Summer Fun

We have been told Spring in Central Oregon is very short. Indeed, once it stopped snowing we had one week of heavy rain & snow flurries, and now we are full-on into summer.

Lilah received her first pedicure!


And it's been hot enough at Camp that we've started swimming in the lake!

Lilah likes to wade with Daddy,


but she also likes to go up & down on the dock's ladder. The water is about 20 feet deep under the dock. She tries to get us in the water, then wants to sit on the ladder in our arms. She also likes kicking the water!



Marc, one of my new bosses, also gets in on the hot weather fun...

Lilah traded in her infant life-jacket for a toddler life-jacket through Aunt T. She finds this one much more comfortable!

Now when we are outside, we lather on the sunscreen & chapstick. I'm already rocking a sunburn/farmer's tan, and we've all suffered from mosquito bits. (Marc assures us the mosquitos will all be eaten up by the bats soon...)

The Horse Staff start arriving in a week and a half, with the rest of the camp staff arriving in two weeks. I'm working hard to make sure the corral is ready to go -- today I did physical labor moving horse troughs & junk around -- tonight I need to work on getting paperwork set-up.

We are having fun & summer's definately here!

Potty Training Continues!

Hopefully Lilah doesn't hate us forever for posting this picture....

Guess what I did ......

Nanny Tanny, who was in town over the weekend, put me on the potty as an experiment as I was filling my diaper up. Since then, I have po*&#ped THREE times on the toilet! I even tell people, "Poo-poo noooooo" if I'm on the toilet and don't have to .... well, you know....

Mommy got a little teary that soon I might be potty-trained and they won't need diapers anymore. She says I'm supposed to stay a baby, but doesn't she know that I'm growing up??

Camera MIA

Since our camera has been MIA for the last couple of weeks and I've been super busy, I haven't had time to blog. So here are some things you won't see pictures of:

1. The extremely-large group of bats Nick and I canoed into the other night on the lake. Yikes! They kept diving super close around us, and we got outta there in a hurry! I think we could've hit some of them with the oars if we had wanted to!

2. One of my favorite trail rides of my life -- I went out with a friend as the sun was setting. We rode around for a couple hours in the forest, then galloped (a couple times) up a long hill. My horse (who does have race-horse ancestors) was super fast. I was holding onto the saddle horn for dear life as the world blurred around us. My friend and I whooped and laughed all the way up the hill!

3. The horses all back at Camp. I moved all 29 home last friday!

4. Our Memorial Weekend with Nick's family in town. It was fun to go out on trail rides with the fam and Lilah stayed busy playing, playing, playing with all the family in town. Cousin Corbin had a baseball tournament, and Lilah and Nick got to catch a couple of games.

We have located our camera once again, so hopefully no more lags on posting!

4.

What We Do for Fun

Around the Ranch

When I was in labor with Lilah, there was some time (even before everything went wrong) that I was in a great deal of pain. It wasn't pretty. In fact, it is safe to say I was out of my mind with the pain. In order to re-focus me, Nick told me that I could get another horse (since we sold WonderBoy during my pregnancy).

19 months passed, but I did not forget that promise. (Neither did Nick, and he's since learned not to promise ANYTHING to a woman in labor) In April, we bought the Redemption Horse. He cost us exactly $4.75. (Why that amount is another story completely).

So what did I buy? A fancy show horse? A young althetic horse?

Nope! I bought an old friend -- a horse I had used in a previous lesson program I ran. He's older, he has soundness issues, but he has a heart of gold. I love him to pieces, and I am 100% happy with my choice. I hope we have him till the day he dies. :)




The same day I picked him up, I picked up another horse from the Portland area to potentially be a lesson horse for camp. I didn't get any information on him (no age, name, level of training) but when I saw him, I put him in my trailer immediately. In fact, I was told he was a SHE, and because his poor body condition, I believed it until I saw boy parts when I unloaded him..

Here is his before picture:


And, I'm happy to report -- here is what he looks like today!

He still needs a few more pounds, and my assistant & I are working on conditioning him now. Still no idea on whether or not he'll be used in summer camp, but he is a very nice little horse. I would really like to know when he stopped being fed this past winter....

And finally, isn't this little baby donkey the cutest thing EVER?!?! He was born on Easter Sunday!