A week alone at home

This past week Casey and his hunting buddies have been doing their thing down in Monroe. This week has been busy for me with spending time with new and old friends and family. The first day Casey was gone, I was able to meet a dear new friend for lunch and had a wonderful talk. That night and the next day I was able to spend time with another dear friend and her 2 kids. Thank you, Karyn, for keeping me busy those 2 days. I went to see the movie, UP, and really enjoyed it. Thank goodness Casey and the boys were not there, they would have made fun of me crying in 2 places. I must have a little emotional that weekend because I saw Confessions of a Shopoholic with a couple of other friends and I cried in that one as well. What a boob, I know.
Braxton had 2 soccer games this week. The first one was against our rival LaRoca. Unfortuately, we lost to them 4 to 2. I took Braxton to Cutler's afterwards. Wednesday, we had a game against Impact Black. This game Braxton came to play and scored 2 goals. We won 8 to 0 and Braxton got the game ball. After the game, I had a wonderful dinner with Leslie and Karyn for Date night. While at dinner, I got a call from my best friend from High School, Lisa. She was in town for a conference and they were done about noon the next day.
So Thursday, I met Lisa and Tiffany at Gateway. After a little window browsing, we decided to go to a bigger mall to go shopping. We stopped by my house, and the car would not start. The battery has been slowly dying for a couple of months. We just have not bought a new one. My wonderful Father in Law came down and put the charger back on the car and allowed us to use his vehicle for the night. After a wonderful time shopping, we went to Olive Garden for dinner. Thank you Lisa and Tiffany for letting me talk your ears off.
Everytime that Casey goes hunting, I always have one thing I would like to get
down in the house, usually painting a room. This years goal was clean up the downstairs so we can make a major DI run. So this morning I tackled the storage room. I can't believe the junk that we have collecting. I even found a box of smashed cans, who keeps those things? I found a binder full of letters between my family and I from the late 90s. I got a little side tracked reading some of those. It was nice to read what was happening in our lives since I can't remember a lot about my past.
Tonight, the wives are going to dinner and a movie. A good way to end 10 days of widowdom. An Elk was shot this morning, so hopefully the men will be coming home tomorrow. As much as I was excited to have the last 10 days alone, I am ready for Casey to be back. I also must admit, this should be our weekend to have the boys and I am missing them as well.

Surprise in the sand box

About a week ago, the dogs kept going to the sand box and just barking away. I thought nothing of it and just let them be dogs. The next day, I decided to investigate what they were barking at. We found 3 little kittens. We have neighbors that have quite a few wild cats that they feed. About once a year, one of them uses our shed to have her kittens. We found 2 black and one whitish kitten between the shed and the fence. We tried to feed them some milk but they acted like they did not know how to eat yet. They were so cute.

Aida Tuacahn

In June, Casey and I found out that Aida was going to be at Tuacahn. Of the plays we have gone to at Hale Center, this has been one of Casey's favorites. The best weekend for us to go was the last of August. Neither of us had ever seen a play at Tuacahn, so we did not know what to expect.
The day before we left to go down, Dad and Bet decided to join us. Casey and I left Friday afternoon. It was nice to get away just the two of us. Saturday morning we woke up and decided to see if we could find Tuacahn. What a pretty landscape. Also, we both can not believe how much St George has changed. Tuacahn is an outdoor stage that is surrounded on 3 sides by mountains. We met up with Dad and Bet in the afternoon and had a nice talk.
We got tickets early enough that our tickets were front row middle. Once the play got started and some of the props moved and they used the whole mountain as the stage. It even had a pyramid. Just before intermission, you could here tons of water moving. It came down the mountain and onto the stage. We got a little wet since the actors were splashing around in it. The water came ran down the mountain again towards the end of the play as well.
Tuacahn is awesome and we would suggest it to anyone.

Ever expanding family

Within a week between July and August, 2 of my sister in laws had 3 babies. First was Katie who had Ivy Jill. Casey and I can not believe how much hair she has. We spent a nice saturday with Katie and Nate and their girls a couple of weeks ago. After playing catch with a couple of toys, Sophie and Ellie wanted to sing Mamma Mia songs. This was perfect as Casey loves this play and the music for it.



Prior to going to Nate's, we went to see the twins that were born a couple of days after Ivy. Here is a picture of Bella and Jemma with Sarah.



I am totally amazed how unchaotic Eric and Sarah's house was. When we got to the house, the girls were playing next door with my cousins kids. Audrey was at the corner of the house. Once she saw us she told her dad that a nice lady was there. How cute! We had a nice visit with Eric and Sarah. I also was able to hold each of them. Babies are so cute.

Willard trip 2

I have gotten a little behind on my posts this summer. So the next couple of posts are to catch up. We had some much fun the first time we went to Willard in July, we decided to go back a couple of weeks later. This time we had our friends come up and spend the day with us. The three boys, Casey and I left for Willard after work on Friday. Once we got set up, we went to find a couple of geocaches. This was a nice walk that allowed us to see what the camp spots in the Willow side. The kids always love trying to find these. We definitely need to do more of that.



This second spot was a lot better because it was larger and had more shade. Saturday we headed to Pelican Beach as soon as we got up. We set up the shade tent and proceeded to pass the football around. The dogs even were able to play fetch. About lunchtime, Jordan and I went back to the trailer to get stuff for lunch. Once we were back, Bun and Karyn showed up. Another round of football passes was started up. Once we were pretty tired of that, Jason and Leslie showed up with their family. It was time to for another round of football.



Once the kids were tired of football. Zach, Collin and Chelsie decided to swim to the bouys. They were 3/4 of the ways there and Zach yelled back asked if they could swim the rest of the way. I told him he could since they were pretty close. I am glad they are all young bucks. They did not get tired swimming back.
Dinner was the next thing on the agenda. Then sitting around the fire for some nice conversation. At one point, Braxton and I left because we had found a geocache trail. After finding about 4 or 5 spots, we decided that we had been away long enough. It was nice having one on one time with Braxton.