Brannan Family: July 2009

Friday, July 31, 2009

Mandan, North Dakota

After a couple days at Wood Lake we headed back to Devil's Lake to pack everything up and make our way out of town towards Mandan/Bismarck to spend the 4th of July weekend Randy and Conni (Doug's uncle and aunt), who have a great house on a small inlet off of the Missouri River. This also took about 3 hours off of our drive home in a couple days. We went to the Mandan parade, which was really good and long, Caleb and Rachel came back with lots of candy. We spent the afternoon and evening jetskiing and touring around the area on their pontoon boat then watched fireworks from a sandbar in the Missouri. Unlike Colorado and Oregon where I have spent all of my previous 4ths, anyone can let off fireworks at anytime that are pretty much the same as the metropolitan areas have in their shows, so we watched some really good fireworks almost the entire time we were there. Unfortunately, we had to pack up and leave town pretty early the next day to complete the next 10 hours of driving.

Waiting for the parade to start, Doug, Randy, Conni, Rachel, Cindy and Caleb

Yummy, Rachel's first sucker

A big New Holland tractor that Caleb was excited about because Auntie Erin had recently given him a small model replica of the same tractor

Doug and Caleb playing out on the docks and in the water at Randy and Conni's house

Rachel with a bunch of cotton that she kept trying to eat

Caleb's first ride on the jetski, he is so good he is driving

touring on the pontoon boat

Water anyone???? Rachel as the pontoon attendant

Walking around on a sandbar in the Missouri River

Rachel with Great Uncle Randy

Caleb splashing around

Rachel the sand monster, it was all I could do to keep her from eating it...she probably downed a 1/2 cup of it while I wasn't looking and everytime I tried to take a picture

Look mom, I am taller than Caleb!

Rachel's first time on a jet ski

Brannan's and Wood Lake, North Dakota

After a few days in Devils Lake, we headed down to Wood Lake to see Doug's Grandparents on the Brannan side, after many not so successful fishing attempts in Devils lake, we were set at Wood Lake as long as you wanted to catch little blue gill and bass, whom Grandma feeds everyday, so just try to keep them off of a hook. Caleb was successful in catching a few fish completely on his own, minus the taking it off the hook part. The sun was out most of the time so we got some good quality summer vacation in for a couple days, swimming and waterskiing behind Doug's uncle's boat which we brought with us from Devils Lake.

Great Grandma and Grandpa watching Caleb with his first ever fish on the line, it is small, you might have to squint

A little bigger one this time, Doug's cousin Emily came down with us for the afternoon, she was Caleb's best buddy, whether she liked it or not

Caleb's biggest fish of the trip, Scooby doo can barely pull it in

Caleb's first paddle boat ride

Doug posing with the kids

Caleb's favorite thing about the megastation was jumping across the water over and over again

A view of the cabin from the dock

Rachel walking with Great Grandpa

The second evening at Wood lake we headed back to Devils Lake to have dinner with all the Brannan side relatives at Jim and Mary Ziegler's farm, for some reason Caleb was a true city kid, scared of the animals and tractors, but he started warming up to them. It was nice for me to meet a few of the relatives that I had not met before, and was fun for the kids to play with a couple of their second cousins.

Doug's cousin Matt and his son Ryan, having a race against Caleb and Doug down the driveway

Rachel, Caleb and Ryan playing with the toys

Rachel inside the tractor wheel, how is that for scale

Nathan, Caleb and Ryan checking out the tractor with Matt, Caleb was terrified to go way up there, but once up there and talking on the CB he was good

All the boys going for a ride around the yard

Devil's Lake, North Dakota

This has been a long time coming, sorry for the delay. About a week after Caleb's birthday party we began our first epic road trip with the kids to North Dakota, now some would say that 13 hours is not epic but if you have 2 children under 5 anything more than about 4 hours is epic in my opinion. The drive actually went really well, much better than expected with one newly potty trained and two overall restless high energy kids. We are grateful to Grandma Cindy for riding along and helping with the constant fetching of snacks, sippy cups and toys. The first night we went about 4 hours to Newcastle, WY so that the next morning we could stop and see Mt.

Rushmore.

Me at the entrance to the park

The famous dead presidents in all their stone glory

Caleb helping Rachel out with the long walk

A family photo attempt

A typical scene in the back of the suburban, Caleb is really into what ever movie is on at this moment and Rachel is learing how to say "cheese" everytime she sees the camera

Then for our long haul to Devil's Lake for Doug's cousin Amanda's wedding. For those of you that don't know, most of Doug's extended family (aunts, uncles grandparents and cousins) are in North Dakota, so we decided to make it a longer vacation so that we could spend time with everyone and I could meet some family members for the first time in the almost 11 years we have been together. We were welcomed by some really severe weather that hung around for a couple days (so much for the summer vacation), the wedding was great, although not exactly as they had planned because of the fore mentioned weather. We spent quite a bit of time fishing, although the storms chased the fish away and we only really had luck in one of 4 attempts, and we had a great time with all the different family members.

In between dinner and dance Rachel snoozing with me and Uncle Mark (father of the bride)

Party time, Rachel dancing with Great Uncle Mark

"He's a maniac on the floor" Caleb dancing with all the other kids who took over the dance floor, Caleb's cousin Anna is right behind him showing off her moves in her green and white dress

Yummm, otter pops at Great Grandma Lulu's apartment

Taking a little break with Grandma Cindy

Naptime with Grandma Cindy

yeah for pop-its and legal fireworks in ND

Trying to get Great Grandma Lulu with 4 of her great grand kids, as you can see no one is very happy about it

Sunset over Devil's Lake, while we were fishing

Sunrise over the lake the next morning

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Happy 3rd Birthday Caleb!!!

After our quick Washington trip, came Caleb's actual birthday, we decided that we would get a trampoline for all of our summer birthdays this year, the kids have been enjoying it, and it was a huge hit for Caleb's birthday party. We set the tramp up on my birthday, so my official first time on a trampoline was the day I turned 30...I know it is sad, but at least I can say I have done it now :) For Caleb's party we had a BBQ with a bunch of friends, the weather threatened to ruin it but a few rain drops never killed any party I have been to. Caleb had been telling everyone who asked "How old are you?" the same line "3 in June", well after his birthday he kept saying the same thing so we are trying to work on "3" or maybe we will move on to "4 in June" now that it is July.