HHCS at The Ranch

Kyle was away most of last week - his annual guys' backpacking trip - this time to Canyonlands National Park in Utah. It's on his (massively long) to-do list to cull his photos and once that's done I'll either post some or (gasp!) maybe I can get him to do a post! Anyways, when he got back we decided to get out of town to the Llano Ranch just to spend some family time together (and give me a little break). We were joined by the Tull Family of LLYC and HCCS fame. Four adults, five kids, and two on the way, it was a crazy, yet somehow relaxing weekend!

Owen and Rebecca pretending to go night-night in one of the upper bunk beds.

The dads were great about giving these pregnant (aka tired and cranky) moms a break. They loaded up all five kids in the jeep (several times) for an adventure. Kyle drove, Rebecca had to be restrained in her car seat and Trey wrangled the eldest 4 in the back.

She doesn't look like it here, but we learned that Little Miss LOVES the jeep. She would go missing periodically throughout the weekend and we'd inevitably find her on the front porch trying to climb up onto the jeep where her car seat was. Ahhh...to feel the wind in your curls!

Dark photo - but Owen wanted a picture of himself with whatever this was all over his face.

Claire pretending to drive the four-wheelin' golf cart.

Ellie - the eldest - was the ring-leader of all sorts of wonderfully imaginative games surrounding the parked ATV and golf cart...I believe they took a limo to New York and went on a boat ride in the jungle, and went golfing (duh), and drove on the moon in a moon-buggy. (I know what you're thinking - but rest assured neither vehicle can be operated without a key...we checked.)

Two+ year old Luke (who we all want to call Blake, as in Mezger, because its just hard to call a kid Luke when we're used to that being Uncle Luke). Our little rocket launcher continues to be an outdoor favorite...these kids learned how to take advantage of the wind direction and shoot these things clear over the ranch house. We only lost a few on top in the process but they eventually all blew down.

 

What's the Ranch without watermelon? And what's watermelon without dirt and grass?

Great weekend with great friends. Even the sleeping arrangements worked out well. It'll be interesting to see what adding two more wee-ones to the pack does to this gathering in the future...only time will tell.

Oh my goodness...how could I forget! A couple of *major* highlights from the weekend:

• Owen getting stung by a scorpion in his bed when we were reading books...it hurt...a lot...but after a little Bob the Builder and a couple of oreos he recovered nicely. Kyle killed it with a rolled-up magazine and showed it to Owen. At first I wasn't sure about this, but it was a good call - he touched it (I know, gross!) and they talked about it - and he was able to go back to sleep in that same bed. He did ask why God made scorpions if they're not nice. And asked why they would sting people who are nice. Good questions little boy! He has had a lot of fun telling pretty much everyone we have seen since about his scorpion bite. Don't ask unless you want the long version.

• In a jeep ride the first night with just our family Kyle honked at a cow and pretty much caused a stampeded. We can only infer that Uncle Frank honks to let the cows know he's going to put some food out. We were completely surrounded. They were running. We were speeding up. They were running faster. They were in front of us, behind us, next to us. Kyle clipped a couple of their heels. They were doing this crazy moo/growl. Kyle and I were laughing really hard but part of that was us trying to cover up that we were honestly a little scared (okay, at least I was). Good times!