Horseback Show

This past Sunday Sarah had her first horseback show of the year. Once again we are faced with much frustration about the season. This is probably the only sport that we can think of where you pay a huge amount to participate and you get little return. Anyway, at the draw (which is a lottery to see what horse you will be riding in the show) Sarah randomly selected "Peter" and her good friend selected "Joey" who just happens to be one of our coaches horses. Sounds fair so far, huh? Sarah and her friend both know Joey very well. Sarah's group had 9 riders in it. That is to say one judge is evaluating all 9 riders at the same time. Sarah's horse was very spirited and difficult to keep under control. She had some difficulty but did a great job at controlling him. By the time Sarah showed it was 3 pm and all the horses were tired and irritated. BTW, we had been thre since 9:30am. We video taped Sarah and she looked great. Both Sarah and her friend made the same mistake and let their horses change gait. It just so happens that the judge only saw Sarah's mistake. When the results came up, we were bewildered. She placed 6th out of nine. Her friend placed first. Sarah was disappointed but happy for her friend. We are all frustrated with the system and chaos of the shows, however Sarah loves her horses so I think we are in it for a while. Here are some pictures of Sarah from the show.

Emily's Birthday

Wow, Emily is 9 years old. I can hardly believe that I have a third grader. Actually she is going on 21. She had some of her friends over on Saturday for a Webkinz party. We made clothes, hats, collars and beds for each webkin. The girls had a blast.

Labor Day Spontaneity

My husband never ceases to surprise me. He is so spontaneous that I have to be on my toes all the time just to keep up. Today is no exception. I sent him to the store for 2 items and what happened next should not have been a surprise to me. He came home with a disposable charcoal grill. How he found this and why our large new gas grill is not sufficient, I do not know. So off we went to Battelle-Darby creek park for a "cook-out". The park was very crowded but we found a little spot for our stuff. Brian lit up the little charcoal grill and got to cooking. About 45 minutes later our hamburgers were finished and we finally got to eat. The girls will remember this experience forever. They enjoyed all the bugs and dirt, not to mention the heat. Thankfully, we had no out of control fires and everyone returned home safely after we did a bit of creeking in the big darby. These pictures should tell it all.