Flashback Friday

I don't have a picture to go with this one, just words. Two little girls ride imaginary horses up and down a gravel country lane lined with tall trees and salmon berry bushes. At the end is a farm with a white farm house and pastures that back in the day held cows and chickens. Back then their Grandpa would regale the younger girl with stories of horses and sing You Are My Sunshine to her over and over. Nothing much surrounded that farm, an old feed store and lots of lots of woods. Down the nearest paved road stood the chapel where the old man's daughter married the young girls father.

I was at that farm decades ago and I drove by it again today. I wish I could say that it hasn't changed since I raced make believe horses down that drive. Today nothing is the same. The drive is barricaded by the city, who knows what is at the end. The seemingly endless forest is paved providing a ginormous hardware store with parking for their customer. The feed store is long gone making way for an AM/PM of all things (a different kind of feed store I guess) and the chapel now houses a near mega-church by a different name. Sad. I'm glad that I changed but I wish the old farm didn't. I know change is inevitable but seriously, a hardware store and an AM/PM? Bummer.

Flashback Friday

This isn't too far back in time, just a little skip to the end of July. I took this on the way home after leaving Rob on base shortly before he left on his "little" trip. Aren't I a lucky gal that this is the view that I get when I'm on my way home. True that technically "my mountain" is a volcano and could go all Mt. St. Helens on us at any time but that just adds to its mystery and beauty.


Of course, the picture doesn't do justice to how beautiful it really is - not to mention the fact that I took this while driving. Shh, don't tell anyone.

Oops. I think I just did.

Flashback Friday

Today the Flashback Machine is taking us back to early 2006 when we had a little property and a couple of goats named Archie and Matilda. Gabe absolutely loved helping to feed and water the goats. In fact, he would beg me to let him outside to go to the barn all day long and could not be convinced that the goats only needed their feed twice daily. He also enjoyed showing visitors how to feed the goats. He would lead them into the feed room and tap on the top of the can holding their grain and show them how to scoop with the measuring cup then take them into the stall to dump it into the feed pans. On occasion he would get confused and put himself into the feed pans instead. I'm so bummed because he says he doesn't remember our goats. I miss them a lot since we couldn't keep them when we moved. Someday I hope to have property again and would like to have more goats, a horse (at least one) and some chickens. By that time I also hope that the kids will be old enough to muck stalls and collect eggs. Oh yes, dear children, there will be barn chores!

Flashback Friday

Since we just arrived home from our brief little vacay this evening I thought I would use my Flashback Friday to post a pic from a vacation past. Last year we ended up traveling a lot (not the norm), Zion ended up taking three different cross country flights in the summer before she turned one.

In June of last year we traveled to Michigan when Rob's brother Carl and his fiance, Keri, got married (tomorrow is her birthday BTW, Happy B-day, Keri!). The first morning we were there Zion would not sleep so Rob brought her to our bed. They both slept much better after that. She was just over 6 months old here. Here we are at the wedding, which was beautiful! Even when the heavens opened and we got caught in a lightning storm probably less than an hour after this picture was taken.

In September of the same year we attended a reunion of sorts for Rob's InterVarsity group from college at Camp Gitche Gumee. While there Gabe, 3, got to dip into Lake Superior for the second time and Zion, at 10 months old, for her first.

Looks like a tropical paradise doesn't it? Not hardly! This is the beach access to Lake Superior at Camp Gitche Gumee. This day it was FREEZING due to the wind which was blowing so hard the sand was whipping everywhere. We came, Rob chased his hat, I snapped a few pics and we left.

Then in October we traveled to Arizona to visit with family there. Gabe's favorite part was the pool of course.

Zion, on the other hand, fell in love with my Grandma's chair. She was about two weeks shy of her first birthday for this trip.

OK, that's all for now. We are home safe (if we survive the neighborhood fireworks that is) and I promise I will blog about our vacation and post a ton of pics in the next few days. I have to hit post really fast before it isn't Friday anymore and my Flashback will be on the wrong day - yikes!

Flashback Friday

I thought it would be fun to take a step into the past. This is Gabe when he was a little over 3 months old, so about May of 2004. Rob and I joke that this is how we knew that he was ready to try solid foods. He was a great little eater back then and stayed that way until he was about 1 1/2. Then he went from one extreme to the other and to this day practically subsists on what he can glean from the air. His hair was so short at this age and always stuck up. I thought he looked like a startled bird most of the time. A very cute startled bird of course.