Cazadora Ranch

This past weekend Erik, Laine, Alicia and I all drove 5 hours to a friends ranch and had three wonderful days of doing whatever we wanted. Most of it included naps and food and playing on the playground but some of it included the ranch itself. We rode the property on the golf cart a few times, we fed the horses and had moments with a goat who wanted to eat my baby.
Friday, Erik, Alicia and I were all able to get the day off of work so we were able to be on the road by 9:30 after I dropped off the cake balls to the WOMAN WHO MADE THE FIRST EVER ORDER OF CAKE BALLS! That was exciting. We met and exchanged cake for money in a gas station parking lot. It felt like a drug deal, I totally got an adrenalin rush. Once we got on the road Laine fell asleep and I was able to concentrate of some barrettes for about two hours, then she woke up and we stopped at a burger king when she started getting rowdy. After a bellyful of food and some running around we piled back in the car and made it to the ranch just after 3:00. That’s some pretty dang good time for driving with a toddler. Once we got to the ranch we got the tour of the most wonderful most beautiful place in the world. I mean it’s amazing. It’s peaceful and quiet and there are no people around and no traffic and no smells or sights besides that which God planted and I LOVED IT! There were no people! It was heaven for me.
We piled into a golf cart (all 6 of us) and drove around the property for about a half an hour, taking photos of things that probably won't interest me again but totally fascinated me there. We saw rabbits and roadrunners and eagles and red-winged blackbirds and turtles and otters and deer and hogs and trees that have been around longer than my family name! There was so much to see and at the same time absolutely nothing to distract you from the beautiful place we were in.
We got back to the house and unpacked our bags, I traded in my sandals for boots and we got started on dinner, steak and potatoes of course. However when I say steak and potatoes there is no way for you to understand the amazingness of that meal unless you’ve eaten with my family. If you have you know, if you haven’t you haven’t ever really eaten.
After dinner we played with Laine on the playground that was right in front of the house; a huge wonderful playground with a slide and swings and amazing happy rays of sunshine sprouting out from it in all directions totally intoxicating my daughter with laughter and bubbly giggles for the entirety of the trip. I love that playground.
Bed time came around 9:30 for Laine and me, even Erik crashed earlier than usual. Being outdoors eating mad amounts of good food and drinking very cold beer can wear you out if you aren’t used to such wonderful conditions. My city body had to adjust to the easy life of the country.
Daddy woke Erik up around midnight to go out hunting and while they were gone Laine woke up, of course flipping out, in a strange place in a strange bed and it was super dark and she couldn’t see me so it took me a while to calm her down, but after I told her “It’s okay, we're sleeping in DonDon’s bed” it made her a lot more curious than afraid of where she was. And that started the next two days worth or “It’s DonDon’s bed? It’s DonDon’s chair? It’s DonDon’s house? It’s DonDon’s? It’s DonDon’s? It’s DonDon’s?”
It’s really cute is what it is.
Saturday morning Laine and I were up at 7:00 for breakfast and cartoons for a few hours before everyone else got up and started moving around. We spent the morning with coffee and campfires and good company a hammock and some music. A beach vacation with pina colada’s delivered to me by ethnically handsome young men can’t even touch a morning like we had in the hot and dry side of Nowhere, Texas.
We went for another ride around the property, took some more photo’s and enjoyed the cool breeze that was missing the day before. We played with Laine on the playground and had conversations usually reserved for Sundays. We prepared then ate more food and took naps. TOOK NAPS. Sorry, didn’t know if you saw that. I TOOK A NAP. Yeah I did.
We slept until around 2:00 and then waited for everyone else to wake up form their naps, we sat around the fire again and played at the playground again and we fed the horses some apples and we made the acquaintance of a very mean very ugly goat that literally kept trying to eat my child’s feet.
Yeah, I snatched her up and ran away.
Yeah, my dad laughed at me.
Oh and how my dad laughed! All weekend, all day and night and day and night again. He laughed and when he wasn’t laughing he was smiling. The place we were in was amazing enough on it’s own but to have the music of my dad’s laughter covering it all was like all the beautiful things you can think of wrapped up in all the beautiful things you can’t think of and smooshed together with all the beautiful things God hasn't made yet. It’s was so nice. I really, really hated to leave.
I’ll have photo’s tomorrow.