Baby girl 39 (and holding)

Dear Natalie,

Words will never describe how I am feeling right now. But you know me…and with words I will give it my best shot.

I wrote this for you when you were maybe 2 ½ years old. You were taking a nap, sound asleep and I remember grabbing a piece of paper and pencil sketching a picture of you. I wish I still had that picture. These were my thoughts as I sketched.

You lie there so peaceful and snug in your bed, curls kissed by the sun tossed over your pillow.

Your daddy calls your princess; you always will be you know, our one and only little girl.

Newborn; your eyes were as blue as the sky, and now princess, there isn’t a blue sky anywhere that could compare to their blue sparkle.

As you lie there and sweet dreams fill your head, I look back on today and all the funny little things that you said. “Oh mother, it’s just not fair”, with your hands on your hips and tears in your eyes you looked to convincing. I was really surprised! A few minutes later our harsh words were forgotten.

As I tucked you in and said good night, your arms wrapped around my neck and squeezed me tight. “I love you mom, see ya in the morning, sweet dreams too”.

Oh little princess, as you grow in years, God bless you and be with you and always remember, “We love you”.

**************************

Natalie, memories are by far what I cherish the most because we can’t see each other as often as we like. I love talking to you almost every day. I love that we can talk about anything. I love that you are still that little girl sometimes and you still have that stubborn quality, it makes it who you are.

I love the woman that you have become

Strong

Sure

Dependable

Caring

Maybe a little compulsive at times (smiling)

Giving

Loving

Qualities I hope I had a hand in along the way….

I love the mother you have become, always striving to be better, nurturing and giving of yourself at any cost.

That little girl with soft curly locks is what I see when I close my eyes now, and I am smiling at the thought of you reading this and saying “I told you mom” when I said I wouldn’t, and I did anyway…

Thank you for giving me 2 beautiful grand daughters

But most of all…..thank you for giving me so many wonderful memories to cherish forever. These are just a few of them!

I love you sis….Happy Birthday

mom

DINOSAURS

Huhoney and I went on another little venture into the desert a couple of weeks ago after the Fort Pierce ride. This time a little further to see the dinosaur tracks. VERY VERY COOL! We walked where the dinosaurs walked and I was really impressed, so were the prints in the rocks! Enlarge this photo to read about the area, I thought is was very impressive. It was a busy Saturday. Lots of people out and about on four-wheelers and sand buggies (we were in the sand dunes area) and tons of kids on motor-cross bikes. Full geared suites and helmets. My grandson Owen would have been beside himself! But here are a few pics of the tracks I took.

I am sure they look a little like this, (pic taken from the internet)

This area was once covered in water called Lake Bonneville.

I know I have mentioned before about fences and how they seem to intrigue me. I would just like to meet just one person that had a hand in placing this fence. It goes on for miles and miles and miles, up and down and in rocks and hills….

see how someone had to wrap barb wire around this rock to keep it in place and to keep PEOPLE out! the land past the fence is BLM land. Bureau of Land Management. But there are a lot of people that cross the line…

NOT ME!

The water would run off the mountain side and down this raven and through this gully then into the wash…. I would not want to be in this area when it rains, it could be.. dangerous…

We stopped and did a little skeet shooting. Have you ever done that? I love it! 2nd time for me. The rifle was a little heavy, Huhoney had several for me to try. Our son has his dad’s skeet throwing thingy so Bob just used a hand held chucker….LOL I DIDN’T HIT ONE OF THOSE ORANGE WHATCHMACALLLITS. Huhoney had a grand ole time…I tried chucking those little rascals and they never left the sling! LOL so he had to throw his own, then shoot.

He was a sharp shooter in the Marine Corp. He didn’t miss a beat not ONE orange thingamajig. He chuckled and had the biggest smile on his face. But one thing I did hit!

was the tin can that was actually on top of this plank. I missed taking the picture. Hey it is hard trying to use BOTH eyes to look down the barrel of a rifle! LOL

OH I JUST REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE THINAMAJIGS…

CLAY PIGEONS!

I love shooting clay pigeons!

we stopped at some very interesting boulders….it looks like there have been many a wars here….. (paint ball)

Great places to hide and seek in….

This one even reminded me of a huge skeleton head of a dinosaur? NAH…..

Wish all wars ended like this…..don’t you? (these are some left over paint balls found on the ground. The boulders were splattered with lots of color, I can imagine what the targets looked like!)

So one more adventure ended on that beautiful Saturday afternoon. And “Big Foot” left his print in the sand, but I don’t think the winds and desert will keep it there for long…..

BTW, 8 down….20 to go. I am doing well. ;0)

A PIECE OF CAKE

I thought it an honor to receive this prestigious award from a very lovely lady. The Duchess has a lot of followers. I am always impressed and delighted when she comes for a visit to my silly little blog world. Thank you Duchess for your friendship and comments. If you haven’t done so, give the Duchess a visit, http://roseteacottage.blogspot.com/you will be pleasantly surprised as how pretty and sweet her blog is. I always leave feeling like a princess! Thank you Duchess!

A PIECE OF CAKE? Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments of encouragement and warm fuzzy feelings. I got them all and felt them all! I googled a "piece of cake" and I couldn’t believe all of the different web sites to go to! There are a lot of bakeries by this name too. One of which offered this as their cake of the month. And as it is, this is a favorite of mine! Looks yummy doesn’t it! I also googled "cake walk" and to my GREAT SURPRISE

when you look up “cake walk” it has a whole other meaning than what I thought. TOO LONG to go into, so you will have to look it up yourself! LOL. But don’t these cakes look delicious! What I really was trying to say in the very beginning was…Thank you EVERYONE for all of your well wishes and concern in my behalf! You are ALL the best sweetest (like cake) village friends and yesterday was a piece of cake. Sweet. Nothing to it. Like having an x-ray done. I made much more out of it in my mind than I should have. The UN-KNOWN (adjective )1.not known; not within the range of one's knowledge, experience, or understanding; strange; unfamiliar. is always a BEAST and you have to be careful not to let it get to you. I have conquered the BEAST and it no longer scares me. RADA my friend will now help me along. I have decided to not dwell on what is going on and if something should change, I will let you all know. HUGS and SMILES!

Desert Drive and History Lesson

A couple of weeks ago on a lazy Sunday we decided to drive out to where the new airport is being built here in our little valley. It should be completed or so they say by 2011. The runway at the top of the plateau has served it’s purpose and so they are building a newer one, not so centrally located above the town. There was not much to see other than a lot of cleared dirt, so we ventured off into the dessert. All of the following pictures are taken with my new Nikon D3000 camera. I love the colors! This is not enhanced one bit, this is how it really looks people! The sand and mountains are this ORANGE! There were a few sports bikers and 4 wheelers tooling around in the sand. We stopped to see what draws so many people here.

As you can see when you enlarge the photos, it isn’t hard to become mesmerized and in love with the beauty of the desert.

The sand is sooooo fine…..something you would see in an hour glass only burnt orange.

Footsteps will soon disappear when the wind starts to blow

we saw a sign that told us we could go a few miles ahead to a historical site, so we did.

I love history. Especially when it is in my own back yard!

The structure at the top of the hill is the fort

Standing inside this structure you almost felt like you had to whisper. I can’t imagine being held up here, peering out the portholes for Indians. I couldn’t see very far looking out, I can’t imagine holding a rifle in this small porthole and keeping my head down so as not to get hit by an arrow. That I will show you in a moment.

All around this fort are small areas to put your rifle through…

Water in the dessert is like gold and Fort Pierce River was a water source these men were not willing to part with so they fought for it.

This is where the water flows, the rock is worn with wind and water flowing from it into a gully below….

Did you mama ever tell you NOT TO LOOK directly into the sun? Well my mama did, but I didn’t listen! I am still playing with my new camera…. Can you see where 3 arrows hit the rock? I can’t imagine from a distance how close this really came. But I am sure if they just shot over the top….arrows were getting in.

The opening where the rifles were poked out of is just to the right of this arrow mark!

This is the side of the building and that is the opening! Pretty cool huh!

Well I won’t bore you with anymore of the Fort, but if you ever come this way, this is a great history lesson not to miss!

The beauty of this desert never ceases to amaze me

Oh BTW today is the first day of my treatment.

The BIG GIRL, I am calling “it” a girl, don’t know why…just am. I have decided to give her a name too. Rada. (Ray-dah) We are going to become good friends for the next 28 days. I will let you know tomorrow how it went. Scared? yeah a little.

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