BICYCLES, BEARS, AND BALL

The boys and I have been taking bike rides in the late afternoon on the road that runs through Vallecito. There's only one road in and one road out here. Anyway, we've been riding 3 miles down toward Pura Vida Restaurant and 3 miles back home. It's been great bonding time and I love it! One day while Mason and I were waiting at the top of a hill for Landon, I heard rumbling down below us, on the lake side of the road and saw the rear ends of 2 bears that disappeared into the bushes. I turned around and quietly mouthed to Mason "GO..>BEAR". So we hightailed it back to the house on our bikes, picked up Mike and Haven, and all got into the van to go back down there and see if we could see them again. Mike started taping as we saw a bear at the bottom of a tree and while he was taping, I saw cubs up in the top of the tree. I ask you to forgive me for what you are about to hear and I was very hesitant to post this, but it was an amazing experience. I confess that in my excitement, I took the Lord's name in vain and I apologize for that and am ashamed (and also human...whoops!). But I just wanted to share this neat experience with you, even though it was dusk and you really can't see it very well:

The mother bear was at the bottom of the tree with a cub, and 3 cubs were in the top of the tree!!! It was so wild! Mama bear was limping some so we think she was injured and may have adopted the cubs of another bear that had been hit and killed by a car on County Road 500.

Needless to say, we have not taken any more bike rides without Mike with us!! He is now joining us!

Mason is now playing football for Bayfield Middle School. They have 2 teams, an A team and a B team. The A team is suppose to be 8th graders but they didn't have many go out this year so Mason and a few more of the 7th graders got bumped up to the A team. We were happy for Mason because he was chosen but also concerned that the great team we had last year had now been divided up. And sure enough, for our first game, the B team won their game but the A team that Mason was on lost. It was disappointing but they came back this week and beat Miller Middle School in Durango 6-0! Mason is #22....

I was so happy I caught this amazing SACK by Mason on film!!!!

Landon and Haven were cute, entertaining themselves during the game. He was leading her in a dance and I just had to get a picture of it!

When Landon's had enough of the game, he's had enough! This is how I found him towards the end of the game....

Crazy kid!!