16

Gabe,

You are turning 16.   You are ready to become your own person.   You have a few short years at home and then the world will be yours and you will make your own way.   Everyday when I look at you, I can see that look in your eye.    That look that longs for independence, freedom.   Now.     I promise you something....soon you will be ready.    Soon you will be in the stage of your life were you aren’t home all the time and you are making your own life.

I need you to know how thankful I am that God choose me to be your mom.     I have to admit there are days I have thought....I can’t do this or I have failed.    There are days when I know I could have done better and helped you more. But, even on the hardest of hardest days, even when we fight, I have always been thankful that you are my son.  I have never questioned why God gave us to each other.    It’s because deep in my soul I know that He gave you to me.    You test me.   You grow me.    You make me crazy on days.   These are all lessons I need to learn.   God sent you to me and your Dad to teach us so many things about ourselves.    Some days I listen and I know but most days I just become angry.   It’s those few days of clarity where I thank your soul...from the bottom of my heart for sending you to me.   There is purpose for it all and as we go through each day there is only one thing.    I love you.   Nothing.   Nobody.   Not a fight.   Not a bad choice.    Not separation or distance can change that pure, simple love.    I respect you.    I respect the soul inside you that God choose to give to your dad and me.    You are my messenger.    Just as the angel, Gabriel, was God’s messenger.     I can promise you today and for all eternity it that your our love for you runs deep. 

When I was 16, I needed so badly to have guidance.   Someone to tell me right from wrong.   I didn’t have that person in my life.    I truly didn’t even understand to look for that person.  I had to figure out right from wrong for myself. I stumbled through my life making every bad decision.   I learned slowly and I can honestly say I wouldn’t be here without God providing me with your Dad and everything else I needed to heal myself.    My life was forever changed the day I had you.  I was 29.    You changed my life in so many dramatic ways and if you don’t know that, I want to thank you.    I stopped.   I wanted to be better.   I wanted to find myself under all the lies and bad choices.   It wasn’t easy but you helped me understand true joy and where to search for who I was.     As a little boy, you and I had hours and hours together.    We would sit on our porch swing in Colorado and eat pop cycles together.    I sang songs to you that healed my soul.   Your dad made you a sand box in the backyard and we dug holes and made mud pies.    We walked Bridger and spent time with our neighbors.   You and me and your Dad were a team and did so many things together.     It was precious time to me and I will always treasure it.    You don’t remember that time but I want you to know and understand how much you healed me before your brothers and sister came along.

I also want you to know that I’m having a hard time letting you go.   I suppose most moms have this feeling when they know it’s time for their sons to grow up.    Even though I am having a hard time letting you go, I also want you to know that I honor and respect you and what your life will become.   You are so smart.   You are good at everything you put time and effort into.   You are a born leader.   Someday, you will use all the gifts God gave you and change the world.

I want to tell you a few things on your 16th birthday because I know in my life it was the year that I decided to make big changes in my life.    I left my childhood friends and I surrounded myself with a life that I am so happy is in my past.     More than anything, I wish I would have allowed someone to guide and lead me in another direction.   Here are some things that I would have told my 16 year old self.

1.   Who you choose to spend time with whether it be your friends or your girlfriend will shape you in ways in you don’t understand.   You can do all the right things and surround yourself with people that will bring you down.   Choose friends who are doing the things you WANT to become....even if you don’t feel good enough.  Choose a girlfriend that brings out the best in you and makes you laugh.   Someone who accepts you for who God made you to be.    If you are constantly fighting with her.....walk away.   There will be plenty of girls.    Choose people who are fun and light heated and not filled with drama and gossip.    Don’t spend time with anyone who brings you into their own drama.   They will drain you.

2.   Nurture your friendships with your brothers and Grace.   Help them, love them, sacrifice for them.    They will be your best friends for the rest of your life.

3.   Study and learn about everything.     It will take you to worlds unknown.   Travel as much as you can and keep your mind open to all types a of people and how they live.    There is a whole world out there and the worst thing a person can do is to put their life in one little box.   No matter where you go, always know where home is.  Be thankful for it even if it’s not a place....just people.

4.   When you find something where you lose time and it brings you joy....this is your thing.   Do that thing whatever it is.   Even if no one else understands it.   God will lead you to your purpose if you listen.

5.   No matter where you are or who you are with or what you are doing....you can pray and ask for help.     The answer will always be given to you.   Find a place to meet God and don't’ go there because someone expects you to go there.    You will know where that place is and you will be able to communicate and worship him in your own way.

6.  Don’t give yourself away.   If you freely give yourself to girls, drugs, controlling people, social media, video games, or anything else there won’t be much left for what truly matters.

7.   Date lots of girls and don’t rush into anything.  There is time to savor your relationships until you decide who is right.   God protected me from so much heartache when he sent me your father.   Don’t settle for someone just because you think there won’t be anyone else or your stuck in a rut.   Who you marry is one of the most important decision you will every make and it is a beautiful part of life.   God has the perfect person for you and you will know.     It’s not always about emotion.   Do they lift you up?   Do they make you better?   Do they love the same things as you?    Do they give without taking?     Do they love your friends and family?    Can you be completely yourself around them?

8.   God is always waiting for you.   He never leaves you no matter what has happened.    He just waits patiently for you to look his direction.    He adores you.   He loves you with a love we don’t understand.  It’s called Agape love.    You may need to look that up one day.

9.  Don’t do things to please people all the time.   Do them because they are good, kind, gentle, and full of truth.   When your lost come back to why you know.    The mountains, fishing, hunting, being with your dog, having family dinners, spending time with family, going on an adventure.    It’s in those things you will find a place called home and things will make sense.

Lastly, don’t be afraid of life.   Don’t sit around and wonder when something good will happen to you.   The good things are out there waiting for you to find them.    Ski down that black diamond, get up at 4:30 am in a blinding blizzard and sit on the point, fish in the rain, give your time to someone who needs it, forgive even if it feels impossible, love someone no one else loves, live in a really shitty rent house and be thankful for it.   Share everything with your siblings even if it’s not fair.   And lastly, I promise this time, always say your sorry even if you don’t feel like saying sorry.   Miracles happen when you can bring yourself to this place.

I love you, son,  and Happy Birthday.

Medicine Wheel

The Indian Medicine Wheel lays on the top of the Big Horn Mountains.     It is a sacred place which encompasses what the Native Americans call 4 directions, Father Sky, Mother East, and Spirit Tree.    It’s a place for anyone willing to make the climb to experience healing and the cycles of life.

We drove to the medicine wheel talking and thinking about who built such a place and what it was used for.    Pop printed the kids an article to better explain what we would see and experience.   

Each of us hiked up the mountain with different thoughts and expectations of what we would see and experience.    We knew this place was built 10,000 years ago and that it was a place of sacred ceremony for the Indians.   Yet, this sacred site is also shrouded in mystery because of its age.

As we walked the road to the top I could not help but imagine this hillside without roads and people.   What must it have been like to hike in this magical place without today’s distractions and conveniences?   And who came to the top of this mountain?   Medicine men? Women and children?    We can only hypothesize because there are no definite answers. 

 

As a rain storm threatened us we picked up our speed anxious to make it to the top.  

These moments we got to spend together were timeless.   We walked with each other toward a purpose anxiously awaiting what we would experience.  We held each other’s hands and left the world behind for a little while.   We chatted about nothing and let time slip by without noticing.  

And then we stopped and screams of laughter filled the air.   The hillside happened to be covered in snow.    Amaya and Addy weren’t very excited but these Arizona kids thought playing in the snow was like a dream come true.   It was an unexpected site on our journey.  

That wild, crazy Arizona dog had never seen snow.     Everyone was so excited to show her.    We played for awhile before we finished our hike to the top.  

As Pop and the kids started circling the medicine wheel I noticed everyone became very quiet.   Mocha and I stayed back and watched everyone circle around the wheel.   Everyone seemed to experience the peacefulness of this place.... even Mocha slowed herself down.  

Some of the kids had theories of why the Indians created this place and as they each shared, I noticed how thoughtful and observant they were.   Owen is sure the medicine wheel is some sort of burial ground.   Addy thought each spoke of the wheel pointed to a different star.     All the kids loved looking at the offerings that were recently left.   There was tobacco offerings, flowers, notes, feathers, among other small tokens.

This majestic beautiful place is not one we will soon forget and to be able to experience it together was the best part of the journey.  

Thank you Pop for bringing us to the Medicine Wheel.  

  

Stacking hay

Rancho Mucho Dinero has a hayfield full of freshly cut bales.  The bales sit in the hot July sun ready to be stacked and put away for winter.     Good thing Pop has lots of grand kids to help load and stack hay.  

Each summer we come out to Pop's hayfields and help.  This year the kids are able to do more of the heavy lifting. 

Gabe is especially a lot of help.   He is big enough to do a lot of the loading and throwing of the bales.  It’s the perfect workout for a early July morning.   

The little girls also came out to help.    They mostly sat on the top of the bales and directed traffic.  

Riding back to the barn with all the hay might have been the best part.

These two boys were our rollers.    One on each side.  

It was a fun couple of days getting to help Pop on the ranch and learning some new skills.    Getting to help is always a privilege and I know the boys learned a lot.    I’m sure if you  asked them they would tell you their favorite part was the donuts and hay rides.  

Pop’s horses

Spending time with Pop.    When you spend time with Pop, you are spending time with his horses.   My dad has one place that he wants to be.   Looking through the ears of a horse.    His world is right when he is seated in his saddle and he can see everything between those ears.   Everything makes sense and the only frustration happens to be a stubborn or a wild horse.   He can fix that.   He can ride them down until they aren’t stubborn anymore.   He can teach them which way to go and how to get there.     He takes race track thoroughbreds that run away with you and turns them into polo ponies.   He takes the same horse and teaches them to pack elk.   

His horses are his best friends and they often make him mad but they also understand him.    My dad needs to be moving all the time.    At a fast pace.   He needs the pounding of those hooves and the wind sailing beneath his cowboy hat/polo helmet.   He needs the wild freedom that his horses provide.   Maybe that is why he decided to move to Wyoming?   Wild Wyoming.   A place he could ride his horses for miles and miles, up an down hills, across rivers and through the mountains.   Where he can run wild and free chasing a polo ball with that Don King buckle always in the back of his mind.   I honestly can’t see my dad living anywhere else.   Where else could he be a Cowboy on the Powder River?   Where else could he play 20 chukkers of polo a week?   Where else would his heart be right?

                                     

This is the place he has become the person he always wanted to be.    A Wyoming Cowboy.    A place where his horses and him have competed in hundreds of polo games.   A place where he has raised his horses and his family and kept us all coming back for more. 

                                  

While Pop rides his horses, my boys play football on the polo field.    Just like me, none of them have a passion for Pop’s horses.   I wish we did.   I wish I felt the same way about these creatures as my dad does.  I wish I had his passion for it but God didn’t put that in my heart.   It was something different.    I think at times Pop wishes we would be up there playing with him also but we aren’t.

                                    

                                    

                                      

We still love him and to spend time with him is to be with his horses.  So, we come to the polo field to see him.   We help him clean his stalls.   We even ride with him when we can.    

We love you Pop and your horses.  

                                       

A cabin in the Big Horn Mountains

The cabin in a place cut off from the world and more specifically electronics.   It’s a place to be together and not have to contend with so many other things.   In fact, the boys get so BORED they all go out and chop wood.

They gather around a pile of wood.   Axes cracking and a heated competition going on.     Who can split the most logs, who hits it the hardest.     Isn’t everything a competition when it comes to boys?    I watch Gabe as he shows the younger boys a better technique.   I watch my boys become men.

I think one of our favorite things is watching all the wildlife.   We see elk, moose, and deer.   This past weekend there was about 30 head of elk that were in the meadow up from the cabin.    The boys sat on the front porch with a spotting scope and watched them all.   The babies were really little.   Newborns, I think.   So tiny with spots.

We also saw quite a few moose.    Big, brown moose.

Boys got up early on Saturday morning and hiked up to Trigger lake.   A high mountain lake where the you can see the fish in the glassy water.   A remote place with no people.    It was a beautiful morning for fishing.

And they thankfully brought home breakfast.

Tie Hack

Tie Hack is a beautiful mountain lake near our cabin.  A beautiful mountain lake perfect for exploring.   We have been to this lake many times before but having it so close is surely something special.

Well, we all have to admit Amaya’s least favorite place is the mountains.    She gets up in those mountains and tends to start sneezing and feeling miserable.      It makes me so sad because it happens to be my favorite place.    But....she endures it all for our sake.    She came to visit us this weekend and stayed just long enough to get a good hike and some family time before she was ready to head down the mountain.    I was so happy to have her even if it was just for a few hours.

We hiked down to the river where we could get our toes wet (some of us anyway).

There is something magical about being in this place where time doesn’t matter and you are surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation. Where you can be play and be creative without any judgement.     A place where the distractions of the world are put aside even for just a little while and getting to do that with my favorite people makes it all even better.  

This all girls hike was extra special for me.    I needed some time away from all things boy and just spend time with the girls.   We did things like play with each other’s hair and talk about clothes and food.  We did some Yoga stretches and admired the flowers.   We laughed about a family we saw hiking with a baby.    The dad was carrying so much stuff in his hands he couldn’t have been having fun and the mom....she was carrying the baby and looking very, very tired.   Only moms understand that look.    Megan and I looked at each other and just laughed.   We had been that mom once.      

Megan....there isn’t anyone I would rather be with on the mountain.    I love you!!