First week of school signaling fall is right behind

Zachary went back to school this week leaving us with just keeping Zane.  It is just so different to keep one three year old versus a nine year old and a three year old.  And Zane is one who can play by himself well but Zachary seems to need guidance all the time.  But he has always been like that.

Just before school started we had a family birthday party for Zachary.  His birthday is actually the 29th but he is having a slumber party with friends for that one. 

I have fallen in love with books on CDs.  Oh, I don’t listen to them on CD.  I download them to my iTunes then upload to my iPhone.  Put the earphones in and go!  JD Robb, Nora Roberts, Robert B. Parker, and more. Janet Evanovich is read by Lorelei King.  She is just phenominal.  Makes the characters come alive.  I picked up a few more today, different authors.  Looking forward to it.  My only wish is that I could download books from the online library and put on my phone.  But those are wma files and the iPhone will not take those.  And the library has them protected so I cannot change the format.  Sigh.  Thinking I might need a separate mp3 player.  Just do not want to spend any more money. After all, I want a DSLR camera.

The garden is all but abandoned.  It just has not done well this year.  Green beans are looking sickly.  Blackeyes did not do well at all.  Tomato cages continue to fall over no matter what I do.  Oh, I get tomatoes.  Wonderful tasting, ugly things.  Volunteer acorn squash is doing well.  Squash usually do.  Jalapenos are good, not big, but good. The cantaloupe will never make this year.  Just a bad year for my garden this year.  Next year I am going to let it sit and just grow tomatoes.

We went Thursday to Boys Ranch to look at a travel trailer.  The price is ok but it is still a bit heavier than what we want.  I think we may take a trip to the Dallas area and look at the hybrids.  Lots of room and less to haul!  LOL 

Going to go shower now and get ready for the day.  Taking Zachary to Kabuki for his birthday.  It is his favorite restaurant.  He wanted to be a chef there at one time.  Now I think he has his sites on football.

Fellow digi scrappers – Look for a freebie camping kit hopefully by next weekend!

Clouds of summer

Summer is almost over.  Zachary starts back to school next week and Zane will be back in Mother’s Day Out in a couple of weeks.  Think life will get a little slower?  I doubt it.  But I think I am looking forward to some changes.  I really want to get back to doing a bit of scrapbook designs and maybe even pick up my cross stitching.  It has just been abandoned.

The month of August has been wet!  If my garden had done well it probably would have been a bumper crop.  But, it did not do so well.  Oh, I have tomatoes, green beans and jalepeno but the blackeyes, planted twice, did not grow.  The cantaloupe are nearly non existent.  Even the weeds seem to be sparse.  Who knows.  I just know that next year I don’t plan on having a garden.  I will have tomatoes.  Gotta have those!  But the Farmers’ Market will have my business.

I have been taking lots of photos of clouds.  I am really enjoying the summer clouds.  Gotta find a different subject I think.

 

These are all straight out of the camera.

I have so many more!  Does anyone else has this obsession of taking pictures of a certain subject?  Sheesh.

I did take the boys to the park yesterday to feed the ducks and have lunch with Kathleen.  It was fun.  A very nice day too.

Recently I completed a layout for a challenge at Scrappers Workshop and I really like how it turned out.  Zachary trying to get the cows to take some grass.

Actually I have done several pages.  Trying to work on our vacation pictures.  Here they are.

  

Well, gotta go make some homemade ice cream.  Today we are attending Zachary’s birthday party for family.  His real birthday is next week but he is hopefully going to have a slumber party with friends.  I say hopefully because apparently his mouth has been overrunning his brain today and he may not get that party!  Yikes!  I’ll let you know.

The rest of the story and the end

We are about to go home.  Really.  Two weeks on the road and we need to get home.  Lots of people are homesick for their own beds.  This last was like the horse going to the barn. Hang on! 

We did have a little trouble now.  Coming off the last night of camping we got a flat tire on the trailer.  Did any of us know it?  Nope.  Know what happens when you drive on a flat tire?  The rim gets ground down to nothing!  I really should have taken a photo of the rim.  It was sad.  But here is extracted from the picture below.

So we pull into this town and the guys get down and change the tire.  See Zane helping?  Now we really need to find a spare because you do not want to drive home without a spare.  None to be had in White Sulphur Springs, MT.  On to the next stop.

We pulled into Columbus, MT to get gas and find something to eat.  Found a store that had a rim and a tire.  Whew!  Now we will eat and get back on the road, right?  Wrong.  As we pulled over to the place to eat the camper made a large noise.  Now what.  Well, a spring broke.  Sigh.  And thank goodness we had a spring. But not all the tools.  However, the guys did get it put on.  And we did eat.  The people at the restaurant were so good.  Gave us water and let us sit inside while they worked on it.  Thanks for your hospitality!

After all the delays we knew we could not make it to Mt. Rushmore.  We decided to stay in Sheridan, WY for the night at a KOA.  I mention this because it was probably the loudest place we stayed.  In Estes it was wall to wall trailers but here, it was just loud.  The put us near the playground which was great for the kids.  A bit of a hike to the bathrooms, but hey, at least there were bathrooms and showers.  Next door was a family with kids and Zachary and Zane immediately made friends and played. The family Dad trained dogs for a living and so had a few dogs with them. 

That night we heard the dog whine, bark, make dog sounds outside in his cage and the Dad "BE QUIET!" several times.  But the loudest noises were the trains roaring and sounding the horn and the 18 wheelers roaring and hitting the jake brakes.  Oh man!  You just don't realize how noisy a place can be.  This had a big impact on finding a place to say in later stops, believe me!

So, back to travel.  South Dakota.  Our first stop was Little Big Horn.  And Custer's Last Stand.  I really cannot describe it.  It is kind of one of those places that you just are quiet and think about the lives lost there.  Soldiers and Indians!  Very interesting.  There is also a National Cemetery there.

 

 

And into the Black Hills.  I have to relate a story that was cute to all of us.  When you are driving through the Black Hills towards Mt. Rushmore there are some really interesting rock formations.  As we are driving Ross looked up and saw a set of rocks that looked just like the male anatomy.  He kind of laughed and said "Do you see what that looks like?"  We are all looking, giggling of course, and Zane pipes up "That looks like my peepee!"  Oh my goodness.  We really laughed then.  Took us a bit to calm down.  Sorry, I was not fast enough to get a picture.

And finally, Mt. Rushmore.  If you have never been, there are just not enough words.  It is so awesome.  You need to go.

 

Flags of each state are there.

We took the tour with a ranger.  She was so good.  She asked who was the youngest person in the audience who could name the four presidents.  Zachary piped up and gave them to her!  We were so so proud of him.  And he knew so much more about it.  What a kid!

 

Yep, worth the trip, even the second time.

OK, so now to find a place to camp.  Uh huh.  Again, be prepared.  We traveled through Custer State Park looking for camping.  It is quite a trek through there.   First, the bridges and tunnels and views!  Wow.  So cool.  For the tunnels you are supposed to stop and honk before you go through as they are one lane.  The bridges were just neat looking and part of the road.

 

The wildlife.  We saw so many deer, antelope, and buffalo.  Also an elk and some donkeys.  And most were either on the road or by the road and had no fear.  The donkeys had a car surrounded.  That was funny!

The buffalo really had no fear.  In fact, they were just rude!  Stood right in the middle of the road.  And would they budge?  Nope!  We sat for a bit just waiting behind another car to honk or move them some way.  Finally I rolled down my window, leaned out, and yelled "Yeehaw!!  Yawwww yawwww!" several times and off they lumbered.  Guess the farm girl came out. 

 

These were not small buffalo.  One was HUGE.  He was as tall as our truck.  He started coming to the truck and that scared me.  We had seen a car in Yellowstone that a buffalo had "rubbed" against.  This was close enough for us.

Found out late that the camping in Custer was now by reservation only but we did find a great RV place and spent the night.  The next day we headed on back to Denver and Pueblo.  Stayed in a very nice motel and went swimming and relaxed.  Perfect end to a long but satisfying trip.

 

Next year?  Who knows.  Suggestions?  I am thinking of going east.