Never take candy from a soldier...

Caleb warned us last night that we should never take candy from a soldier, 'cause it might be drugs. It took us a minute to realize he meant a stranger :o)

Today we spent the entire day (10:45-5:00) at Aspen Ranch where the students were having a rodeo. We've never been allowed to see the kids on Todd's team, but they needed spectators, so the families of the employees got to go. They had all kinds of horse relays to show off what the kids have learned, and the clinical director dressed up as a clown.

The first couple hours were a little tense as we found out that one of the teams (as well as their therapist, the HR director, and the school director) went on an overnight campout on Thursday night and still hadn't returned to the Ranch. They had search and rescue out looking for them. My first thought, of course, is always that the kids on the team "jumped" the adults and had taken off, so I was pretty worried (It's happened before). We finally got word that the team had gotten separated, and it was too dark to hike the 13 miles out, so they stayed another night and were on their way home. I felt so bad for their wives who had no idea where they were. The school director has 10 kids. Todd has to take his team on an overnighter the weekend after next. As you can imagine, I'm not looking forward to it.

Anyway, back to the rodeo. The best part was all the free food. They had FREE hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, watermelon, soda, punch bags (like a Capri Sun), snow cones, candy bars, Twinkies, Ding Dongs, popcorn, and candy bars--and we tried them all. The kids were disappointed that the cotton candy machine wasn't working, but I think they got PLENTY of sugar without it. Dillon was in heaven. I think I probably gained 10 pounds.

Our favorite event was definitely the greased pig. The boys and girls teams took turns chasing after the poor little porker, and I was amazed at how fast they pinned him down.

Brayden and Caleb know all about the kids at the ranch and how most of them are there because they're addicted to drugs. We had a great discussion last night (after the soldier/stranger comment) about drugs and free agency. It's too bad we have to warn our kids about that kind of stuff in Preschool and Kindergarten nowadays.