Summer vacation story and a little catching up.

It sure is busy this summer.  We have managed to cram a lot in but not nearly as much as we were hoping to.

We lost our old dog Buddy.  He quickly went from being a little better to much worse and we knew it was time to let him go.  He was too good of a dog to let suffer.  We could tell the last day or two that he just wasn't Buddy anymore.  The light in his eyes had gone, and my old friend was ready to move on to happier fields and a young body again.  I miss him dearly, but I am glad he doesn't have to try to survive another cold winter.  We spent some good moments in our front yard snuggled and talking about all the good/crazy times we've had through the years.  I will most likely get another pup/dog at some point but it will have to be the right one.

Although we gave 4-H a good try without a club we won't be doing fair this year.  We just didn't get it together enough on our own.  Not a huge deal this year.  At least now we know a few more of the details and can get our schedule worked out a bit better for next year.

The farmers' market is going well but I am going to be ready for winter.  Winter will be Tom's busy time and my "vacation."  I'll still do a few markets here and there but I am not going to run one.  Summer is plenty for me.

We did get to go on a bit of a vacation as a family up to South Dakota a week or so ago.  We had a lot of fun in spite of the crazy rain storms we got the first night that flooded us out of our tipi. At least it made for an adventure that we will all remember.

You want the story?

Okay, so the first night we had a campground reserved with a tipi as our tent.  We pulled in and everything looked great.  We unloaded our stuff and went to town for dinner and a look around and we road a train over an old mining spur route.  As we finished up with dinner, which was an adventure in itself, we saw some storm clouds.  Around here that isn't anything surprising after a warm day.  Storms build.  We got back to camp and built a fire to make s'mores on.  Right about the time I got the bedding laid out and Tom got the fire good and going the storm hit us.  No idea how much moisture it put down but our tipi was flooded and most of our stuff was good and damp if it wasn't soaked.  The storm backed off after a while and we managed to dry things out enough to go to bed.  No s'mores for us that night.  But then, as Tom and I were struggling to sleep in wet bedding and not sleeping well anyway, the thunder and lighting struck right over the top of us.  There was enough lightening that it looked more like daytime than night and we decided to bag it and move into the truck.  We quickly scooped stuff off the floor and threw the kids into the truck.  Right after we got the kids in the second storm of the night really hit and proceeded to drop about an inch of water in an hour or so.  The next morning with next to no sleep we managed to procure a cabin, take a nap, and continue on with our planned vacation in much more cushy accommodations.

We had a lot of fun after we got dried out.  Now we/I am just playing catch up from being out of town.  I see it is the kids' bedtime so I'd better go lay down the law...