Friday, August 27, 2010

Home

What a great vacation we had! -as always. We went on our usual Parker Dam trip, the same trip I've taken every year of my life. We've searched for a different campground, somewhere a bit closer. But no place compares to this. Now... how do I begin to share my 585 photos? There are so many memories, so many great shots, how do I narrow it down? So what I will do is break it down day by day. I promise to try to keep it short.
Our first day is always relatively uneventful. After a 5 hour drive and unpacking and grocery shopping, it doesn't leave much time for anything big. This year, Amy and her family joined us, making a grand total of 27 campers. So grocery shopping, even with all our planning, took quite some time. When we got back, we had a quick dinner of hot dogs, and relaxed around the campfire.


The kids jumped on their bikes right away. They didn't seem to mind travelling down the road in the pitch dark. When I was younger, I was terrified of this stretch of the road. Never, ever did I venture past the cabins after the sun went down. I guess there's safety in numbers. A few of the girls came back squealing and squawking about a "HUGE" snake in the road. Yeah, yeah. silly girls. By the time I got there, the snake was gone. So I had to take their word on it. But on the way back, a car was stopped in the road, and a man was yelling at the kids to stay back. Apparently, he had run it over, but it was still alive and striking. We waited in the dark until we were sure it was dead, then carefully sneaked past. Imagine trying to get this crew past a dead rattler in the dark.

As for the "silly girls", Boy, was I wrong! They weren't kidding, it really was huge!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Sunday, August 15, 2010

"Dear God..."


"...please let my real parents come and find me so they can take me away from this crazy family."

Friday, August 13, 2010

Joe

He's just so cute, isn't he?



After many minutes of screaming and playing by my three musketeers, Jacob, out of breath, ran up to me to tell me what they were doing.
"Me and Joe are pretending that Grace is a riot."
"What do you mean by that? What do you think a riot is?"
"Mr. H (their SS teacher) told us about it. Its a person that gets mad and goes all around the place and ruins the town, then ruins the other town, then ruins another town."

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

An evening with Kandeaux (and Courtney)

I feel like a teenager again. Really, I do. I've had Kandaeux since I was about 16 (and had been riding him for a few years before that, too) but since I've had the kids, well, you know how it goes. And I don't have much motivation to get myself out there because I either go alone, or young kids are tagging along and it's just not it used to be when I was young and free and would spend an evening just "horsing around" (sorry). Not that I'm complaining or saying that I'm tied down because of them. But your life changes (obviously) and so do your activities.
And now, I have a child that has an interest. A child that is old enough to tack up herself, and I can send her out into the ring and just sit down and watch. Someone to keep me company and shares my love. Still, I don't have much time, and I don't spend all day nor do I head out to the barn every day of the week like I did when I was a child, but we make a great effort to make it there. You can always find time when you really want to. I may be too busy to keep my house clean, but when Courtney says "Hey, let's go to the barn tonight." it's amazing how fast I can free up a couple of hours. 



This is really exciting! This is her first time loping. (I was asked to mention that this is a lot harder than it looks.) This kid has no fear. I rode him first and when she saw me lope him, she said, "What is he doing? I want to do that!"

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Sauerkraut parade

I've been trying to leave the camera home a little bit more, not because I don't enjoy it, But I have way too many pictures. I go home and delete a bunch, but I can still end up with a fifty or so from just one outing. So while getting ready for the parade, I decided to have a photo free afternoon. Then I thought, "I really need to practice with my new lens". It's a manual focus so it's not at all practical for a parade, but all I'm doing is practicing, so I'm most likely going to delete all the photos anyway. So here are a few of the 75 photos I couldn't bare to send to the trash can...









Friday, August 6, 2010

Cooling off







"Ok, Gracie, no more."   "Awww."