The Sims Dancers

This is a daily occurrence at our house... the girls dancing! Even Maria knows how to work the CD player. She will put on her favorite songs and just dance and sing. They often get together and make up dances to put on shows for the rest of us! What I love about it most is that they do it to Christian music, it is their favorite genre of music! Okay, sometime they dance to Rascal Flat or Taylor Swift or Barbie, but mostly to praise music! We listen to 104.9 in the car (Christian station) so they hear a lot of the same songs and you will often hear them singing! The best is that we sing those same songs at Church and I will often hear Olivia, Maria or Anna singing their hearts out! That is when I feel especially close to Christ!

more fair pictures

Anna winning 5th place in "Egg in Spoon" contest.

Alex competing in flags - Bubba is not a contesting horse, but she had fun trying. It is always fun to try to go as fast as you can, scary but fun. I think she may of won a ribbon in this event because all the really fast horses dropped the flag (slow and steady wins the race!).

She looks so beautiful in her English riding attire and Bubba is just as beautiful! They make a good team! Should we buy him?

A long week at fair!!!!!!! Maria was actually only with us 2 days but it was very tiring sitting around all day waiting for them to show. I looked over and she was asleep! Maybe it was more boring than tiring for her. She actually loves horses and I think she will follow in the girls footsteps and become a rider.

So where do we go from here? Our lease on Bubba is about up. I might be able to renew it and continue on with the girls training on him. He is such a good horse. Everyone at fair loved him and wanted to ride him. I really trust my girls on him. He rarely gets spooked and has bonded a lot with Alex. His big advantage is his jumping... boy can he jump! Since this is Alex's thing, I think sticking with Bubba might be the best thing. The owner has offered for us to buy him for a VERY good price. But with that comes the vet bills, farrier bills, etc.. I do not think we are in a position to do any more than we are doing. We have also been offered a different horse. A friend has one that she is keeping at her barn and would like Alex to have it. She would help us out with the bills as long as we feed it. Sounds like a good deal, but that means leaving our trainer, and no indoor arena to train at. Plus the horse is a little "green" meaning he needs some work to be show quality. Alex is very intrigued to take on this horse and work with it, but I do not know if I trust her to jump him. So we will see where the world of horses take us. All I do know is that God has always provided opportunities within our budget for my girls to ride. I know he will continue to do so in the future... God is good!

Back to Business

We are back from the county fair!

Let's make one thing clear.... I AM NOT A COUNTY GIRL! Never in a million years did I ever expect to be spending a week at the fair from sun up to sun down! I am a "city" girl or at least a suburban girl! Well, I did survive with only a few laughs from my fellow barn moms.

On July 17th we unloaded our "leased" horse into it's new home for the week. One thing was clear we did not have all the supplies needed to show for the week. Luckily we have great people in our 4H group who loaned us everything (wheel barrow, pitch fork, saddle rack, tack box, hooks, black hoof polish, spray paint (yes you paint the horses legs and polish it's hoofs black), riding gloves, etc.). But considering the horse is not really ours we did pretty good. It is amazing the STUFF you need to show a horse. Talk about some money tied up in a "recreational sport"! You can imagine the cost just to own the horse, but add all that other STUFF to it and it is quite the investment. Some of the mom's work one or two jobs just to pay for the horse! SAD. I am lucky to have a daughter who knows our limitations and respects what we can do. She is very appreciative to be given the chance to lease a horse and show it.

So Alex and Anna spent the rest of the week showing in all different classes, from your typical equitation classes to your fun "ride a buck" classes. Alex pretty much did all English classes she could, where Anna stuck to just the simple fun classes. They both came home with lots of ribbons to be proud of. Alex also participated in Musical Freestyle, which is where the rider puts together a routine to music. If you ever want to come watch a horse show this is the one! It is amazing the costumes these kids come up with and it is very entertaining. Alex put her routine to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock'n Roll". It really got the crowd involved and singing! Got to love the oldie but goodie songs! She had a lot of skills packed into her routine including 3 jumps, which Bubba did great at! She competed against 3 others and one girls did the song "Mickey" (remember... "oh Mickey you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind"). Who does not love that song. And her costume was Mickey mouse and her horse was dressed as Minnie! It was so adorable. I did not see her routine, but she did take first place and Alex took second. We were still very proud of her and a lot of people came up to her and told her she did great!

So we had a lot of fun and the girls made some new friends. But I am glad to be home and getting back to a normal routine. Now it is time to start planning for our school year!