Weekend FUN...

Mama had to work a prom in Big Piney on friday night so we made it a family getaway. Brayden played with several balloons at the prom for awhile, until it was way way past his bedtime, then Daddy took him back to the hotel and they went to bed. I got there about 11:45 and crawled into bed. Well I had to move Brayden off my side of the bed and into his bed, then I crawled in. I was worried about him falling out of bed, Daddy wasn't able to come up with much in the way of a barrier on each side of the bed. Anyway, once during the night I thought I heard his head hit the night table so I inhaled loudly and sat up, Roger reacted to my reaction...it was just Brayden's hand flopping over to the night table, not his head. Then a couple hours later we both heard a bump, Roger inhaled loudly and sat up and I reacted by jumping out of bed, walked all the way around Brayden's bed before I realized he wasn't in it...walked back over to my side of the bed and sure enough he was laying there on the floor still snoring. :-) Amazing how incredibly flexible they are and resilient too. He woke up when I picked him up to put him back in bed and said "mama in bed here", so I crawled in next to him to KEEP him in bed. :-) Mama didn't get much sleep that night, but it was enough to get by. Brayden woke up at 7:30 on the money and said "mama awake??". Its better than the constant beeping of an alarm clock, but it often is earlier than I would like, especially if I have had a short night. There was a cafe attached to the hotel and so we packed up some and then thought we would go down for breakfast...well in Big Piney there is a shortage of good help, too many gas/oil field jobs that pay lots better than waitressing. The cafe was closed, in fact I think most people in BP eat from the gas stations. We went a head and checked out and headed for Pinedale thought we would eat breakfast there. We looked for a McDonald's, but that area is soooo deprived, no McD's in sight. We ended up at Faler's store at the bakery, we had donuts and ham and cheese buritos that were actually VERY good. Then we headed on out for Jackson. It was sunny altho had snowed a bit early that morning. Roads were real good though for the most part. Going through Hoback canyon was very very snowy, not on the road but everywhere else. We couldn't believe the snow they have over there. We saw a crm colored pickup parked out by the road and it was almost completely covered with snow, could see just alittle of the passenger side window rest was mostly covered. If we had 1/4 of the snow they have over there, we would be doing great. It snowed the whole time we were in Jackson, just light snow and was really pretty chilly. We did a little shopping. Brayden was most interested in cowboy hats. Had to try several on and finally mama and daddy found one we liked and it wasn't terrible expensive. I found a nice family used clothing store there and had a nice time perusing the store. We had bbq for lunch and then went to see the elk on the refuge. The sleigh rides ended on friday, so we missed out on that, but we could see them anyway. After that we headed home. Roger was feeling alittle tired so he asked me to drive once we were headed up Togwatee. Of course, not long after I took the wheel, the roads got bad, its quite something when the snow on the sides of the road is taller than the car, the road is white and the snow is blowing off the top of the drifts on the sides making the top white too. Made me hope for NO traffic in either direction!! We got through it fine and came upon traffic stopped competely for a cattle truck that had started sliding and ended up with his trailer blocking both lanes of traffic. Roger put his coat and hat on and went up to see if he could help. He found a very young man and a very old man were team driving that truck, the young man had one chain out and was trying to chain one tire, hoping that would help. Roger asked for more chains and he got out chains still in the packages. :-) After about 15 min a couple pickups with snowmobile trailers got in line and the guys from those headed up to help too. We ended up sitting there in line for about 30-40 min. A white pickup coming from Dubois stopped next to Roger and asked if there was anything he could do to help (after the trailer is moved enough to open one lane), Roger said yes, to stop by the maroon grand prix and tell his wife he was ready to go home. I got the message a few minutes later and pulled out of line and slipped my way up the hill to Roger, picked him up and left the other 9 guys there to finish getting the truck going. After all, we only needed one lane to get traffic moving, and he was sick, so it was time to get on home. I was just glad we didn't end up with several hours up there. A snow plow came to the back of the line behind me before they got the truck moving, he turned around and left. A man in Dubois (after we got icecream) said he came back down and called the highway patrol, we never saw any headed up there on our way down, so no telling how long it might have taken without some resourceful young men. Home looked awfully good Sat night.

Roger is doing better today, still quite a bit of stuff in the sinus areas, but he is working and in a pretty good mood. It was beautiful here today, 50 degrees. I had a nice walk and now it is getting windy and stormy looking. I will get some pics posted as I know that is what is wanted most, not just the story line!!

layin around singin

Thought this was cute and would share it. He is singin about happy and food first then he gets into chanting Defense at some point with good job mixed in then starts singin about his backhoe. He was certainly happy and content while I was getting lunch ready.

indoor hunt

This was supposed to be before the outdoor hunt, but it wouldn't work right, so here it is again, see if it works this time...


We thought Brayden would understand the egg hunt thing this year, so we did one. It snowed with the sun shining, like a white out while we were doing the indoor hunt. It didn't amount to much, except a lot of exclamations!!

outdoor hunt

See not much snow, but there was a cold breeze.

first experience with dye...

Driving Daddy's pickup

sorry to those that tried to view this post and it didn't come up right. I tried to use the blogger video upload, for some reason it doesn't work for me.

just before it falls...

Brayden was building with blocks Grandma gave him, I got this pic just before it fell down.

No tired Mama

On the way home from town the other day Brayden told me "no tired Mama", it wasn't long and he was sawing logs.

Another horsey

Aunt Ami can be a pretty good horsey too. We had to borrow Papa's hat to get it right.

Daddy horsey

Just an idea

This is a small taste of how fast the cougars played all year. Imagine a whole game of this and you can imagine how fun they were to watch.

state basketball

Brayden says "go cougars" in this video, he might even say "defense". The Cougars are wearing white.

what a cute smile

The first is Valentines Day at breakfast, the second is just playing outside last week. He was trying to climb the light pole, and was being my personal cultivator too.

End of Basketball

Its been a long time since I have posted here. Sorry about that delay. We have been enjoying our high school basketball season with a really great team. Last weekend was our state tournament, our team went in with a 27-0 record and left with 29-1 record and third place. Wonder how many other times in history there has been a team with only one loss that had to settle for third place. All water under the bridge now, they are a great bunch of kids and didn't let it get them down.

Brayden has come to be quite the little basketball fan and player too. I will put some video footage on here that shows our team and you can hear Brayden cheer for them. Its really cute.

We spent the weekend in Casper with Aunt Ami and basketball, and pool time. Brayden had a blast with the games, pool and eating out. We had some behavior issues in public and told him that if he couldn't behave we would quit eating in town. The next meal he was so very well behaved!! He loves to eat in town.

On Thurs while mama and daddy we packing the car, Brayden got in the car and was looking through his game bag. He found our dvd player that he has NEVER seen before, got it out of the bag, found my cd case and opened it, found his Curious George learning video that he plays on the computer, put it in the dvd player, turned it on and was watching his video the next time daddy put stuff in the car. We call him our little "techi". A little playing on the computer and the child knows a lot about electronics. Perhaps this will show up in his choice of career someday. :-)

Thurs night we went to Gillette to see Aunt Dar, Uncle Joel and Brittany, we had a great time with them for the evening. It took Brayden just a bit to warm up, but once that was done, he and Britt had a good time for sure. We spent fri morning shopping around town, found a store that carried Wisconson cheese, what a find!! Also went into a teacher store, found some things for convention there on a sidewalk sale. After shopping we met for lunch and then headed back to Casper. We got in around 3 p.m. and went to check into our hotel, they messed up a ton of reservations so we ended up with a smoking room, went to Walmart and bought vanilla air freshners. Our room smelled like vanilla cigarettes all night. The hot tub wasn't hot, sauna didn't work, over all, not a good hotel experience. The next morning we checked with another hotel and they had an available room, so we moved!! A much better experience there, good hot tubs, excellent pool, breakfast was great. I had bought Brayden a blow up turtle for the pool, he really enjoyed floating around with that.

Now a bit more up to date...we got home sunday evening. Yest Brayden went next door for a birthday party and they played outside some. It was windy so a bit chilly. Today he is out in the shop with daddy shooting hoops and doing other stuff I sure. He had another episode with his leg hurting last night in the night. It seemed to go away with a bit of rubbing. This morning it is "all better". We hope it stays that way.

Will get some pics posted now and video too. Its snowing here, hope it keeps it up all day!!

Mr. Gump's 3 hump Whump

Ever read Dr Suess about Mr Gumps seven hump whump?? That is what Brayden is talking about in this video. Nice to know the imagination isn't idle. The tractor is quite inventive too.

Black eye

Somehow on sunday night while playing basketball he got a bruise under his left eye. It was just a bump, but it has bruised all under the eye now. More of a red bruise than a black one, but its a black eye all the same...don't remember if this is the first or second one. Guess he is really all boy. He didn't even come tell me he was hurt, he just kept right on playing and I didn't notice anything till we were putting on coats to come home. So he is tough too apparently.

A While Ago

Would anyone believe its been 13 yrs since Roger and I got engaged? Well it was 13 yrs ago last night, of course we didn't tell everyone until March, but we had it planned. And we looked soooo young. I am sure that happens to all of us and as more time goes by it only gets worse. :-)

Result of New shoes

New shoes cause quite a stir in our household, in fact one has to wear them right away and all day. These being running shoes, cause a whole new reaction, hence all the running.

New Shoes

Here are the new shoes, he has to wear them all day now. Thats what you do when you LOVE new shoes.

Indoor games

In some closet around here, Brayden found this indoor soccor/hockey set. Use a hockey stick to put a soccor ball in the net. He found it fun to play with for a day or two, now its found the same place as all the other toys, boring stuff anyway...they say toys are a waste of money, I am beginning to see that as true.