Cousins!

As I mentioned in the recap of the Great Stair Tumble of 2011, the Omaha Pauleys visited last week for a few days of cousin mayhem and enjoyment. On Thursday, we all headed up to Vedauwoo for hiking and a picnic lunch. (If you look closely, you can see the evidence of Will's tumble on his cute little face.) Cousins B and A and Uncle M eating cheetos. We all hiked together for a few minutes in the morning, but Will was a little tired from the previous night's events, so he and I hung back and had a quick photo shoot. Yup, that's a hospital bracelet on his wrist and a plastic sword in the other hand. He's an enigma. Or just a typical 4-yr old boy. He and I sat down against a rock and looked at the clouds for a few minutes. We saw a dragon, a boat and several swords (of course!). One of Will's favorite activities now is to sit and look at the clouds. We've had HOT, cloudless days lately so he hasn't had much luck. While everybody else was hiking, Will and I watched a group filming a movie in the rocks. They had actual camera equipment and costumes and everything. I took a zoomed in picture, in case it's a famous movie someday. Although chances of that might be minimal because from what we could tell, the main characters were an old-timey western bad guy and a guy dressed as a squirrel. Compelling. On Friday, we headed over to Laramie and then on to the Snowy Range. The "Snowies" are living up to their name this year because as of July 22, there was still a lot of snow at the top. The bigger kids and uncles fished and hiked and the smaller set stayed closer to the car.
Cousin B fished with Uncle Glenn and then obliged me with a quick photo op! He and Will definitely look like they are related. Saturday dawned bright and early and it was cousin B's 10th birthday! I celebrated by starting the day off with a 10k race (okay, that really doesn't have anything to do with his birthday but I did justify it by eating a giant piece of ice cream cake.) at the air force base and I didn't finish last. Yeah!! The rest of us played and hung out and the grandparents came up for lunch and cake. A great time was had by all and we hope that we can all get together and do it again very soon.

In other news, Will dressed as a cowboy. Frontier Days recap in my next post!