Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So, it’s been another crazy week here at the Diamond Bar Seven. Last time I wrote we were headed out to the National Folk Festival in Butte (think “glorified Bisbee”) then up to Helena to hang with Postums. My super-hilarious nephews, Cody & Tyler, came with us and we had a good time, despite our efforts to foil their attempts at being uber-cool (like making them push the stroller—but dudes, babies are chick magnets!). James loved having some other boys around and he called them “Quody and Tower.” Sadly, we had to let them go to Matt’s on Tuesday night so they could make the trip to Nana’s and eventually home to Arizona via aeroplane from Portland. Soon they will be too old to come visit—they’ll have jobs and stuff—and I will really miss them. But then I will be old enough to be a snowbird and I’ll start visiting THEM in the winter. Yeah, that sounds fair.

Anyway, we saw some cool Hula, Indian dancers, street musicians, and Chinese Rod Puppets at the folk festival, as well as enjoying some yummy food, making paper, and trying out some native American games. At about 3pm, we went to Matt’s and chilled, and then all of us went to the annual Watson Irrigation/Watson Family BBQ in Townsend. This year we were serenaded by the Saddle Tramps and the kids had a blast playing with their cousins, getting dirty, and dancing to live cowboy tunes. I took the 4 youngest kids home at around 9:30 to bathe and go to bed, while Rich and Matt kept the three oldest and watched the fireworks (Amie had to work at Mac Grill that night). We didn’t end up going to bed until midnight, but we all slept in til 9am, which was awesome! Amie made us three great meals on Sunday and I got to go to Sunday School and Relief Society, which I miss. We even got to love on poor gimpy Molly (a motorcycle flogged poor Molly earlier this week), and it was such a nice visit! We didn’t hook up with the Lehmans until we were going out of town, but we stopped and said hello, then got home to Livingston around 10pm. I could have left Cody & Tyler in Helena, but they wanted to come back for a few more days.

Monday we had a Pioneer Day Family Night where I taught the kids about their great-great-great-grandfather, Christopher Layton (it was all news to Cody & Ty) and then played Norwegian Golf. Tuesday we just hung out and got the laundry done, then we went to Bozo where the boys watched my kids while Rich & I went to chat about our Euro-Vacation at Triple A. Afterward, we had a good-bye feast at Famous Dave’s and met Matt at Wheat Montana.

While we were driving home, Heidi was asking where Cody and Tyler were going, I told her they wanted to go see Nana and then go home to their mommy in Arizona.
“They have a mommy?” she asked.
“Yeah—remember Aunt Lisa? Your Aunt who gave you your Calico Critters? She’s their mom!”
“Oh, yeah—I love her. (pause) They better go home to her! I bet she’s crying cuz she missed them!”
“Yep, I bet you’re right, Heidi. Mommies always miss their babies.”
“Yeah. But those boys aren’t babies. (pause) They used to be babies and now I think they had, like, a THOUSAND birthdays. (pause—I laugh) They did, mom. That’s how they growed up.”

Isn’t that so cute? Heidi has moved up a level in her reasoning skills lately and it’s fun to watch her try to make sense of things.

Another really cute thing is that James is totally in love with my grandparents. Rich called me tonight at the hotel from home to tell me that while they were watching home movies, James kept hugging the TV and saying, “Papa Biw” and “Gammah” every time Grandpa Bill and Grandma Lyn appeared. I think they bonded pretty well those three days we were together at Mom’s house. James would stand by the bathroom door when Grandpa was in the shower, and he even went into the guest room to wake grandpa at 6:00 one morning. He brought cars and said, “Papa! Carrrrrs! Papa! Carrrrrs!”. It was pretty cute. I am so glad my kids are getting to know their extended family on both sides. And even though it triple-stinks that my mama had to get sick, I am grateful for how close it has brought all our loved ones. It’s been an exhausting, heart-wrenching summer so far, but I mostly have joyful feelings, and gratitude. I just pray the rest of mom’s treatments go smoothly and kick cancer’s booty, and that she handles it as well as she has so far. She’s a warrior.

Life is good.

PS: Happiest Birthday to one of my oldest and dearest friends--ROB aka Hubrecht, husband of Fig, and brother of my best girls. I believe it's been 20 or 21 years since I met Rob--that's amazing, and I sure am grateful. Have a fab day! (You can thank me later for not posting some of my old pix :)).