RazNoggle

They live all around us apparently! This weekend was a great “wild thing” sighting time. On Saturday we were driving into town for our park fun when out of no where I saw a bear! I was looking intently for Elk because they often are along that way, but sure enough back in the woods there was a big fuzzy bear! I did a double take and then yelled out “A beeeeaaaaaaar!” (so Stuart says I said) and freaked everyone out. We turned around but “Teddy” had already disappeared into the thick woods so no one else got to behold him. Ain’t I special? We also saw the Elk and occasional Mule Deer, and a little heard of Antelope with their babies, too cute! Then yesterday as we were driving back from the new camp property just around dusk I saw a bob cat off in the field. I hollered again and Stu stopped and turned around. This time we were lucky enough to both get to see it. He was just sitting there in the grass waiting for us. Once he decided that we had actually seen him, he wandered off into the brush, but that was pretty cool! We also saw this ENORMOUS heard of Elk just grazing away like cows in a field. There were LOTS of them out last night. I’m sure we saw a couple hundred of them all together. It’s so cool to be in a place where you can experience God’s creation first hand! I told Stu that it was too bad that Qade had no concept of how cool it was to get to see all of these critters. But then again, Qade thinks that it’s awesome to look out the car window and see “Tows” and “Howsies” (cows and horseys) so he is impressed with God’s creation too. Maybe I should learn to think it’s cool just to see a cow or a horse. They are after all, just as much a part of creation as the Elk, Bear and Bobcat. I can learn so much from my little lads!

Hey fans!  Last night we had a great dinner with the staff at the Olive Garden!  I ate way more than was good for me, but I enjoyed every bite!  Qade did well.  I was thinking that he would struggle being in a high chair after having been in his car seat all day, but he was remarkably patient.  We all had a good night’s sleep and woke up bright and early to get on the road this morning.  We had been warned that there was construction in our path and we wanted to get through it as early as possible.  A very scary thing happened while I was trying to get Qade in his seat this morning.  One of his buckles was all wacky and twisted, I have NO CLUE how it got that way, but I had to move him to try to get it straight, so I set him on the seat next to me, and he lost his balance and took a head dive right out the door of the Yukon!  I screamed and grabbed for him, and caught him by the seat of his shorts, literally!  I hauled him back in and we hugged as he calmed down from his fright and I calmed down from mine!  It was one of the scariest moments of my life I think.  Still it was obvious that God was watching over us and my “lightning reflexes” were working.  Wow!  My mind could drive me crazy with the ‘what if’s” of life, but I know that there’s no use borrowing trouble.  I’m just glad that we didn’t have an accident today!

We’re supposed to make it all the way back to camp in Alpine tonight.  It’s going to be a long day.  Actually kind feels long already, but I think that we’re making good time.  I’m just more than ready to get back and be home.  It might be awhile yet before we’re “normal” as we have to get the cat and the dog and get the house in order, but at least we’ll be back.  I ordered a vacuum from Sears that should do a great job of cleaning our floors.  I don’t want Qade to come across any mouse ick while he’s playing and exploring.  Blah!

Well, I shall sign off for now before I loose internet access.  Happy Monday to you all!

Well, we’re here sure enough, eh?  We all arrived safe and sound in Alberta, even had some good experiences at the border.  As in the agent we spoke to actually smiled this time!  Wow!!  Everyone got more or less settled in on Wednesday evening, and then the storms rolled in.  There are some terrific thunder, lightning, and sometimes even hail storms out here on the planes.  Well, we were snug enough in our camper, though the hail did get a little bit loud at times.  It was big though, last year we had golf ball sized hail, now that was scary!!!  Anyway, it decided to keep on raining all through Thursday when we were supposed to be unpacking camp.  To ease the boardom of the day some of the guys hauled a basket ball goal into the big room in the building where they played some pretty intense basketball apparently.  I had just brought Qade down to the kitchen to roam around a bit before lunch when it walked Stuart with blood all down his neck and all over his shirt.  That was not a happy sight, but I didn’t panic because I realised it was from a little gash in his head and it always looks worse than it is.  Still…    I ended up taking him into a town not too terribly far from here, and we only had to go to 3 clinics till we found somplace available and afordable.  The first place was booked, the second wanted $500 just because we were out of country and another $200 for the stitches.  The third place was friendly, afordable, and fast!  Wow!  So Stu got his first stitches ever for the about inch and a half gash over his eyebrow, and I got a trip to town with my hubby, and Starbucks out of the deal.   All’s well that ends well, huh?

The staff had a trip to Banff planned for Saturday, and we were looking forward to going and getting lots of great pics with our new camera.  Life had other plans though, and on Friday I was smitten with one of the worst migranes I’ve had in a LONG time!  It actually got bad somtime around 1 or 2 am on  Saturday, and I thought I was gonna die!  You may think that’s dramatic, but when there’s a pain that sevear in your head, you just can’t get away from it.  Stuart was a great help to me.  Marriage is awesome!  You get to live with your best friend ever, and that person cares so much about you that they are willing to sacrifice their own comfort to help you if they can.  He got up with me, and stayed up for a long time just rubbing my neck and head till I could finally relax.  Poor hubby!  His own head still hurt from the elbow incident, so his sacrifice of sleep really did mean a lot to me.  Makes me feel so loved!!  But anyway, the point was, I was in no shape to have an outing the next day so we hung out at camp, just the little Noggle clan.  It was a good day even if my head still was hurting.  At least it was no where near as bad!

That next night I took Nyquil, ha, should have known better.  I took a full dose too, and I did know better!  I slept like a rock and was totally “hung over” all of Sunday.  Good grief!  NEVER again!  I felt so completely stupid, and I’m sure I came across as less than all there.  *sigh*  Oh well, for sure the next time I’ll know better.

The campers came today, and we have a record number for Camp on Wheels ever!!!  They are highly energized and I just know it’s going to be a great week.  Jim Shettler is the speaker this week, and I’m looking forward to sitting in on a couple of the services.  Qade has been great!  He loves Canada, I think, and he’s really tight with some of the staff.  He’ll have to adjust to just Mom and Dad again once we get home.  I’m afraid we’ll be boring compared to the energetic college kids, but maybe Qade won’t mind.  Pretty soon he’ll have a lil bro anyway, and won’t give it a second though.  Speaking of little brother, he has been quite active lately, and his “pats” are becoming much more forceful.   We’re very excited that in about 3 months we’ll get to meet this new little one.

Okay, I’m going to try to post this, but who knows if it will, cause the internet out here is very patchy!

Happy fourth of July!!  We just found out today from our resident volunteer fire dude that there will be fireworks tomorrow night in Alpine!!!  Woo-hoo!  I was thinking that we’d have to do without them again this year, but happy day, I was wrong!  We’ve got a great weekend planned even though it’s going to be busy!  The jr. campers left today after lunch and the staff has been hecticly busy since then trying to get the camp cleaned and packed for the trip to Canada.  I have been working in the store getting stuff packed into different bins for storage and shipping.  We’ll be taking some of the stuff along with us to sell to the campers up north, but other of it needed to be in plastics to avoid rats getting into it.  Then this afternoon Stu and I worked in there to get the “staff surprise” ready for them.  It’s fun to do specail things for people, ya know?  Even if it is simple, it’s still cool!  Anyway, so they’ll get to have that this afternoon/evening when most of the work is done.  THEN tomorrow the real fun begins.  We’ll probably use the morning hours to wrap up most of the packing/cleaning, but then after lunch we are taking the staff to a Rodeo!!  Those are just way fun!!  We’ll do that in the afternoon, and then we are planning to grill these fabulous steaks for a yum-yummy dinner and THEN, as if it couldn’t get better, we will get to see the fireworks!!  It’s going to be a late night, but I want to take Bubba anyway.  He needs to experience some fireworks for sure!  Today he is wearing his little red, white and blue USA outfit.  It’s very cute.  He even got watermellon juice on it at lunch, and if that’s not a sign of the 4th, I don’t know what is.   So enjoy your holiday and your independence too!