Gentle Shepherd Boy: 2010

In April, when Nana and Nancy and Diane were visiting we all went to Trail Dust Steakhouse for some Western fun.

They had a live band and big dance floor.

Samantha looks like an adult in this pic, but she's only twelve.

The kids love to dance with their Dad.

Wayne and Makenna tearing it up with the old folks.

Donna and Jenna attempted some line dancing.

Don't worry, nobody's arm came out of socket.

We can't decide whether Jenna was laughing or crying when she was dancing with Aaron.

Horse Camp: by Makenna

I spent last week at horse camp. This was the typical day: When we first get there we hang around and feed carrots to the horses. And then the instructor people say “All the campers! ’’ So we go to them and they tell us who’s riding when. There are only two groups so on Monday my group got to ride first, then on Tuesday the other group got to go first, etc. We always did a trail ride and a lesson except for on Friday we only did a lesson because of the horse show. In the mornings we would usually do trail rides because those were longer and we’d rather do a short lesson in the hot sun than a long trail ride in the hot sun. Then after our morning trail ride we would take the bridles off the horses and we would make sure they had water and sometimes mist them if it was really hot. (That is what we do every time we finish riding the horses.) Then we would just do stuff around the barn like grooming horses, filling water buckets, graze horses, muck out stalls, etc. At 11:30 we ate lunch and right after lunch we would feed the horses. After that we do a lesson. In our lessons we do walking, trotting, cantering, and sometimes jumps. When we come in we just do stuff around the barn. At the end of the day we do a free ride. (You can chose whether or not you want to do this.) A free ride is when some of the campers chose horses and take them out to the arena. Some of them are bareback and some have saddles. You ride the horse twice around the arena walking and trotting, then after you do two laps you stop your horse and the campers that didn’t bring a horse out get to choose first what horse they want. After the free ride we clean the whole barn and make sure there are no saddles, pads, combs, or anything laying around. Then we take out the horses to the paddocks.And then we wait for our parents to pick us up and go home.

Braiding Addie's tail before the horse show.

Leading Sissy into the arena.

Showing my best Western riding form.

Aaron is a genuine cowboy.

Landing Addie after a jump.

Trot de trot de trot...

Going back to the barn.

My mom makes a pretty good cowgirl too (except for the cell phone).

Taking off Addie's saddle pads.

Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum

Playing on the tire swings in the clubhouse.

Feeding Addie an apple.

Addie in his flymask (see if you can find the fly in the picture).

Grasshopper attack!

Makenna with her first place ribbon and her first place family :)

Addie wanted to be in the picture too.

Trying to talk dad into buying a horse.

Thinking of how to fit 8 people on a horse, since we'd have to sell our van to buy one.

Big sis Sam

Callie loved her Heidi braids.

Horse lover.

This picture looks like a dream, but it's not, my Aunt Kathy did a cool camera trick. Thanks for taking all these great pictures at my horse show.

We took a day trip over Fourth of July weekend to Daingerfield Lake. Great weather, kayaks, fresh spring water lake and NO bugs or alligators! A BIG thank you to Aunt Kathy for taking all of the below pictures. She definitely captured the adventure of the day! If you want to pay for her to go on your family trip and take pictures leave a comment and I will have her get in touch with you.