oklahoma weekend with friends

it's the 4th of july!! as i was slipping off to sleep last night, the thought going through my head was that it sounds an awful lot like the 4th of you lie (when some people say it); somehow there is a movie script in there with an evil witch casting a spell on someone as a baby and on the 4th of every month the child/adult cannot help but lie all day long. like i said, that was the thought as i was falling asleep-as you can tell..

i took this weekend to go up to oklahoma to hang out with some great friends i haven't seen in awhile- too long to be exact. i had been debating with myself all last week whether or not i was going to actually go because my back was still not feeling great, and bruno has still not been himself. but i knew that i had to go because if not, i would've regretted the opportunity to play because as of right now, summer is not really going to be much vacationing.

so i packed the boys up and we drove up to edmond, met up with shea and bmayes and then we drove on up to spring valley ranch in spavinaw hills. we had the directions, nonetheless, we weren't sure we were going the right way until we crossed the creek on the small concrete bridge and took the right fork. when we drove up to the lodge, it was huge. so we met up with kb (another friend from kamp who i haven't seen in ages), then went in and cooked up some spaghetti and made some salad-we corralled the boys and reagan, chaco's sister, into the kitchen so they wouldn't sneak out the door into the night and get eaten by owls or bobcats or the huge dogs.

after dinner we chatted and played a fun celebrity game (new to me, but fun), and midnight sneaked  up on us really quickly. not sure why, but i kept getting justin timberlake, and there was only one thing that kept coming to mind to try to get shea to guess (i just don't know enough about him or his music i guess). of course it probably wasn't fair that john adams and samuel adams were thrown in there. it's a little difficult to act them out or think of one word to describe them.

saturday we woke up late and after breakfast, we went riding on the 4wheelers and kb showed us around the property. it is beautiful! and as we were going up hills, down hills, around bends by the lake, scenes from i shouldn't be alive were replaying in my head of rolled atv's. i'm glad it wasn't just me because shea said she kept thinking about what if's too.

two of my awesome friends-kb and shea (kb's parents own the ranch and they have retreats and rent out the lodges and it's such a beautiful area!!

4wheeling is great, but the entire time i was wondering how this would fare on my back-but it really didn't matter-it was good for the soul. it was so warm by the time we finished that we decided to jump into the creek and float for awhile. when we finished, it was time to go.

once we got back to shea's, i was in bed, ready to sleep when i felt a pinch between my toes and it really caught me by surprise, so i reached down and i immediately knew what it was, so i went into the bathroom and sure enough, it was a little tick! gross!! glad i found it right away! that of course caused shea to get out of her bed and check herself as well (it's like the lice thing i mentioned before, when every time your head itches, you feel like you have lice too).

well, the next day we played on paddle boards and kayaks! woo hoo! i'm so glad i got to come up and enjoy the fun!

on the way home, the boys were tuckered out and i think they were just happy to be going home. they were fine the first half of the trip, then chaco decided that this would be a good idea

which i did not encourage. it was ok until he fell down behind my back as i was trying to grab him-which makes me look like a terrible driver. so for the rest of the trip i had to strap him into his seat. the worst part was the: are we almost there yet? from both of them.

and when we finally reached home, fireworks were going off..not so much for our arrival as for celebrating independence. although i really hope there are fireworks tonight as today is actually independence day.  we had brats to celebrate and i watched how the states got their shapes- i thought that was pretty patriotic.

happy 4th of july (4th of you lie?)
julie