Sunday, November 14, 2010

Meet Stanley -

He's turned a year in June.  He's a sweetie and we love him!!

These are pictures from earlier last week when we tried to get Stanley to load.


There was a lot of this....


More of this....


And lots more of this!


When we saw that things were just not gonna happen that day, we went home.

Stanley arrived yesterday evening.  It was only after a whole lot of the same...  that he was finally convinced to load up and go for a ride!

He's such a sweet little boy!

Grand Ol' Flag

Here are my two big boys, serving on Veteran's day.  We got up at 5:45am and quickly got ourselves dressed and out the door to help the VFW put up dozens of flags at one of our cemeteries.

It was chilly and brisk morning.  But we were proud to do it in honor of our nation's veterans! 

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who has served and is serving now!


We have become especially sensitive to the significance of our flag as Mason, in particular, has been involved with the VFW through the scout troop.  The scouts have had several flag retirement ceremonies. These pictures are from the one they did on September 11.  There wasn't a huge turn out to the ceremonies, but those who did come were touched in many ways.




Sunday, November 7, 2010

Best Buddies


You - oo- oooo!


I wanna be like you - oo - oooo!


I wanna walk like you!


Talk like you!


You - oo - oooo!


Thursday, October 28, 2010

Campfire Food and Campfire Fun!

Foil Dinners for everyone!


Her first S'more!


Demon Dog by night!  Scarrrrrry!


What a beautiful morning!


Good morning kisses for the sleepy head!


Hot water on the fire for some hot chocolate and left over 'mallows from the night before.


Getting so big!!


Treasures from nature!


The Kayaks!!






Watching the action from the sidelines!






The girls hiking back up to the campsite to get ready for a weenie roast!


 Plum-tuckered!

Friday, September 3, 2010

Civil War Days in Lamoni

These photos are so hot out of the camera they are still smoking!  We had a great time and we could hardly wait to tell about it!


We started off in the Rebel Camp.  Great southern hospitality!  Beautiful horses and fabulous weaponry!


This gentleman is pulling out his sword so we can see what it looks like!  He also told us about how it was used in battle and if you didn't hold it properly, you would most likely break your sword when you ran it through a soldier.  The Cavalry carried the swords and a shorter rifle than the infantry men.


The horses, we were told, were 'battle proof.'  Many of the horses there had been filmed in battle scenes for movies.  In fact, when we got to see the cannon go off, the horses that were tied not hardly 20 feet away didn't even flinch!


Beautiful afternoon for kicking back in camp and resting a spell.


Ka-boom!


How's this for a 'trigger finger' - I captured the cannon right when it fired!


Here's another 'trigger finger.'  I think I'd be a little more scared around this one!!


After hanging out in the rebel camp and talking with everyone there, we walked over to the federal camp.  We got to play with guns here too...


Heavy?  Yup!


Now here is a really pretty cannon!

Its a howitzer mountain 20 pounder, and was used by the military from 1840's until 1910.


This Union Soldier is all decked out and ready for battle!


And this little guy looks like he's ready for a nap!


And what is a war without the surgeon?


He opened up all of his gear and told us all about it!  He can do an amputation with the above tool in nothing more than three minutes!


Pretty primitive, eh?