Plan B

Last year the Hightowers began planning a bucket list trip of spending a week in Glacier National Park up in Montana... we rented a lake house, bought plane tickets, and started following GNP on Instagram!

When everything shifted, we pulled the plug (no one was comfortable putting the septuagenarians on a plane!) and starting thinking about a safer alternative.

Deciding to "meet in the middle", we traded Montana for Arkansas - a day's drive for everyone - and ended up having a wonderful week on Beaver Lake.

Not only did we find a spectacular house to rent on a moment's notice 

(views, hammocks, hot tub, views, lake toys for everyone, a game room, and oh the views!)

but the lake was perfect for all the cousins to paddle and play and swing and jump and swim and laugh.








Beaver Lake is kind of a hidden gem in NW Arkansas - most of the time we felt like we had it all to ourselves! One of the days we rented a pontoon boat to see more of the lake than our mere kayaks could afford us... BEST decision ever!!!

Room for everyone to relax and enjoy being on the lake... and power to make some great tubing waves.






So while Glacier will stay on our bucket list for another year, we can say our summer family lake vacation was definitely a success! 

better late than never!

Our plans were to celebrate Dado's 70th birthday in March with a Caribbean Cruise all together during spring break!

Well.... that did not happen for obvious reasons.

So as the COVID restrictions began to lift we started to think of how we could all get together safely... and figured the Colorado crew could drive across the desert to California and we could all hang out at the Etheridge Resort for a few days and pretend like it was St. Maarten!

We not only planned a lovely 70 years, 3 months and 13 days birthday party... but we socially distanced ourselves together for a day at the park, a day at the beach, and a day at the local fun park (fully masked and sanitized, of course!) racing go carts and playing virtual reality games. As always, the time with family filled my heart - feeling especially lucky to all be together and healthy these days. 

the making of an adventure dog

In the three weeks we have had Peace in our lives, she has been all over and had all kinds of experiences!
No doubt she will become a great adventure companion to us all...


She rode up (not on the 4-wheelers but in an OHV!) to the mountains and explored - and got dirty with her boys:

She went to Craig with Sam (to gymnastics!) and went hiking on the trails:

She goes nearly every day with her favorite hiking partners on the trails in town:


And she has been to the lake and is learning to like the water... we have hopes of making her a water dog and a kayak partner!

She has adapted so well to going to the parks and playing with other kids, dogs and people. The boys are still so smitten with her and fight over whose bed she sleeps on. She knows her family and loves to be home with the three of us... but is always up for whatever adventure we want to take her on! 

A little Peace

I  wasn't in the market to add another creature to our household...
But Sam was putting on the pressure for a pet.
(He was asking for a hedgehog.)
Then our dear friends had a surprise litter of pups and the tides turned!
Mama "Liberty" (a German Shepherd) had 7 sweet little mix breed puppies and when we were introduced to this little girl, Sam got on the ball and made a 'presentation' on our whiteboard to convince me we needed her in our life:

¸  

4 weeks old

5 weeks old

7 weeks old

So now we have "Peace" in our lives!
She really is so sweet and the boys love her.

good days

We have moved from "Safe at Home" to "Safer at Home" in the past 2-3 weeks and while our quarantine is officially relaxed a little, we are still pretty comfortable spending most of our time at home, and the rest of it close to home!

At home we still rest well, work hard, keep caught up on all social media and streaming programming, spend plenty of time in the hammock, and manage to be pretty happy together.

Close to home I still hike everyday and the boys get together with a few friends, plus on Mother's Day Sunday I took an inaugural paddle on the lake where social distancing was not only easy, but built in! (It's hard to get real close to anyone when you're in the middle of a lake.)

We are all also working to finish the school year strong. The boys both have one more week of work to complete and I still connect with staff and students regarding end of the school year stuff. After that we will slide right into summer mode with little change...

Q - week 6

One of the silver linings of this quarantine is more time... that paired with the fact that the boys are old enough where I don't feel guilty leaving for hours on end has given me the opportunity to take longer hikes and end up, well..... here:

You could say this is social distancing at it's finest!

I certainly plan to spend more time up here, getting to know some of the new trails a little better.

And now that we are officially not under stay-at-home orders anymore, we will all hopefully get out a little more and explore a little further.

But we will still remain cautious.

I feel extremely fortunate that living in a rural, isolated, small town has meant that I do not know the effects of COVID19 personally. But most of us realize that it is a matter of time for the virus to worm its way to our little corner of the world. Until then, I will simply grin every time I see our state's public health warnings:

cowboys & skis - perfectly Colorado!

Q - week 5

The evolution of a boy's room:

Hamp's first bed (2004)

Hamp's first 'big boy bed' (2006)

Hamp & Sam both get new big boy beds (2009)

Hamp & Sam get bunk beds (2013)


Hamp & Sam move into the big room  (2015)

Hamp moves out....

Hamp goes back to the small room and Sam gets a loft bed (2017)

Hamp & Sam switch rooms (2020)