Vacation

Okay, now that I've finished my first week at home, I can write a little about our vacation. As usual, we spent the week in Colorado with my in-laws at their lovely mountain log home.

Considering we drove two kids and a dog across three states TWICE in ten days, it's a wonder we aren't twitchy. May I nominate the creator of in-car DVDs for a Nobel Peace Prize? 'Cuz that woman deserves one. Bringing happiness to children stuck in a car for two days straight is on par with curing polio, if you ask me.

Life at the ranch is fun. The girls were busy all week, they

• chased butterflies (some butterflies actually lived to tell the tale of their capture),
• rode four wheelers with their Dad and Grandpa (Maggie loved it so much she looked like she was trying to inhale the entire experience like a helium out of a balloon)
• rode horses with Mom and Dad on back and a real, live cowboy and cow girl leading the horse (glorified pony ride, but they're only 4 and 2)
• learned to rope a home made cow (deer antlers tied to a saw horse)
• fished in a stream that cuts through grandpa's property and caught 3 cut throat trouts (ok, Maggie was a nightmare next to a rushing stream, so she only fished for as long as my nerves could tolerate it)
• Saw two parades: one for the fourth of July and the other a "cow parade" (A parade of cows happens when a herd of cows moving from one pasture to another surrounds your van...trust me, it was a bigger hit than the real parade.

Despite all their fun, the thing they've talked about the most in the last week is the great time they had with Grandma and Grandpa. They can't wait to go back next year.