Family Time

This past Sunday my sister, Jacqui, came up to visit. She brought along some of her kids: Tally, Caroline, Dan & Ethan, as well as some visitors from England, Aimee & Craig.

(Kamber, Daniel, Chris & Talmadge)

Chris took Caroline, Aimee, Tally & Craig shooting in the afternoon. I think they had a good time. The girls were so tiny that Chris had to stand behind them to "catch" them after they shot. The videos were pretty funny to watch.  Later, Chris cooked us up dutch oven potatoes and elk steaks. It was pretty tasty!
I asked Jacqui if she'd take pictures of Eden and me, so we headed up the road to take some pictures in North Fork, but Eden was too scared to cross the bridge. We ended up finding a wooded vacant lot to take some pictures on. It was fun and my sister is always awesome at pictures. I can't wait to see them.

That night we headed to bed pretty late, but Chris, Craig, Tally, Dan & Caroline still planned on waking up at 5am to go fishing. That was until Kayden decided to escape!Daisy was barking her head off and Jacqui and the kids, who were sleeping in the camper, were pretty fed up of her. I told Chris to go check on her and when he did he came back and said there was only two horses!! Poor Daisy, she's screaming to us, "The horse! The horse! It's getting away!" and we are all yelling at her to be quiet.
Anyway, Kayden had headed a few miles down the road and had taken himself back to the place we had been boarding him at. ....Pretty smart guy! Chris locked him up in their fence for the night. And by this point we were all awake and managed to get back into bed at 4:30am. But did that stop them from waking up at 5am to go fishing?!?!?! YES!! lol! But, they did wake up at 5:30am! Wow...dedication!

(Caroline, Nana, Mom, & Auntie Jacqui)

(Mom, Korbin, Nana, & Kamber) 

The next day the older ones took turns riding the 4-wheeler in Avon. Caroline and Aimee ran out of gas. They ended up just "rolling" down the hill in nuetral. When they got to the bottom of the mountain they pushed the 4-wheeler to the nearest house, but the people wouldn't help them! They knocked on 3 doors and no one would help them, not even give them a ride back to my house!!

After a bit of pushing the 4-wheeler, they decided to say a prayer. The second they said, "amen" the 4-wheeler started up and they drove to my house, literally on no gas. Oh the power of prayer!

It was a lot of fun having them visit and I think they have a few adventures to remember now! lol! Enjoy the pictures...somehow Ethan and Landon managed to escape every picture!

The Horses are in Town!

Last Sunday we headed over to Wyoming to pick up Kayden and Eden. Eden was quite the little monkey to get loaded, but eventually the rope around the butt trick did it for her! lol.

We boarded them down the road for the week while Chris finished building the fence. Chris built a beautiful Aspen log fence, with trees that he cut himself from the Raft Rivers.

Chris finished the fence today. He wanted to ride Eden back to the house seeing as she's green broke and needs miles, so he saddled her up and "ponied" Kayden behind Eden. About half way home Chris was so sick of having to continually kick Eden to get her to move, that he ended up hopping on Kayden bareback and ponying Eden the rest of the way.

Eden is very gentle, but you need spurs to get her to move!! lol!

Once we got home, I was able to have a little ride on Kayden. He's such a good boy! I'm very inexperienced and he just did everything I asked him to do. He did pick up pace a little quicker than I wanted, but he slowed right down when I told him to.

After, Chris decided to go get his little baby, Black Thunder. Eden almost attempted to jump the fence to get to Kayden as they were leaving. The fence is normal sized, but she's always been like that. She hates to be alone, especially in a new place. (She jumped a 6 foot fence when she was just a tiny foal!) So, Chris had to tie her up in the trees, which seemed to entertain her for a while Kayden was gone.

Little miss Thunder was ponied back to the house with Kayden. As she came into the yard she tripped over a basketball, but suprizingly just kicked it out of the way and kept going.

The three horses are now getting to know each other. Thunder is running around like yearlings do, throwing her head around, sticking her tail up and just running! Eden is somewhat happy to see Thunder, but is pleased to have Kayden back by her side and Kayden is just making sure they both know that he's the boss!

Tomorrow we are all heading out to buy cowboy hats! The kids are excited for a ride and Chris is taking Kayden out in the morning and then I'm going for a ride in the evening, so I'm sure thier will be many more pics to come!

Window Help Needed

Well, I'm posting this mainly for Victoria because she's awesome at decorating, but anyone suggestions will be welcome.

Okay, so my three windows in the family room will have floor to ceiling drapes, puddling at the bottom *slightly*, so that makes them 8ft long. The rod across the top will need to by 12ft. That'll give a 6 in space at the out side of the two end windows. Then, of course, there will be four drapes. I think the copper pipe idea sounds cute, any other ideas let me know.

Now what about the window to the left? Does it need to be the same material as the three windows in the family room? I can't do floor to ceiling because the ceiling is so high. A valance maybe??? This is the window with the weird grapes. You can kinda see marks on the wall above that window, that's the grape vine. If I make my own curtains, I can get material either totally the same or coordinating. What do you think?

Now this is the window behind my family room. I'd hoped to do the floor to ceilind drapes again. Would you stick with the plum or do you think a brown would be nice? (I have the brown couches.) I bought some silky brown curtains. I loved the color, but I got them home and they looked too "delicate". I want something a little more rugged and with a little umph!

I don't have a picture of this, but the room on the other side of the dinning room, the front room is beind decorated (eventually) in an old Americana style. I was thinking I'd do a rustic brown curtain in their...b/c anything red, white or blue would like pretty nasty with the pink walls. So, *honestly*, what do you think????? Does brown go with the americana theme? I want it to look like a classy americana, not cheesey....but then again, by the time I get around to it, I may have changed my mind. lol!!

Suggestions please!!!

Christina's Saddle

Last night we headed home from picking up our horses and Chris said we better start looking for a saddle for me. So, we hopped on E-Bay and I saw this pretty little thing. Anyway, Chris got up in the middle of the night and found out that we'd won the auction! We paid only $150!!! I can't wait to see it. It is made of leather and has a pretty floral design in it and a suide seat.

Independence Day

This was probably the best 4th of July, ever! We went to Liberty Days in Liberty, of course. My mom and dad came over for the day, too. It was nice to have them with us.   We woke up early for "Breakfast in the Park".  It was sooooo nice going to the park and meeting up with the other residents of Liberty. Everyone is so friendly and so willing to chat to you, even if they don't know you.

After breakfast there was a parade. I went to ask the people in charge if they did a kid's parade, too. They told me yes, so I asked if it was before or after the main parade and they said, "That is the parade." lol! It really was so fun!
There were lots of little girls with their horses all fancied up and little boys on dirt bikes, as well as the occassional tractor with kids sitting in the bucket. And of course, there were pleny of kids on decorated bikes, which is what Kamber did. Landon was the only skate boarder! People couldn't believe he could just hop right on and head down the big hill with such ease.

It was the best dang parade ever! No setting out lawn chairs 4 days in advance, no fighting crowds, no sitting in hot sun (our weather is about 12 degrees cooler in Liberty than Ogden-it was actually chilly in the morning) and best of all....it was over with in like 5 minutes!!! And the kids got more candy at this parade than any we've ever been to.
After the parade, Landon did Mutton Bustin'. He was the second to last kid, so he had plenty of time to watch the other kids fall off, some which came off crying, two which got hurt (both sisters, ironically). I figured he'd get scared out of doing it, but he insisted and not only that, but insisted that his dad not help him get on the sheep.
Well, he did awesome! Unfortunetly, I don't have any pictures. My dad had my camera and cam corder because I was chasing Korbin. Well, my dad didn't take any pictures because he was running the cam corder. The only problem is, he recorded the wrong kid! lol!! He felt really bad, but it's okay...we'll just tell Landon that it was him in the video. j/k!
Then we watch a greased pig chase and chicken chase. I believe this section of the day was called, "Animal Cruelty". After, we headed two minutes up the road to our house for a giant 2 hour nap. It was such a relaxing afternoon.

Later that evening, we headed over to Huntsville to see what they had going on. We watch performers on stage. Of course, our kids just made themselves at home with everyone. Landon and Kamber found some really nice teenagers to play with. They totally entertained them for an hour or more, playing ball, tag, relays, etc. I wished they lived around here so that they could babysit!

Korbin found himself a nice family that just loved him coming up and saying "Peas, peas" for popcorn. He found his own little resteraunt, which was a plus for us.

After another little break at home, we headed back to Liberty Park for a dance and fireworks. For those of you that don't know what Landon's two best talents are and two most favorite things to do, are missing out on some great entertainment. Landon is not only killer on a skateboard, but a fantastic dancer!

When he was 2 years old he started watching "So You Think You Can Dance" with me and my sister in law, Joy. (She was staying with us at the time.) Since then, he has been hooked on break dancing, popping and any other "cool" type of boy hip hop dance styles. He has been getting dance moves off of youtube, but after last night.....it is soooo time for lessons!!! He was soooooo flippin' awesome!!
The song was "Crank that Soulja Boy". I think the Soulja Boy dance is kinda fun, so Landon and I have watched it a few times on YouTube, so when he heard it come on, he went into full dance mode. His face just got really serious, then his body started pumping, and then he just went with it! He doesn't know the Soulja Boy dance or any specific break dance moves, but he does pretty good at imitating them.

When he first started dancing, some teen boy yells, "Holy crap, look at this kid!" For the first few minutes a group of people circled Landon and cheered him on. He was quite the entertainer. Kamber enjoyed dancing with him, too!

After the dance, they quieted everything down for a patriotic tribute. It's the first time I've been to a 4th of July where they've actually done something patriotic. They showed a very well prepared video about the battle between the British and the Americans. They finished it with singing the Star Spangled Banner and when they said, "Bombs bursting in air", they shot the fireworks off. It was pretty cool. Korbin was amazed....