just another week..

Wow.. no griping from readers that it's been too long, I guess noone is following me or cares! lol

It's been a very busy couple of weeks, I feel like we live in our trucks sometimes. A lot of it is running errands, maybe some day we will figure out how to get all our errands done in one day instead of 3 or 4 so we will have more time at home to work on things. My other problem is that my days and weeks blurr into one, so today is Wednesday and I cant remember what the hell I did on Friday.. how sad is that! Let me pause for a minute, it drives me crazy when I cant remember things... Oh well, I'm just not going to remember! Oh we did build a seat for the boat for Russell and Ellie to sit on.... what an exciting life we live.. :)

We built the seat so we could take Russell out fishin with us on Saturday, he had never been in the boat and we wanted a comfy area.. Dont be thinking we went to all this trouble for some plush seat, he basically got a wood base with a carpet remnant tacked down over the top.. that's good enough! lol Otherwise he would slide all around on the boat with nothing to grip to. We didnt get out on the water til about noon on Saturday at Flowing Lake.. not a great time to try to get in some fishing.. and we only had a few hours because we needed to meet a lady in Monroe at 5 with the horses, she was driving down from Bellingham to ride at Lords Hill with us to try out the saddle we were selling.

We had ridden the horses for about 45 minutes on Saturday morning, Derek was out preparing the boat to go fishin early but he noticed the neighbors dogs ran past the house un-attended. Their owner normally takes them up on the loop through the woods, so Derek was concerned something happened to her.. so he saddled up Edgar at 8:15am and I jumped on Red bareback and we rode the loop.. did not find anything odd and as we rode home, passed the house where the dogs live and the mother-in-law was outside, she didnt realize the dogs had been out roaming that morning apparently..

So Edgar & Red were not too thrilled to be taken out a second time that afternoon.. but they can't complain, we only rode for an hour at Lords Hill. It was funny actually, when Tricia (potential buyer) pulled up to meet us, her passanger says "PIPER!!" Well Tricia's friend is Tara and Tara went to Snohomish, graduated a year behind me and worked at Dels long ago before moving up to Bellingham.. small world! So I am now friends with Tricia and Tara on FB and excited to be reconnected and to have met a new friend.. Tricia did buy the saddle, fit her and her horse Mo perfectly! It was a nice afternoon and I cant wait to ride again with them. We are helping out with the Regional Prize Ride Challenge up at Harry O in Sedro Wooley in a couple weeks and Tricia is hoping to bring Tara to do the ride.. and then in the future we'll haul up north and ride with them on some new trails.

Sunday was our dog-day.. We drove down to Eatonville with Russell and my parents with their dog Sarge.. it was a bit crowded in the truck, but it was fun! Eatonville is where Jim lives, and Jim owns the female that will be breeding his Boykin to Earl from Oregon. Earl has titles I believe in hunting/duck dog challenge type events, we've watched him on uTube.. They are BEAUTIFUL dogs!! Going down and meeting them in person really affirmed our decision and we know we are getting the right breed for us! There is nothing better than doing the work and research to pick the breed that best suits your needs and knowing it is the right thing to do. They really are sweet dogs, very independant but Jim has acres of open land and no fenced yard so of course they would rather be out hunting the field than visiting us. Derek did throw the ball into the pond many times and the one male just jumped in, no reservations at all.. he loved the water! I am even more excited now and the thought of raising 2 puppies this year has been over-looked by my eagerness to have these new dogs added to our family. We are still looking at Christmas before we will get our little Cooper. No I did not get any pics.. the dogs were far too interested in being dogs than to sit for a picture!

We have decided not to go anywhere special this weekend, it is the 4th. Originally the plan was to take the dog and the horses and get out of town, go camping.. but that kinda fell through and although we could still go horse or non-horse camping, we opted instead to stay home which would allow us the time to relax, watch the big UFC fights, BBQ, fish, ride, and have some downtime. Oh and I need to figure out in the next few days how to piece together a video! Shannon gave me the videos of Oakley that she wants cut down into the good clips to be posted on the internet.. I have NO idea what I am doing or how to do it, but will do my best because she's got some terrific video of him.. he is amazing! I will be sure to post a link whenever I figure it out.. the sooner I can get it done, the sooner she can advertise him and get him sold. Not that we are in a hurry... I am excited about this whole deal and thankful all the time that Shannon got ahold of Oakley and is doing such a great job.. I hope to spend more time with her in the future, she's got some plans for the barn and such and we'd like to help be a part of it all..

I will try to start taking pics more often as well, my parents bought us a used camera at a g-sale, I am having troubles figuring it all out.. its a fancy one with lots of bells and whistles.. I'm taking it to Lynda who is a photographer, going to have her help me with it to determine if its operator error or if there is a reason the camera may have been for sale! I hope its operator error, most of the pics seem over-exposed with way too much light and if there is movement at all with the subject (like the dog or goats) it is all blurrrrr... hmmm