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We arrived into Laramie around 9:30PM or so, a smidge over 13 hours on the road, and caught the end of the NBA finals as the kids unwound a bit. Nora was quite happy as she received her very own Tinkerbell inflatable bed plus sleeping bag. She laid down in the living room, her brother quickly passing out on the couch in his sleeping bag, and quickly scurried into the bedroom with mommy and daddy as it was scary, so, she slept quite comfortably IN HER OWN LITTLE BED ! Score one Gramps Lance !

Friday dawned a day as you might imagine, but thankfully the kids were in decent spirits and agreeable, getting through breakfast, dressed up, and over to Great Gran's house without so much as a moan or sigh. Once there, they were very cordial to folks there and those that arrived, introducing themselves as "Hi, my name is Tyler Erben and I am five years old and this is my...", "Hi, my name is Nora and I am three". Ok, that did that once or twice, then Tyler was off to play and Nora turned on her bashfulness mode. Nora found pleasure fixing Great Grans table on the back patio, getting underneath it with her diaper in wide view, and performing mechanic like operations, noises, and gestures with some toys. She then wandered around in the backyard, enjoying the pretty flowers.

Around 10:30 or so, we began making our way to the church for services. The kids did quite well, listening as well as one could expect (or even better) for their ages. Nora the past few days has requested to go to the poddie on her own, and done so, going with a dry diaper from Boise to Laramie, and so far today batting 1.000 as well after a little bit of a wet one this morning. Tyler, Nora, and their cousin Reese made it about 15 minutes into the services before their gentle clapping at the songs, and fishing with some flowers (I felt guilty videoing it, but it was awesome) turned into a bit more uncontrolled energy, and we made an exit from the packed church to saunter around and burn off some energy.

After a visit to the cemetery, we had an enjoyable reception at the Laramie Country Club, with Nora enjoying the Chicken Penne Pasta as any good child of mine should, and Tyler, out of the blue, deciding he was hungry and dining on some steak and potatoes, with about five pieces of bread. We kicked off our shoes and dipped them in the pool for a bit, and finally wandered back to Gramma's house around 4:00 ish, the kids getting to ride in the back of the Tahoe, as seen below as they relaxed before our short drive.

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/livefromboise/

Could I have been more wrong?! Tyler and I played 11 games, of which I won 4. Yes... Tyler is the Uno champion. The first couple of games, I was not playing "ruthless". I mean, I am playing a 4 year old, albeit not for long. I decided to change my tactic and try and actually win a few games... I still lost.

And not only does he understand the rules, he also has the strategy down. He's using the "skip" cards and changing the colors with the numbers, and I even happened to notice at one point, when I had laid down a Wild card to change the color and I only had one card in my hand (Uno). I noticed that even though he had the "red" card in his hand, he played his own Wild card to prevent me from winning the game.

I have a feeling that I have a future professional poker player in the family!

After an hour or so in the kitchen, we had some seasoned pork chops, corn on the cob, and Nora's favorite -- noodles ! Notice how she teaches her baby doll, who's sitting with her at the table eating, how to properly eat noodles.

http://wyomtncabin.blogspot.com/2009/06/tyler-granny-aunt-lauren-and-gramps.html

Tyler points out to me that I need to watch for rain deer (deer that come out when it rains).

We nabbed a bite to eat, then took a tour around Whiskey Row in downtown Prescott. We enjoyed a tasty dip of ice cream, then headed back to the hotel.