Annual Strawberry Fields Forever Camping Trip

For the past 4 or 5 years Matt has been one of the veterinarians at the Strawberry Fields Forever Endurance Ride. It is a 3 day horse race/ride. Each day the riders and horses race a 50 mile loop. There is also a 25 mile loop. It is amazing to see all the horses and especially the horse trailers and rigs they bring up! WOW! www.strawberryenduranceride.com

Anyway, in the past we have gone up and camped with Matt during the ride. We did the same this year, but since it rained everyday and every night and I have a new baby, I only stayed over one night. Kelsey stayed up there from Thursday to Saturday night and helped her dad. She loves the endurance ride. All the riders and management people give her all the love and attention a 7 year old can handle! Kendal, Emmitt, and I went up Thursday and came home at 10:00 pm. We went back up Friday afternoon and spent the night and then came home Saturday around 11:00 am. We were supposed to go back up Saturday night, but the rain was a little too much for me, the baby, and the 2 wheel drive car!

Anyway, we had a super time. It was Emmitt's first camping trip and he did wonderful. He slept great and he loved watching the fire.

Derek and Austin came up Thursday. They helped me set up our tent and then we cooked hot dogs and marshmallows. That is Kelsey's favorite part. Kendal just ate about 10 'raw' marshmallows - no roasting for her.

Friday night the Proctors, Kim and Debbie, came up and spent the night also. They took their trailer up previously in the week to save us a camping spot. Thank goodness too, because the mountain was full! We cooked a delicious dinner of teriyaki pork loin, corn on the cob, and I forgot the cake mixes for the cherry cobbler. Darn it! Phillip and Andy also came up for the evening and it was a beautiful evening!

Here are my little campers. They love being outside and love the mountains. They were super kids.

Emmitt truly was a trooper. What a sweet little boy we have.

Saturday morning, Kelsey got up early to go with Matt. I slept until around 8:30 and the two lazy bones here slept until after 9:00. The pink pile on the left is Kendal and the sweet little one on the right is Emmitt. It was good sleeping, but I swear mom's never sleep well when camping! I was too busy making sure the kids were still covered up, the baby wasn't suffocating, his head wasn't cold, everyone was still warm, bla bla bla. Not to mention the hard ground!

It was a fun fun trip and hopefully we will get a few more in this summer.

Chappell Side Men

Happy Father's Day to all you men out there!

Here is a smattering of the Chappell side men in my life - I love them all!

My dad jokes that he could ride a horse before he could walk. Maybe it is partially true. He is a great horseman, patient and understanding.

He was a handsome teenager! No wonder my mom fell for him! Paps, you still are handsome!

He is actually VERY handsome and loves to see the world with my mom on their bike.

He is a great husband to my mom. After almost 40 years together they are still in love.

He has a great sense of adventure. We grew up doing fun outings with our dad, even a trip to do chores at the field could be fun with our dad.

He is a super amazing grandpa to my kids and all my nieces and nephews. He has AMAZING patience.

He knows how to have a great time and enjoys spending time with his family - thanks for that dad!

He can make, build, figure out, or fix, anything, and he is willing to spend some time to help his sweet daughters with their wild projects. He is selfless.

My dad can speak Kendalese and speaks it well, which really says a lot. He loves my children and is so great with them. He is the perfect grandpa.

My dad is a fun outdoorsman. He likes to camp, fish, hike, explore, hunt, be in the mountains, and actually farm ( I think he likes it anyway). He has taught his children to enjoy and also respect the outdoors.


My dad is the kind of guy that just gets things done. If something needs to be done, he will do it. He also has a fun time doing it and others like to be near him.

Cussing is in my dad's every-sentence vocabulary, but I remember the only time I heard him drop the big bomb. I drove his newly painted 1960-something Dodge truck into a railroad tie fence post. Being a know-it-all 15 year old, I honestly didn't know my dad knew that word! Anyway, one quick story. Back when I was in high school our ward used to have opening exercises before everyone went to Sunday School class. He was conducting one Sunday and this is what he said from the pulpit "... and our opening hymn will be on page (big pause as he was looking through his notes) oh hell, I don't know what page it is on, you can just find it when we start singing." It was so great.

Happy Father's Day Paps. You are the best dad any girl could ask for.

Here is the wonderful father of my children, My Matty. I love him and my girls adore him.

He teaches our kids about hard work and also having fun.

He is a caring and compassionate father to our children and loves them so deeply.

He not only takes care of our family financially, but he cares for us immensely. He loves his kids so very much and loves to be with them, either playing or working.

Thanks for all you do Matt Crane! Happy Father's Day, I love and appreciate you more than can be expressed.

Now a Father's Day wish to my brother Glen. He is also a great example of a super great father. He loves to be with his kids and is a great dad to them. He is a jokester and has sure passed that on to his son, but he also knows the value of hard work and knows how to get things done. My kids know that their Uncle Glen is the teaser and also the patient one.

And Happy Father's Day to Jared, my sister's husband. He is a fun and patient dad to his 2 sweet kids. He is the bucking bull of the kid rodeo, but also the guy that buckles down and gets to work. My kids know that time with Jared will be a good time and he will treat them like his own.

Enjoy your special day DADS!

Looking Forward to that Summer Solstice

The cool weather has been great, but we are all looking forward to that first day of summer to get here. I just checked weather.com and it said we get to have a few more days of rain and then next week we might get to hit 80 degrees!

Kendal, Kelsey and the neighbor Katie having a lunch picnic the other day.

Emmitt is almost 3 months old - where does the time go?

Yesterday while I mowed the lawn (it wasn't raining at the moment) the girls played on their tin can stilts and Emmitt was an angel in the bouncer.

After the disastrous maiden voyage with the new bike trailer, the girls were sitting on the couch watching a Barbie movie while I finished getting dinner ready tonight. Kelsey has a horrible nail biting habit and when she watches a movie it is really bad. (I usually make her wear gloves when she watches a movie - that shows you how horrible I am.) Anyway, I saw her gnawing away and I said "Kelsey, hands out of your mouth." She sighed and out they came. Kendal is such a little copy-cat so the next thing I know Kendal is chewing on a finger. I said "Kendal, please don't eat your fingernails." She said with a smile "No mom, it a booger." Kelsey and I just about fell over laughing.

Is there really life beyond Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Little Jimmy Dickens? Oh yeah, and don't forget Conway Twitty!

On the left is a YouTube video that I think you should watch. I have stayed away from posting videos, but I could not pass this one up.
It is Jon Schmidt and Steven Nelson playing the piano and the cello. They combined 2 songs together - Taylor Swift's LOVE STORY and Coldplay's VIVA LA VIDA. It is amazing. I am not one that loves this kind of music, but there is something about it - it is beautiful.
Don't feel bad if you don't know these songs. I had to Google LOVE STORY because I don't listen to 'new' country. Kelsey loved watching the video! I had no idea who Coldplay was, so I Googled that too and watched their VIVA LA VIDA video. I like their music for some strange reason, but I am not sure why because it sounds nothing like The Bar J Wranglers!
Anyway, blogger would not let me put the video on this post, so check it out on the side. You might want to let it play through first and do it's buffering thing then come back and really listen to it and watch it. Sorry about the side thing cutting the picture in half too!
Kendal walked up to Kelsey yesterday and said "it a yove tory tom on baby jest say yes." A few days ago she was singing to Emmitt "you be the pince and I be the pincess." Matt does a great little dance while he sings that part too. Needless to say, we have been on a LOVE STORY kick at our house after watching this!
Oh yeah, you need to scroll down and hit pause on my Playlist Player so you don't hear that music while the video plays.

The best $1.44 I have ever spent

We went to Kings today specifically for watercolors. It was the best $1.44 I have yet spent. Actually is was really $2.88 plus tax. They painted for a good 2 hours without hardly a peep this afternoon. I loved it.

If found, please call Rachel

So we went to the zoo on Wednesday. It was a pretty nice day to go - not too hot, not too cold. We met up with Matt's sister Mindy and her girls, and my niece April. They had a great time together.

Kendal on the carousel, she loved riding her giraffe. She kept asking for the rest of the day to ride on the giraffe again. Note the giraffe sunglasses - she got those on her last day of preschool last week.

All the girls looking at the giraffes.

On the train, Kendal kept asking to ride the choo choo again and again.

April, Ainsley, Kendal, and Kelsey

We got to touch a 3 banded armadillo. My girls thought this was great because we have a Deigo DVD where the 3 banded armadillo helps Diego save something, so they knew about the armadillo. They also touched an African giant millipede and some kind of King constrictor snake. Kelsey loved it.

Mindy and I let the kids play on the little playground for awhile before we left and we got a kick out of this little boy riding the wanna-be-teeter-totter with our girls. On the back of his shirt was a piece of paper taped to him that said "If found please call Diane McRae 209-681-6738." What a super idea!! It cracked me up!

Just wanted to say thanks - I won the referral contest! So thanks thanks thanks! That means 3 yards of super fun fabric and a darling pattern for me. Thanks! I had 61 referrals, you guys are great!

Lizards

After church yesterday we headed south to Salina. June 1st is when the cows can go on the mountain, so that was the plan. Matt and the 'real cowboys' got up at 5:00 this morning and got a nice, early start with those darn cows. Myself? Yes, I went back to bed after they left.

I finally made it up to the ranch around noon where my father in law had prepared a wonderful dutch oven lunch of chicken, beans, green salad, and of course, cobbler. It was delicious! Thanks Larry! The kids love running all over the ranch and lately they have discovered the lizards.

Here are some of the lizard catchers:

Kelsey, Alissa (I think), Alysen, April, Ashley, Judd, and Larry.

They were so proud of their lizards. They are holding the poor, mauled things.





Here are the other lizard catchers: Ainsley, Adri, Kendal, and Aiden, better known as "the 3 year olds." Aiden and Kendal are no longer 3, and there are only 4 of the 6 "3 year olds" in this picture, but it is just easier to refer to them as a group. There were 6 babies born within a 1 year and 1 day time frame. That means all 5 of us wonderful Crane ladies had a baby that year, but Lisa ended up double lucky with twins.



Kendal finally decided that lizard catching was a fun thing too, so here she is plucking a lizard off the tree. Maybe those lizards at the ranch will learn to hide in a deep hole when they hear childrens' voices from now on!

Me and my cowboy.

Matt and Kendal getting the best of Larry's beans and chicken, and yes, that is a Pepsi can in her hands again! Grandpa Larry is such a sucker and a pushover when it comes to kids and his drinks!

After lunch they headed out one more time to move just a few more cows and a bull. Kelsey got to go this time and she was excited. About 1/2 hour after they left, we got a really nice rain and then some pretty good hail. I was feeling bad for my little cowherder. I found out later she, April, and Emiko got to hide in the horse trailer for the worst of it.

Thanks for a good weekend Cranes and Talbots!