Double "E" Blessed: Ranch Vacation

We had a another great vacation this summer, this time with my family at the ranch. It was, once again, a hot vacation, and very dry, but still lots of fun. The girls and I were there July 1-10, and Bryan joined us for the weekends. We enjoyed visiting with family, playing, crafting, riding 4-wheelers, and generally having a good time. When everyone was there we had 15 people staying in the house, and on the smaller days we had 10 people.

This year the girls were old enough I knew they would need to be entertained a bit more than in the past. It has been so hot and dry, we were being extra cautious of rattlesnakes. The girls were only allowed outside with an adult (and we did end up seeing and killing a couple of snakes while we were there.) So, I went shopping a few days before the trip to find some crafts to help occupy the girls' minds and hands.

First they painted birdhouses:

Deep Concentration

Ella's Completed

Emma's completed.

On another day we made crowns:

Princess Emma

Princess Ella

Being Silly for the camera

They also painted the letters in their names to hang on the wall when we got home.

So proud of the finished product

Look what I did!

Some other fun things to do what trying to beat the heat:

Read with Cousin Carlie

Aunt Clora Ann loves reading too.

Riding the old rocking horse in the toy room

Going shopping.
(We didn't buy these hats, but don't they look cute?!?)

We did enjoy some outdoors activities. My dad, brother, Bryan, and I went into town to play golf one morning. I played the worst round of golf in my life, but it sure is a beautiful course. We saw deer on a couple of holes, and a ball hit by one of us (who shall remain nameless, but it wasn't Bryan or me) came very close to hitting a deer, quite by accident of course. We all got a good laugh out of watching that deer try to jump over the ball.

Grandy also set up the swings for the girls again.

Emma

Ella

Riding the supermarket carousel on a trip to town.

One afternoon, it was actually cool enough to play outside, and the girls decided to play with Keesha, Newton's dog. I was very pleasantly surprised how well they got along with her, as they used to be quite afraid of dogs. They would stand on the porch and throw Keesha's toy, run down the steps and try to get it back from her, then run back up the steps and throw it again. They did this over and over and over for probably 30-45 minutes. All three of them thought it was a great game. (Keesha is such a good dog. She knew just how much to fight these 2 little girls for the toy before letting them have it to throw again.)

4-wheeling is a favorite pastime of our whole family. The girls would beg to go for a ride as often as possible. They loved for Bryan to hit some golf balls out into the field, then go for a ride with him to find and pick them up. While he wasn't there, they asked me several times to go hit and look for some balls. We did take them for several rides, and they loved every minute of it!