Cattlemans

Kids throwing rocks in the lake

Samuel concentrating hard on painting his train. I think he did a good job for a 3 year old.

Austin posing for a picture by the fireman's pole Samuel hanging out in the tire swing

Austin and Betsy in one of the covered wagons

Samuel climbing up the cargo net

The kids coming out of the indian maze.

Today was another beautiful spring day in the 70s. We started out the morning picking up my friend Chelsie and her husband from the car dealership (there new car is still having problems) and dropped them off at their class at 7:30. We came home and made strawberry jam, and then crepes for breakfast. This is my absolutely favorite breakfast ever...yummmy!! We had fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, that I bought yesterday. Cream cheese sauce, yougurt and strawberry jam. So after we cleaned up after breakfast, we all went outside to work in the garden for a while. We still have about five more rows to plant in the garden, and we're slowing getting each row ready for planting. We worked for a while, but then Samuel kept climbing over are rock wall fence, and running around, and I got tired of chasing him around, so we went inside. We read books, and Samuel and Joseph worked on painting their wagon, and jet plane. We played inside for a while, and I showered and got ready to go to playgroup. Samuel took his nap, and I talked to Travis for a while, and then we drove out to Cattlemans for playgroup. It is about a thirty minute drive, but it is a really fun place. When we got there we waited a few minutes to see if anybody else was coming, but no one did so we walked down toward the playground area, but first stopping to see the ostrichs, bunnies, goats, and rattlesnakes. This is the first time we had been there that we could actually see the rattlesnake really well, and it was shaking it's rattle at us. Joseph thought that it was pretty cool. We did the indian maze for a few minutes, that is always fun. Then went to the playground, we played there for probably almost 2 hours. And although we were disappointed none of our friends showed up, we still had a good time, playing hide and seek, and swinging in the tire swings, and running around on the cool playground stuff. Austin and Betsy both got slivers in their hands, but I pulled my sewing kit out of my purse, and pulled them out and they were fine. I was getting pretty worn out, so I told the kids that we needed to go finish looking at the animals and the lake and then go. So we walked over and saw the sheep, and the deer. They also have a bunch of old wagons and farm equipment that the kids climbed around on for a while. Then their was this duck by the deer, that was not afraid of humans, and the kids decided to follow it around for a while. It was pretty cute the duck waddling around, and one after the other my kids following behind it, with me bringing up the rear. So we finally made it to the lake, and samuel saw another duck, and started running around the lake to catch it. Of course it flew off, the second he came near it. But then we decided to walk all around the lake, since we had never done that before. The kids had a great time throwing rocks, sticks, and dirt clods in the lake as we walked all around. Right as we were getting close to the other side, Betsy got a little too close to the lake and fell in. The poor little girl was so upset, thankfully it was shallow, so she didn't go completly under, and she smiled bravely for the camera. So we decided we had better head to the car and get Betsy out of her clothes. That was the hardest part of the day, getting everyone back. We were pretty far away from the car, and had to walk back past all the animals to get to the car so it took a lot of nagging for me to get everyone to just keep walking and not stop to look at the animals again. Also by this point the sun was almost down, so it was cooling off too, and Betsy was cold. We finally made it back to the van, and I took off all of Betsy's wet clothes, and wrapped her up in coats we had in the van. The kids and I were all starving, it was past dinner time. I should have brought a picnic with us. They wanted to eat at the restaurant, it did smell really good. But, I told them it cost too much money, and Betsy couldn't go in naked. So I told them we would stop at sonic on the way home, and I would get them corn dogs. They were excited about that, so we did that and made it home just before 8pm. Everyone was horribly dirty, so they all got baths. Austin was taking her bath, and Samuel couldn't wait to take his, so he jumped in with Austin. I had just bought a brand new bottle of pert plus shampoo for Joseph, and they found it in the closet, and dumped about half of it (it was a big bottle) in their bath. I came in to check on them, and there was bubbles everywhere, and water and soap was all over the floor, and they were yelling at each other and throwing soap, and splashing like crazy. Austing threw soap right in Samuel's eyes, and he started crying and trying to rub out the soap. I pulled Austin out of the bath, and told her to go to her room, and then I turned on the water, and shoved Samuel's head underneath it, he fought hard to get away, and I had to use all my strength to keep him under the water, soaking myself in the process (i had just changed into my pajamas). I finally got all the soap out of his eyes, and off his body and dryed him off with a towel and calmed him down. I got everyone to bed finally. I finished reading "The Lightning Thief" and then headed off to bed. Man that was an exhausting day.