Thank you to my cousins

Growing up I remember staying at the house at the lower ranch every summer. Dad got to sleep by the window--the best place because the open window was the only real form of air circulation available. Grandpa sleeping in his room--or having his power nap in the chair in the front room and snoring so loudly that no one else got to have a power nap. But for the last few years the house had fallen to disrepair. The chimney looked like it was going to fall off the side of the house. I heard that the celing had fallen in in one of the rooms--but I never got to see it. It was too hard to see the house and think it was never going to be what I remembered as a child.

That is where my thanks come in. My cousins Kevin and Cody have spent a good portion of their time off this summer fixing the house. They have cleaned out rooms that I am sure haven't been cleaned in well over a decade maybe two. They even cleaned out the cellar which was the one area of the house I only remember going into once as a kid because I thought it was a scary place. They have fixed many of the cracks around the house and it no longer looks like the chimney is going to fall off the house.

So I am going to share some pictures of their hard work--and thank them once again for working so hard to bring the house back to what I remember and in some ways to even better then I remember.

Proof I went into the cellar--and proof that my grandma could can and preserve with the best of them (practically all of those jars are from 1981-1987). I also brought home a jar of corn that Grandma canned the month I was born--but I am pretty sure I won't actually eat, just remember her with it:

These are the pictures on the wall that I remember growing up--I am so glad they are still there:

But here are the pictures that my cousins have added--pictures of my grandpa and his brothers and the other ancesters who have been part of us all inheriting the ranching gene:

We also did family pictures while we were up there--and my Uncle Kenneth's family came to see the ranch so we got to spend a lot of time talking to them:

Since I was the one taking most of these pictures--I don't have many with me in them. But this one--you can see that I am in fact getting much larger. It is becoming more apparent that Danica is getting bigger and more ready to come out: