What a Great Weekend!

So this weekend was a really good one. We got so many things done and spent some great time as a family. Saturday morning we got up, put together lunch stuff in coolers and headed to Rexburg. We borrowed a neighbors horse trailer and went and dropped it off at my Father-in-law's so he could bring up his mules and a horse to our campground later. After that, we picked up a few things at Gary's brothers house and then headed to my parent's house. We picked out 6 railroad ties there and loaded them into the pickup. Then we headed up to the farm. Gary has SSSSOOOO many plans for that place! Saturday was the day to start another one. We took everything up there and started building a corral for the mules and horses so we have a place to put them for a weekend when we go up there camping. We dug out the corner posts and a couple of side ones. It was hard work, but the kids were such good helpers. It was really nice too that the dirt up there is so fertile and soft, they were some of the easiest holes we've ever dug! No rocks!! The corral is going to be about 30'x 40'. It's in a nice little place at the bottom of our campsite in some nice grass with trees there for shade. I really wish I would have taken my camera with me. There were so many great pics I wanted to take while we were up there. After we got done setting the posts, Gary took the kids for a ride. Gary rode the mule named Stetson while leading Joe on the mule named Lucky. Sierra and Grace rode the horse Star Fire together and took turns being in front. They had a great time! After their ride, it was time to go home. Loading the mules and horse into the trailer was not the greatest experience. The mules actually went in pretty good, but Star Fire wanted nothing to do with the trailer. At one point he ripped his rope out of my hands (I had taken off my work gloves by then and regretted it!) and by doing so, he gave some pretty good rope burn on my fingers and hands. I won't lie, it hurt! When we headed home we decided we left just at the right time because we had some pretty good wind and lightning storms moving in. We went home, all got cleaned up and into pj's and sat down and watched a movie together and then went to bed. We were all exhausted, but we'd had a great day together. Sunday morning we got up and Sierra, Emma and I got ready for church. Grace, Joe and Gary all got dressed and headed up to Victor to pick up our boat. At church I had the pleasure of teaching the Young Women's lesson. It was kinda nerve wracking, but turned out great. We have such awsome young women and leaders in there. I'm so priveledged to get to be a part of that program. I love it. The lesson is based on one of my Personal Progress lessons I've had put together for awhile. We talked about the roles of women, being sisters, daughters, wives and mothers and how those things we learn carry with us throughout our lives and into all our different relationships. We then talked about the qualities they would look for in guys that they want to date and eventually marry and then looked to see if these were qualities that they already possessed or strived to obtain. It was such a great lesson and I had great input from all the girls and leaders. After church, we got home and Gary and the kids had the boat and lunch stuff ready for us. So we changed and all headed up to Ririe Reservoir. It was a beautiful day to be on the water. It was sunny and warm and there weren't a ton of people. We found an empty dock and had some lunch while the kids were splashing their feet in the water. We decided to head back to the middle of the lake where they have a grassy picnic area and a long dock were the kids like to play and swim. When we got there, there was a family that was having trouble with their boat. Needless to say, Gary went and tried to help them get their boat going. The kids were able to play on the dock with all of the other kids there and had a great time. At one point, Sierra, Grace and I got out and swam from one dock to another and then back. That was lots of fun. The other boat never really got going again, so we were loading most of the kids up and getting ready to tow them back over to the other side of the lake where they had put their boat in. Well, the local Sherriff's office was out patrolling and stopped to ask if they could help. They ended up towing the other boat back for them, after giving us all a warning about how many people we had in our boats. The other family had 3 adults and 7 kids all together, but when they showed up, they only had 6 people in their boat and we had 8 in our boat and pulling two of the bigger boys behind us in their tubes they had. Gary thought for sure we were going to get a ticket for having too many people, even though we were only over because we were helping someone out, but that warning was as far as it went. After we dropped off the kids and made sure they got their boat out okay, we headed back to the other side of the lake to load up our boat. The clouds were starting to move in and we didn't want to end up in a lightning storm like the one that rolled in the day before. So we headed home. It was a great day. I love weekends like this. Working and playing together as a family, what can be better than that?! Well, now it's time for the clean up from all the work and play, but that doesn't bother me too much. Most of that we'll get to do as a family too! ;)