I woke up early this morning and Annie was itching to go out. Our normal routine is to open the door, let her do some quick business and she comes right back in. I let her out, quickly used the restroom and then opened the door and gave a quick whistle before heading back to bed. Annie was not there and did not respond to my call, which is her loss, not mine, I shut the door and headed back to bed. About 2 hours later, John got up and let her back in. My sweet black and WHITE pup was an awkward shade of greenish-brown and smelled HORRIBLE! #mulepoop #ranchlife #banishedtothebarnuntilbathtime
Let’s just say she was NOT pleased with the consequences and we spoke a bit about her early morning shenanigans!
This morning marked the first time in MONTHS that we attended church live and in person! Our home church can see 3500 folks on a Sunday and as a result has struggled with when and how to re-open in compliance with local regulations. Here in Dubois, church consisted of the pastor, his wife, her dad and our party of 6. (Plus the pastor’s kids in another room). Social distancing isn’t the primary concern here, but the message was as relevant and solid as any I’ve heard, leaving us with some great thoughts to ponder along our journey.
After church we packed a picnic in the 4Runner, and 4 Carkeets and 1 MawMaw set off on a bear hunt! I started singing the ‘Going on a bear hunt…’ song, which apparently isn’t so funny this close to Yellowstone!
We headed out to a beautiful spot for a picnic and settled in for a mosquito ridden feast! We ate quickly and then headed out to hike to this beautiful waterfall. It is so funny how quickly the moods of my children can change. A lovely day, a lovely hike and lots of grumbling, yet I will persist. They don’t have to like it, they just have to experience it!
After the waterfall, we just kept driving around. My in-laws have to gather their own firewood to keep warm through the long winters. They have started this process for this season, but had not been out in a while and were curious about where they could still find good supply. We were all happy to travel the back roads and see what we could see. I have a hard time staying awake sometimes and I kept dozing off. I was snoozing pretty good when we came to a down and up hill and there was some concern that it might be really soft at the bottom and John didn’t want to get stuck. (Someone in our family may or may not have gotten VERY stuck earlier this year). SO, John decided to take this lumpy bumpy down and up at speed, you know, to not get stuck. Let me just tell you what this little escapade did to my slumber. I nearly jumped out of my seat! “I’m AWAKE! WHAT’S GOING ON?!?” The kids thought it was SOOO funny, “HEE HEE, Mom’s awake! Hee Hee!” Not one to be a poor sport, and since I was only awake for part of it, we turned around and did it again! It feels oh so good to get a little mud on the tires.
After a while, the kids were getting restless. MawMaw said that when Duke (dog) gets restless, PawPaw lets him run along outside of the car… so…. Please don’t call CPS, we are very responsible parents, and the kids were VERY eager to run, so they ran and we followed slowly behind. Levi was intent to beat Trista, but she is fast, so at one point, we picked him up and dropped him off IN FRONT of Trista, so that he could beat her. All in all, a great and beautiful Sunday drive up in the beautiful mountains!
At bedtime, I pulled out a surprise bedtime story that I had picked up for Levi, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. Levi told me that I could read it to myself! He finally came around and allowed me to read it to him. I then asked what his favorite part of the day was, to which he responded, “Playing Minecraft.” So I had to ask what his second favorite part of the day was, to which he replied, “That you picked a bedtime story that I liked.”