It’s no surprise to anyone that Lillyan loves to go fishing.  Her Great Grandpa would still go fishing everyday if he could make it happen, and he will turn 100 years old next month.  Grandpa taught Gramps to love to fish.  They both taught Daddy there’s not much better than a good day of fishing.  Now, Lillyan is beginning to ask to go fishing quite often.  Especially when Gramps is around.

Earlier this summer, they went to the Roaring Judy fish hatchery near Gunnison, Colorado.

Gramps and Grammy (Travis’ parents) bought a vacation place there this summer and have been having fun living the sorta-semi-we-keep-trying-to-retire-and-never-really-do life.  The best part for Gramps, of course, is the fishing.  And sharing the fishing with his granddaughter.

There’s Lillyan’s very first Colorado-caught Rainbow Trout.  Hopefully, for her sake and for Daddy and Gramps, it’s the first of a lifetime full of Rainbow Trout.

Gramps and Grammy also have a pond in their backyard in Kansas.  While we’re visiting this fall, Lillyan has been asking to go fishing often.

Sidenote:  If you’re wondering why the photo quality is a not-quite-up-to-LRR-normal-standards on this post, it’s because all of these photos were taken with Lillyan’s camera.  Gramps and Grammy bought Lillyan her very own point-and-shoot last Christmas.  She loves being in charge of her own electronic device, and we love seeing the world from her perspective through her photographs.

Lillyan took this one of Gramps casting her pole all by herself while standing on the bank.  She’s getting it figured out.  Stay tuned for an All-Lillyan-Photos post soon.

After Gramps casts for her, they work together to get a bite and then Lillyan does all the work reeling that fish in to the bank.

I’m glad my little girl isn’t yucked-out by slimy fish.  There’s no room for prissy princesses in this family.

Not only is she not yucked-out, she obviously has a ton of fun fishing with her Gramps.  I’m glad.

(For the record, as Daddy and Gramps will tell you, I’m not so much into the “fishing” as I am the “catching.”  As long as there are actually fish being caught, it sounds like fun to me.  Otherwise, it seems like there’s an awful lot of sitting around.  Maybe that’s why Gramps and Daddy like it so much …)

If you have never been to the Kansas State Fair, you are missing out.  When I was a kid, our trip to the State Fair was a much-anticipated annual event.

I haven’t lived in Kansas for almost 15 years, but since Lillyan’s grandparents are all still there, we happened to be visiting at just the right time this year.  Lillyan got her first taste of the Kansas State Fair.

The Kansas State Fair, understandably, is big on livestock.  When we first arrived, she watched a cow being milked.  This has been a curious subject at our house, as we drink raw milk in Las Vegas and have plenty of cows in our pasture in Colorado, but, until now, she’s never seen one actually being milked except on youtube (we answer a lot of 2-year-old questions with youtube).

As we made our way through the steers, sheep, horses, goats, turkeys, chickens, pigeons, and rabbits, Lillyan kept asking, “Where is the pig section?  I want to see the pigs.  Can we please go to the pig section?”

When I was a kid,  we weren’t allowed to go on any rides at the State Fair.  They cost too much money, they were too dangerous, we had too many other things to see, blah blah blah.  Apparently, that rule only applies to children and not to grandchildren.  Right after the livestock tour was complete, Pappy asked Lillyan if she wanted to ride some rides.  They started with the Skyway.

The skyway travels high above the Fair from one end to the other.

From high above the Fair, Lillyan spotted something else she just couldn’t wait to ride.

“The PIN WHEEL!”  No matter how many times we told her it was called a ferris wheel, she kept forgetting and continued to call it a pinwheel.

Now, don’t forget, Lillyan is less than 3 feet tall and only 2 and a half, but she wasn’t in the least bit nervous about this huge ride.

She loved every second of it, including the part when we got stuck at the very tippy top for a long time.

Next, she drove a couple of strangers around in  this purple hotrod.

While it was fun at first, just driving in a circle got boring really quickly.  Lillyan is into rides that go faster and higher.

Pappy just kept handing out the tickets, and Lillyan just kept riding rides …

The State Fair isn’t just for animals and carnival rides.  Like all the 4-H kids in Kansas, I worked all summer to have some project worthy of the State Fair.  Maybe someday Lillyan can be a 4-H kid, too.  For now, she seemed to be into these very nice looking pumpkins.

One pumpkin in particular caught her eye:

According to Lillyan:  “That is a HUGE PUMP-IN!”  We’re talking an 800+ pound pumpkin.

They also have all kinds of livestock equipment, as-seen-on-TV products, log cabins, farm implements, whirlpools, quilts, food, photography … if there’s anyway you might need it in Kansas, they’ve got it.

Lillyan decided we needed this for Liberty Ridge Ranch.

A six-seater would sure be nice — and we can even drive it to town (and in town) in our Colorado county!

One of these would sure be nice at the ranch, too.  Lillyan is sure she could learn to drive it.

Daddy’s Father’s Day present, framed for his desk:

GeeBee’s Birthday present (Kymberly’s mom):

Amanda is the maid of honor at her sister Jamie’s wedding (also our cousin, of course).

Our cousin Jamie married this guy:  Kevin.  That makes Kevin our new cousin.  New cousins aren’t always babies, you know.  Sometimes they are big strong farmers from Western Kansas who take our other cousin away to be a farmer’s wife.  We’re not sad though, because we got a new cousin we like.  And they come to visit us in our desert sometimes (like to get engaged and stuff like that).

Lillyan sures likes her new cousin.  She likes him enough to cut in and ask him to dance, all by herself.  She didn’t mind much when the bride came back to share the dance, too.  (Here is where all of you make comments about how cute they look with a little girl between them.  And Lillyan looks very much like Jamie did at that age, so let your imaginations run … but give them a second, they just got married.)

I know Jamie’s Daddy remembers when he could cuddle his little girl like he is cuddling Lillyan.  Luckily, Lillyan’s Daddy wasn’t at this wedding to have to think about those kind of growing-up things.

There were other little girls at this wedding.  They brought their baby dolls and teddy bears, etc.  In true Lillyan fashion, she chose to bring these two fishing lures.  They are big and bright and floppy and slimy and sticky.  And they went everywhere with her at this wedding.  Here, she’s showing them off to the bride’s momma.

GeeBee and I were responsible for decorating the cake and memory tables.

Notice everything going on in this photo:  the pretty cake table, the bride and groom feeding each other cake, Lillyan being amused by these odd traditions, and the ever-present lime green and blue fishing lures.

Perhaps the most odd of all these traditions (imagine if YOU had never been to an American wedding before, you’d be confused too), was when they announced that any ladies who were not married should come out on the dance floor.  Onto the dance floor she trudged, willingly.  Lillyan and her fish almost got trampled in the midst of the crazy single ladies, trying to catch flowers flying through the air.  Let’s hope it’s 30 years before she ever catches those flying flowers.

My britches are falling down.

I used to be a cute little round butterball of a child, but now I’m growing taller and more slender, and my britches are falling down. (I call them britches because that’s what my Kansas Pappy calls them.)

So, what’s a girl to do?

According to my Pappy, I need some SUSPENDERS!

We looked high and low for suspenders for a two-year-old, and my GeeBee finally found some for me at a little Western wear store in Colorado.

Check ‘em out …

They are still a little too long. GeeBee says she will fix them for me when we get back to Kansas.

Are they doing the trick?

Hmmmm…. not quite.

Pappy’s suspenders seem to be working more effectively.

I really need GeeBee to help me out here. There’s a lot of work to be done on this ranch, and it’s hard to get your work done with your britches falling down.

Lillyan has a bit of an advantage.  While most kids are a bit nervous of the dentist’s office, she wants to go there all the time.  Her grandmother is the office manager there, and it’s a fun experience every visit — even the ones where you actually get your teeth examined.

Lillyan loves the fun moving chairs, and she’d been talking for weeks about having Mrs. Natalie polish her teeth when we got to Kansas.

Mrs. Natalie explained each instrument first, and, of course, Lillyan had plenty of questions and was very interested in the mechanics of the whole thing.

First, Mrs. Natalie counted Lillyan’s teeth.  Right now, as we speak, Lillyan is in the process of getting FIVE new teeth.  That will put her at the full twenty (no more until she’s about six, thank goodness).  Maybe getting five new teeth at once explains a little of the grouchiness lately.  I guess I’ll cut her some slack.  But only until the teeth are in.

Here is Lillyan trying out the air-water syringe.  She didn’t mind the water, but wasn’t interested in having the suction hose in her mouth.  She told Mrs. Natalie she could just do that part herself.  “Slllluuuuuuurrrppppp.”

It was finally time for the much anticipated POLISHING.  Amazingly, she held still for Mrs. Natalie to polish every one of those 20 teeth.  The principle is that if she starts to be accustomed to it now, dentist visits should continue to be a pleasant experience.  Let’s hope that principle holds true.

All done!  And not a tear was shed or a fuss was heard.  One dentist appointment down, 199 more to go.

In steps the grandparents.

This pink four-wheeler is a hand-me-down from some friends, and, I suppose, it’s a good way for Lillyan to get some psuedo- All Terrain Vehicle experience.

After Daddy gave her the tutorial, away she went. And, I’ll admit, she does love it.

Gramps had to do some creative adapter business to rig it up to run on the old batteries from Uncle Tyler’s crappy little plastic wannabe ATV. Some of the batteries work for a few minutes, some, for, uh, a few seconds. Uncle Tyler was hard on his toys — make that IS hard on his toys. But at least he shares.

I imagine Uncle Tyler’s ATV wasn’t pink. I guess Lillyan is lucky because he won’t be stealing hers anytime soon. Uncle Tyler is not really into pink.

Lillyan is into pink. Pink and fishing and mud and ATVs. This week.

Today Lillyan enjoyed a perfect Kansas spring day at the zoo with Aunt VeeVee and Uncle Aaron, who were visiting from Texas.  You can think of Kansas as the staging lanes for the big Colorado cabin-interior-finishing trip.

The highlight of the zoo day was the elephant training session.  This elephant, “Stephanie”, did all kinds of tricks for us.

We checked out this mama sheep up close, and Lillyan even got to see her feed her baby.

Even though she had a wagon to share, this was the preferred method of travel around the zoo.

Lillyan shared the day with her “outlaw cousin”.  He is Lillyan’s Aunt’s nephew, but not her cousin.  Figure that one out.

It sure is nice to have people who have nothing better to do than cater to your every want and desire and shower you with love and affection.  Can I get some of those people?  Lillyan seems to have plenty to share.

In her daisy-belted Easter Dress, Lillyan was a willing model in our ever-evolving home studio.

Here’s a tight shot with our new 31mm f/1.8 portrait lens.  We shoot with a Pentax K10D.

She is always ready with a smile (as long as snacks are promised when we are finished).

It might appear that she’s saying, “Oh, Momma, this is so embarrassing”, but actually, it’s “Where me?  I still hiding!”  We do this over and over all day.

“Oh, you found me!”

And now, for my favorite shot of all …

Since we got married, I’ve said I wanted to have a little girl who had her Daddy’s eyes.  Lucky me.