Adventures at the Lee's Ranch



This guy didn't fare so well at the Cowtown Coliseum.
The bullfighters are always right in there helping get the
cowboy out of harm's way and distracting the bull so the
rider can get to the fence after his ride.

 Mike Lee. If any of you reading this are bull riding fans, then you probably recognize this name immediately as belonging to the 2004 World Champion who is still one of the top bull riders in the PBR. Mike’s been a friend of ours for about a year and a half now. When we went to the PBR event in Springfield, MO, Mom told him we were coming down to Texas after Missouri. Mike kindly invited us to come stay at his family's ranch in the Fort Worth area when we did.


So, after driving about nine hours and making one overnight stop, we finally made it! Mr. Dennis Lee, Mike’s dad, came out to meet us at the gate, and after shaking hands we followed him down the long winding driveway to their RV hookups. I could tell this was going to be great, and we hadn’t even parked yet! Mr. Lee and Mike helped us get the camper set up and then we talked for a while and walked around the horse corrals. All the horses that they have are being trained as cutting horses (horses used for separating herds of cattle). It was amazing getting to watch them train the horses in their big arena with a thick sandy bottom.



Here's Mr. Lee getting one of their horses saddled up to
go train in the arena.

 We went with Mike to the New Year’s Eve PBR event at the Cowtown Coliseum that weekend in Fort Worth. It was a lot of fun and it was amazing learning some of the long rodeo history of the Coliseum. That week I mainly helped do chores around the ranch which included: feeding the beef cattle about 2 ½ tons of grain mix every couple days, giving hay to all the horses a couple times per day, moving hay bales around with the skid-steer, saddling and unsaddling horses, and cleaning stalls while the horses were being trained.

Whenever the cattle ran out of feed we would hook up the trailer to the tractor and pull it up alongside the feed troughs. After we filled the ones next to the trailer I would run up and drive the tractor and trailer back to the next empty ones. I thought that I’d figured out the quickest way, and would run along the top of the trough to get up to the tractor. I kept thinking, “Boy, if I trip, this is going to be ugly.” Well, guess what happened when Mike and I were unloading the trailer one time; I tripped! Luckily, it was at the very end of the trough so I didn’t hit my head. Instead, I fell off and landed face-first into the cow poop/mud mixture. Right after that Mike slipped and hit his face on the shovel handle. We were just having it rough that day, I guess! (ha ha)


Here's me plowing near the horse corrals.  I have the
arms up high like that so on corners I can get closeer
to the fence before turning.

 The next week Mike and Mr. Lee showed me how to start plowing the fields to prepare them for planting later this Spring. I used their 75hp Mahindra 4WD tractor pulling a 10 foot (I think) chisel plow. Mike was driving the tractor showing me the boundaries of where they wanted plowed, while I stood on the step on the side of the tractor. He was driving and then without saying anything, he just jumped off! We both laughed as I scrambled to get in the tractor so I could drive it, since nobody was in the seat anymore! That tractor sure had to work hard to keep traction going up some hill in the sandy Texas soil. It was great learning how to plow; I’ve done a lot of work with tractors before, but never any plowing. There’s an old homestead with a couple barns near the front of the property that I had to plow around. When I did, the plow dragged up quite a bit of old metal, pipe, and brick that must’ve been from another building (maybe a house) that used to be there also.



That's me on Black Plague. (ha ha)  She did pretty good to
have all fours off the ground!  Contrary to what you might
think, that is NOT a calf I'm riding...

 Before we went to the ranch I had quite a few of my friends ask me, “You’re not going to ride any bulls, are you?” And I always replied with something like, “Oh, no. I’ll stick to riding horses and four-wheelers.” Well, that lasted about the first three weeks at the ranch. Mike and I were saddling up some horses to ride while Gabriel watched. Out of the blue, Mike told Gabriel that if he wanted to ride one of their cows, he could try it! Mom was a little nervous about it, so Mike said, “Well, I’ll put Cody on one first, if that’ll make you feel better.” Without realizing it, I had just been talked into trying bull riding! (ha ha) There’s a big pen with four bull chutes near the horse stalls that we’d do it in. After getting several cows into the alley, and bringing the rest of the family out to watch, Mike rode one to show us how it’s done. Of course, he made it look so easy!


That's me opening the gate, Mike grinning ear to ear in the
background, and Dad just coming out of the chute! 

 Next was my turn. The first cow was so excited that it got itself backwards in the chute, so we went to another one. Once he opened the gate it was a blast! I only rode for a few seconds, before falling off the right side. Mike said I did good, but fell off so early because I was leaning into it to the right too much. I looked down after I got up and realized that the cow had ripped the back off the left leg of my jeans! When we watched the video later, we saw that the cow’s sharp dew claw had done it when it kicked at me after I fell off. Next, Dad rode. His cow took off across the arena, bucking the whole way. Dad rode all the way across, and then the rope slipped up on the cow’s neck, making him fly off the front! He ended up with road rash up his nose and forehead, a huge swollen knee, and poop on his lip. Mike said he was really surprised how good Dad did on his first ride!  Gabriel ended up not riding, after we saw what happened to Dad and I; which was just fine with Mom…



This is Mrs. Steph and Mr. Dennis standing
by ol' Moe near the training arena.

 Mr. Lee’s wife, Mrs. Steph, is a professional horse chiropractor and knows a ton about horse nutrition and horse health in general. She took a lot of time showing me how to watch a horses’ eating habits and body to see what kind of grain and how much hay it needs. I learned that feeding them, and even giving water, is something that has to be thought through for each horse. They have a whole feed room with several kinds of grain and minerals that are given in different amounts to all the different horses of different age, gender, and build.

One evening I went with Mike to go to a smaller bull riding event so he could practice for the PBR that weekend. We ended up driving an hour and a half only to learn that the event had been canceled. Undaunted, Mike made a few phone calls and found another event about an hour the other way. We drove up to that one and Mike rode four times in the chilly outdoor arena, before heading home at about 10:30pm. It was a lot of fun and we sure had plenty of time to talk while we drove!



Here's Mike and I moving some stuff around with the
skid-steer while Elisha, the horse, watches from behind.  I'd
never driven a joystick controlled one until then; it was a lot
easier to handle than the other ones I've used before. 

 Mr. Lee told me that him and Mike would teach me how to ride their cutting horses. I was excited to learn, because it’s really a special skill to know. They both spent a lot of time showing me how to ride high in the saddle, control the horses movements with my hips, and keep all tension off the reigns along with lots of other little things. It took hours and hours of riding in their arena, but finally I started getting the hang of it. I rode my buddy, Tomcat, every time and we worked together really well. I’m really glad they taught me how!

Mrs. Teri, Mike’s mom, who we’d met a couple times before, came over pretty often and we really enjoyed visiting with her. She’s the managing editor for Quarter Horse News magazine, so it was very interesting talking to her about her job and writing. We went with her, Mr. Lee, Mrs. Steph, and Mike almost every time to their church. It was a great, and they let Hanna and I play music for their Bible studies on Tuesday evenings, which Mr. Lee leads.



You know you're in Texas when there's a statue of Ronald
McDonald getting ready to do some calf-roping in front of
the restaraunt!

 Time fly’s when you’re having fun, and this was very true while we were at the ranch. Before we knew it, it was time to head out so we could go meet up with our grandma farther south in Texas. Being there was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done, and I’m really thankful that they all let us stay with them for so long and spent so much time teaching me things. There was a lot more stuff we did, people we met, and stories I could tell, but if I told everything it would end up being the size of a small book!

Before driving out, they told us to make sure and come back as soon as we can.  I'm sure we will!

Closing Up Our TIme In Missouri With Christmas At Grandma's

This was the "Christmas Room".  My grandma decorated the
walls with lights, set up the tree, and put all the presents
in here.

Christmas time! What are the first two colors that come to mind? Red and Green. What’s the first song that comes to mind? Twelve Days of Christmas. What’s the first food that comes to mind? Spritz cookies!


Yes, Christmas brings lots of unique joys that only come once a year. This Christmas has been unique for us in that it’s the first one spent with our family in Missouri in the last three years. My grandma, Juli, and grandpa, Tom, let us park our 42’ “house” in their driveway for the couple weeks we were there. It was definitely a fast-paced two weeks!



Here's Hanna and Adam playing a fierce game of tennis,
while Jackie and Cole watch from behind.

 Some friends of ours from Arkansas happened to be staying about 10 minutes from us at their uncle’s house for Christmas, so we were able to get together with them a couple times, which was great! We brought our cousin, Cole, to their house and had a huge Wii tennis tournament one afternoon; ending with my friend, Adam, beating us all relentlessly. He somehow was still able to win, even while his brother, Brian, was throwing stuff at him! Adam also shared some of his “delicious” authentic Mexican candy with us, which tasted like chili powder and had the consistency of half dried glue. Their sister, Jackie, decided to skip out on the Wii tournament, and instead sat watching from the back. So, I guess we’ll never know who the real champion is since not everyone competed! Sorry, Adam…



Here's Cole taking Naomi, Tytus, Ella, Josephine, and Gabriel
for a joy ride around the driveway.  With him behind the
wheel, it's not "EZ-GO" at all! 

 We had a blast at my grandma and grandpa’s visiting, sitting out by the bonfire, and doing Christmas activities. Oh, and driving the golf cart! This little golf cart has probably had 500 miles put on it by us and our cousins Cole and Ella. Cole and I have done some of the coolest stunts probably ever attempted on a golf cart! (ha ha) For some reason, though, I always end up as the driver while Cole does some crazy stunt; which, to tell ya the truth, is just fine with me!

On Christmas Eve Grami said everyone could open all the presents from her and grandpa Tom, and then on Christmas morning we opened all the ones from Mom and Dad. I always stand by the side with a garbage bag and practically grab the wrapping paper as the kids tear it off. Between fourteen people all exchanging presents (my aunt and uncle were there, too), there was a lot of wrapping paper! Soon, my job changed from “garbage man” to “present opener”. The rest of the day was spent slowly opening different presents and having fun talking and joking and then eating Christmas dinner that evening.



Naomi and Grami loved playing problem solving games
on the computer together.

 We did a lot of work in the camper while we were there, too. Our camper hadn't left the southern Missouri area for about eight months. There was a lot of reorganizing, packing up, sorting, and cleaning to do! It was great to get it all done, though, and we knew our time in Missouri was coming to a close.

We had an incredible time staying at my grandma and grandpa’s twice that year, working at Camp Eagle Rock, going to two church camps and putting on one ourselves, spending some much needed time in Wisconsin, and getting to spend time with lots of friends and family from Missouri that we hadn’t gotten to see much for about two years; among lots of other fun things that are too many for me to mention. We even, surprisingly, made new friends while we were there that I keep in contact with now.



Grami with all her Smith grandkids the morning we left.

 It was really sad saying “good bye” to my grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, and cousins (who are more like a brother and sister rather than cousins). I can’t wait to see you all again! We’ll be back soon…

Now, on the road to Texas and our friend, Mike Lee’s, ranch. Keep up to date, I have a feeling there could be some more exciting adventures coming soon!

Thanksgiving In Wisconsin and the New Sport of Baby Curling

This is a life-size model of the biggest muskie ever caught
on a rod and reel.  The trees kind of give you an idea of it's
size...

This Winter has been different from the last two we’ve had traveling full-time, because we actually had a regular Winter season! The past two years, when the cold started coming we took off running from it and stayed somewhere down south where we wouldn’t have to worry about any snow, ice, or freezing temperatures. Not this time. This time we went right to the heart of America’s Winter weather; Wisconsin. Mom and Dad wisely decided to leave our under-insulated camper behind in Missouri during our planned 10 day stay.

It was a beautiful drive up there, and we took our time which made it all the more enjoyable. We stopped by an orchard in Iowa and got some fresh apples, apple cider, apple juice sticks, and decorative gourds. I saw more John Deere tractors on our drive through Iowa than I’ve seen in my whole life put together! I started to think maybe there was some kind of unspoken agreement in Iowa to only use Deere tractors. (ha ha)

This is Aunt Sheri and Josephine sitting next to all the snow
that fell in Eau Claire near the end of December.

Our first stop, once we reached Wisconsin, was my Uncle Mark and Aunt Sheri’s house in Eau Claire. We had fun eating dinner with them and talking for several hours, before Mom and Dad took the younger kids to a hotel down the road. Hanna and I stayed at their house and visited with them and our cousin, Eric, for a while. The next morning Mom and Dad came back and Uncle Mark showed us the remodeling he was doing in the basement.

We got back on the road, and a few hours later, arrived at our final destination: Hayward. My Aunt Barb and Uncle Steve were making another one of their multi-yearly trips to Ireland, and we were going to stay in their house for the week and a half they’d be gone. Most of my mom’s side of the family lives in or around Hayward, and it’d been six years since we went up there, so we knew that we had a lot of visiting ahead of us! Something nice about Hayward is that the town is small enough that from my aunt and uncle’s house, Hanna and I could ride bikes to almost any of our relative’s houses and all the stores in town within about 15 minutes at the most.

Aunt Sheri came up for a couple days and took us to see where her and my grandma grew up, where their old grocery store was, and where my great great great grandparents lived when they came over from Norway. We also got to see how much the towns that they grew up in have changed. It was a lot of fun and we learned a ton about our family history.

We went ice skating at the rink in Hayward a couple times.
Dad invented a new sport while we were there: baby curling!

After my aunt and uncle got back from Ireland, Mom and Dad decided to go ahead and rent a cabin for a month near Hayward somewhere. Shortly after, they found a pretty two story cabin with a huge loft on the banks of Round Lake. It was on the same peninsula that some of my relatives used to live on when they were my age. Not long after getting settled in the cabin, Winter hit full force! A blizzard lasted for about a day and a half, and the lake froze over by the end of the week. Dad and I went out every couple hours to shovel off the driveway so we could get out in our 2WD van If we needed to.

It was great having a woodstove in the cabin. With it we stayed nice and toasty even when the temperatures started dipping down into the negatives at night. Aunt Sheri came up again, this time with my Aunt Jean. It was so cold that we just stayed at the cabin and visited. She brought skis and snowshoes with her, so we went out on the frozen lake for a few hours and learned how! That day I got to do three things I’ve never done before: walk on a frozen lake, ski, and snowshoe. It was a blast, and when she left that evening she let us keep the skis and snowshoes with us ‘til we left Wisconsin.

This is Gabriel, Josephine, and Naomi standing on the bank
of Lake Superior.  It was amazing getting to see it for real
finally!  The lake is so massive that it actually creates it's
own weather and has some of the same effects on the
atmosphere and environment that an ocean does. 

Since we had plenty of room in the cabin, I had my cousins, Brennin and Darby, over to spend the night a couple times. Hanna, Naomi, and I had a lot of fun with them playing games and having big snow ball fights. For Thanksgiving we went to my Uncle Kelly and Aunt Wendy’s house. It was a fun afternoon and we had so much food left over that we went to their house again the next night for dinner to finish it off.
It was hunting season while we were there, so I went with Uncle Kelly and Brennin one afternoon hunting. I didn’t get a hunting license because it would’ve been up around $150 for one, if I remember right. After hiking around for a while, we sat down in a brush pile. I was staring intently at the trail coming towards us, ‘cause this was somewhere that deer crossed frequently, when all of a sudden I heard Uncle Kelly start laughing under his breath. I looked over, and slumped between us was Brennin; sleeping! I couldn’t help but start laughing, too, because he’d been known to do this before and I finally got to see it for myself. (ha ha)

This hill's a lot steeper than it looks!

While we were there Hanna and I went to the youth group every Wednesday at the Wesleyan church in Hayward. It was an awesome church, and we also got to see our cousin Chloe there almost every time which was great, too. The pastor and his family were really nice, and we ended up becoming good friends with their two sons, Wes and Luke, and their daughter Hannah. Wes and Luke let Hanna and I play music for the youth group a few times also, which was a lot of fun! We went sledding with them one afternoon on the big hill outside of town. Hanna had the best sledding wreck I’ve ever seen! She went down the biggest part of the hill and hit a hump at the bottom, flew about six feet through the air, nose planted the sled, and flew about another eight feet before finally stopping face down in the snow. We measured these distances after, so I’m not exaggerating! The local Christian book store was also so nice as to let us host a church youth group game night in their lounge area the next week. It was a lot of fun, and we played music for a while as well as a mean game of Ticket To Ride.

We all know how to have fun, that's for sure!

One Saturday afternoon, Mom hosted an impromptu family reunion at the Hayward VFW center. It was great getting to see some family that we hadn’t seen yet, playing a long game of Spoons with the “spoon-master”, Aunt Karen. Some of the family hadn’t even seen each other for a while, so it worked out good for everybody.

During our entire stay in Wisconsin we saw my Grandma Alberta almost every day. We had her out to the cabin for dinner, and went over to her apartment a lot to visit and watch movies.  Our stay in Wisconsin wouldn't have been complete without her reading the There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly book!  She even has the other less famous version: There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Salmon.



Here's Dad and Naomi skiing on the frozen Round Lake.
There were about two inches of snow on top of the ice as well.



It was sad to say goodbye to everyone after almost eight weeks total of being there. On the way back we stopped by Aunt Sheri and Uncle Mark’s again to return their skis and snowshoes, and say bye to them and my cousin Eric. The rest of the drive went by really quick, and the next day we got to the camper back in Missouri. It was an awesome trip, and I’m really glad we went when we did. I respect everyone up there for handling the cold so well, but I don’t think it’s for me! I’m thinking Missouri is as for north as I ever want to live. I’ll definitely be back to Wisconsin to visit, though; hopefully soon!

(Note To WI Family: If you weren’t mentioned in this post, it’s because I just don’t have enough room! There’s a lot more I could tell about, but because of length I had to keep it no longer than this. Sorry!)