kids to have their turn.

Once everyone was done going around the barrels, they went in reverse alphabetic order and raced to take a flag off a calves tail. 

The dismount. Check out his muddy jeans. 

See how muddy that corral was! 

Noah sat in the stands after his turn and we got to give him a hug. 

Larry went by and his big horse slopped mud on Terry. Ha! 

Dirty boys. 

We had dinner and then listened to the kids sing a couple songs and Larry tell some stories about the week. 

Noah waved at us a lot. He was glad to go home, but he had a good week.  

at the fountains

A couple weeks ago Shari and I got together at Main Street Square so our kids could play in the fountains. Ezra, of course, did no such thing. Good thing I brought toys for him to play with at the table with me, because that's all he did.

Evie had a grand ol' time. She makes friends wherever she goes; every girl is a new friend.

So pretty. 

Samuel mostly messed around with this side spout. 

Grace and Evie are good buds. 

Oh, I guess Ezra did more than play at the table with me. He taught Sarah how to play on the marble barrier. Shari was worried so it's lucky no one got hurt. We were there a couple weeks ago though and I was watching Ezra from a distance. He was standing near here and just jumped off. The teens that were next to him were so sweet and caught him. Such a rebel. 

I hadn't sat down at the square for quite some time (probably since Terry's 35th birthday, nearly two years ago) and I didn't know the sculptor they had down there was shaping the marble is this way; more like etching. How cool is that?! 

Finally got a shot with all four in it. Oh, because Noah was at Rainbow Bible Ranch that week so we didn't have him along. The kids were all a little lost without him. 

One more of the marauding Ezra. Just kidding. He was only exploring and trying to climb.

hail storm

Just a couple days after Terry returned from his two-week mission trip, we had a huge hail storm. We had crazy thunderstorms all of June (including several seemingly never ending 2-4am lightning storms that woke us all up despite fans, and even hail in the middle of the night, which I've never seen). 

We had just sat down to dinner when it started raining and then normal-hailing. At that point the hail was just pea sized and though there was a lot, it wasn't like what would come. But then it let up and we sat back down to try to eat again (because we had been running from the front to the back taking pictures). Then the hail started up again but was coming down much faster. It was like a blizzard of hail. Evie and Ezra were freaking out. Both were crying, thinking the world was ending, and the rest of us thought it was so cool and were taking tons of pictures. At that point I wasn't thinking of my garden or my poor hydrangeas getting pummeled.

This shot was from the first go-round of hail.

We planted our first garden on Memorial Day and I was so proud how everything was actually growing. And then the hail came... End of garden. I replanted everything a few days later.

Our downspouts couldn't keep up. Look at that pile of hail! 

I thought the rain in the gutters, from the storm while Terry was gone was a lot (below)...

I was wrong. This is what the street looked like during the storm!

And after the storm. There was a river down both sides with hardly any road left in the middle, except for the hail shoals. Ha!

Looking down the street afterward.

We made Noah stand in the largest pile of hail on the back deck so we could see how deep it was.  

Like I said, most of the hail was just pea sized, but there were some marbles out there (nothing like Hills Alive two years ago though).

My poor beautiful hydrangeas got absolutely shredded. We had worked so hard to clear that area and plant them, and Terry was so nice to protect them during the Mother's Day blizzard. Well, we couldn't do anything for them this time without getting beaten and bruised. And what's worse is that I had just fertilized them right before the storm started. They had become duller and I was hoping to perk them up. Yeah, that didn't happen.

There was a beautiful double rainbow after the storm passed. I made the kids stand in another pile of hail to document it all. 

Our poor neighbor to the east gets a river through her yard with big storms like this. We'd seen it happen once before but this was worse. Our house is in the perfect place. We don't get standing water anywhere.

View from the upper level. 

It was pretty. 

I thought the sun on the hail, leaves and berries from the neighbor's beat-up tree was pretty. 

Very big cloud.

That evening was Wednesday and we had youth group at the Maze. At the intersection of Highway 16 and Catron Blvd I caught up with the storm an hour later. This was on top of a large hill so I got a good view, but too bad all I had was a cell phone. 

4H tie dying

The day after Terry returned from his 2 week mission trip, I sort of forgot about the kids' rescheduled 4H meeting. We didn't want to leave daddy so we just took him with us! It was a really fun time. My friend Amanda is the mastermind of all the meetings. She really is amazing. For this meeting she had an educational video ready to teach the kids about colors... I like the big boys all standing in the back together.

...and then we all headed outside to tie-dye! Her driveway has lots of fun colors on it now. 

Julia, Aly, Abigail and Evie over-washing their hands. This turned into some kind of game, which I'm sure it was dramatic and girly.

The kids were super excited to wear their new shirts, but they took a couple days to dry. They turned out pretty good! Of course, Noah ripped his at Rainbow Bible Ranch so his now has a large patch in it. But it's all good.

And the backs. And cute little, ahem, big, Ez.