The Big Empty

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!  Brian and I were busy busy... and our Christmas started early.  Over the weekend of the 17th we got to go to one of my dad's in Kansas for his birthday. He lives on a huge ranch and i haven't been there since i was 15 -- Brian has NEVER been. So it was a really nice trip. Not to mention, Trey LOVES his Grandpa Joe and Gigi (my dads wife).

The ranch is on like 42 acres and they just remodeled the entire house. They have a heard of dogs.. a creek... and land land and more land! The town is Lenora -- and there's literally 300 ppl population (if that)... i guess 303 when us Taylor's get there. There's not a single stop light, and only 1 stop sign in the whole town. No schools. No walmart. No grocery stores. It's PERFECT for a getaway!

Because we don't get to make it out there very often the family made a big to-do about it. My grandparents drove in from Grove, OK. Melanie, Gavin & the kids came in from Hutch, KS. And we came from Utah (duh!). My dad was GLOWING the whole weekend. A minute to brag, Trey has only been on a plane 3 other times, and this time we had to change planes, layovers, and the second plane from Denver to Hays is this tiny tiny little plane and he still did AMAZING!  I have such a little trooper. And he was sooo sweet and friendly in KS. As usual, the world is wrapped around his fingers.

KS is usually the coldest most awful place ever in the winter. But we were lucky and it was pretty nice!  Sun shining, no snow.. just beautiful! So we went out trapshooting one afternoon -- Madigan and Mason were having a ball pushing the "pull" button for the pigeons. They thought that was great.  It was fun watching all the guys shoot -- Brian, my dad and Grandpa are all amazing shots. I don't think either one missed a pigeon all afternoon!  Then i was up -- please bear in mind i do not shoot those kinds of guns and have NEVER shot a pigeon like that. Anyways, not to toot my own horn, but i'm apparently amazing! Haha. I missed the first because i forgot to turn off my safety (oops) but the next two i hit and i was stoked!  i stopped while i was ahead. haha. Trey loved it. He just sat in my lap (or Gigi's) and had a great time. They have an OLD swingset, so while we shot we let him play. It was cute.

The kids each got 1 present the first night, they were super excited!

I could go on for days about how great the whole trip was, but it's like that out there. There is no cell service, there's just you and the family and a whole weekend of catching up and forgetting about life. I loved that were were able to spend that time with everyone and that Trey is so loved by so many. His cousins were so happy to finally meet him -- my grandparens (his great grands) were happy to spend time with him without chaos of the summertime vacation to KS -- and my dad and Jess were in heaven to have him there.

We did an early Christmas for all of us and we all opened gifts... everyone got great things but the kids were the best to watch. Sooo... that's it. Our trip to the big empty. We've decided to make this trip an annual run for my dads birthday.