For the love of a horse

Emma inherited the horse lover gene from her aunt Jacko.  I like to ride but I do not have much interest in professional riding of any kind.  I prefer the lets take the horses out and pack some snacks for a picnic lunch somewhere kind of rides.

Emma and Tux

So we packed the girlchild off to favorite auntie's house for nearly 3 weeks so she could get her fix for the year.  There has been talk about just signing over the custody papers and letting her stay forever.  But word got out that we are going to disneyland next week, so the girlchild decided maybe she'd move next summer instead.

As part of my "MOM watch!" duty, at least I can tell she is making progress from last year.  We are still working on balance but at least we've moved onto the trot.

 

 

 

Along with the riding, the girlchild got to help with the routine chores.  They let the horses out to pasture every morning.  She got gates while Auntie cleaned pens.  The gave the horses their daily afternoon beer to cool them down.  And did bed checks at 10pm just to make sure everyone was still standing.

 

I'm glad for this opportunity but equally glad to have her home. We missed her silliness!

 

Be very, very quiet

So I spent a good part of last weekend hunting crawdads with a certain little girlchild.   I don't know about you, but when I think about hunting crawdads I think:

A) some kind of trap
B) set down in some kind of water
C) filled with some kind of bait (a.k.a. bologna).

Not walking out into the yard and shining a flashlight down a hole.

And yet we ended up out in the front yard shining flashlights down 1 inch round holes looking for claws or the shine of those beady, little eyes.

 

 

 

 

I don't know about you but the fact that the crawdads live in the lawn (I assume because the water table is so high there) kind of freaks me out.  In the it's okay to visit but I could never live there kind of way.

 

 

Sorry Illinois!  You are not the state for me.



Round up in Pictures

My sister came to visit.  I had intended to take lots of pictures and put some on the blog.  But, as evidenced by the crickets here, that did not happen.

We have been busy!  Here are the highlights in pictures.



We have had a lot to celebrate latey, birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.



Turns out Bobbo is not so very good at back flips

Everybody say hello to Georgia.  She is a jumper...this is new for us.
And she is also named after the beloved bartender of the Silver Spur Saloon
who lost her fight with cancer a few weeks ago.

I made patriotic jello.  You should be impressed.
 Most of the time I epic fail at jello.

We had some flash flooding on 4th of July
Turns out watching the greased pig contest is not so much fun in the rain.

Emmers wanted to ride the 4-H float in the parade.
I did not.
I think it's clear who won here.

Have You Heard?

 

You can always count on Uncle Daniel to show the appropriate facial expressions... (Even when it's 6 o'clock in the morning).

 

Have you heard the new Skylanders Swap Force is coming out this fall??

 

A certain little 5 year is quite excited about it.  Beware if you show up with a device that has an internet connection, he will ask you to watch the preview for it.