The most painful picture upload EVER...

Well, I'm back!! And much to my surprise it looks like someone,(Shelley), did a little blog high jacking while I was away!! :) Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. It was a great thirty-second!

Vacation was wonderful. One of the best we have ever had. Lots of fresh, pine scented air and mountain showers. The temp never reached 80 the entire time we were there and most days we carried along a jacket. Our days were full of fun and our evenings were spent around the campfire or playing UNO with the kids.

It was near impossible for me to narrow down my pictures. YES, this is narrowing down...I took 249 pictures while we were there. Fun times and great memories must be photographed!!

Here are just a few for ya!

Let's start by saying I did this all by myself on the first try!!

Kate spent the entire day before we left making snacks for us to take along...all by herself.
The kids and I on our way to the top of Greenie Peak on our 2nd day. This was part of our jeep tour!!
Stopping at the old gold mine. Kenna Mae was convinced this was a bear cave and would NOT go in...hilarious!!
The big kids and Jason...just kidding, y'all!! LOL!! This is our guide, Jeff. Jason was taking the picture and I was standing OUTSIDE of the "bear cave" with Kenna Mae!!
Panning for gold.
The kids met TONS of friends in our RV park. The park was gated and the kids had a ball with mostly free reign on their bikes for a full week!

Our pad for the week...small and cozy!

The top of the Gorge in Taos. SCARY!! Jason was about to pass out at this point!!
Just a sweet picture of Kenna Mae at the park.
Yes, we rollerskated. Please don't look at me in this picture. This is my new diet motivation. It is forever sketched into my memory. Didn't I just loose 20 pounds?? Looks like another 20 is in my future!!
Two of my 3 favorite guys. I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!!

Daddy and his kids on a nature trail.

Case using his walking stick as a gun, of course!! He's not much the nature lover. He just wanted us to shoot everything we saw..."oh, a deer, let's shoot him!!" Sorry if there are any non-hunters out there!
Just a sweet picture...
Jason cooked breakfast every morning at the campfire...hence the need for me to loose 20 more pounds!
Koop got a sling shot for his souvenir. Here he is shooting rocks, but I let the him, Case, and some other boys around the camp have a marshmallow fight with their sling shots the night before we left....HEAVEN for those boys.

We hiked up to Middle Fork Lake on Thursday. Let me just tell you, it was 2 miles STRAIGHT up with switchback after switchback and my babies never once complained!! It was tough y'all!! Now, me, I complained enough for the four of them put together!!LOL! This is what we saw when we made it to the top...2 and a half hours later. Beautiful!!

This was the trail head because, of course, my pictures are out of order!

Daddy's boys...
More diet motivation...
There were little waterfalls everywhere on the Middle Fork hike.
Kenna Mae fell on her walking stick before we even started hiking! Thank goodness it missed her eye. Could have been much worse!

Around the campfire one evening. The fam...awww!!

Singing to Kenna Mae...

This is my favorite picture. A bear, or actually, an entire family of bears, kept us on the lookout every single night we were there. They would come into the camp and dig through the dumpster that was about 20 feet from our trailer. This is the picture I took of them. Nice. I am such the great photographer. Apparently, you can't take a picture through the mesh, even though you can see through it. Awesome. Missed my only bear picture chance.

So, as you can see, we were havin' fun, fun, fun! We are glad to be home, but wish we could have brought some mountain air with us. We love the mountains!!

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I think a bigger camper is definitely in our future however!!LOL!

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On another note, my big kids are at cousin camp this week at the ranch with Ma and Pa. I am going to take this opportunity to do some catch up on my house. I've got a few rooms to paint and a table to redo. So, if I am MIA, you can find me at home up to my elbows and eyebrows in paint!!:)

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Please, please, keep our house "stuff" in your prayers. It is getting really old living with 13 windows boarded up and no carpet on half your floors. It seems like the process is taking forever. We are having a hard time lining someone up that can restore our windows. They were original 1928 on most of them. Seems the process of glazing them is not very fun and no one likes to do it anymore, but we certainly don't want to knock them ALL out and start over. I'm just not sure what we are going to do yet. The carpet has to wait for the windows, and so does the outside paint...ARRGGG!! I'm getting all depressed just thinking about it...so I think I'll stop!!

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And let me just add for my dear sister in law S...no vacation can be complete without a little vomit!! Case decided that he would vomit all the way down the mountain on the way home...out with a bang!!