My apologies for the month long abscense from this blog... It's not like I dont have the time at work to write, I just havent been too motivated to sit and recap my life the past few weeks. It's been a super crazy 8 or more weeks, something going on every weekend and I think I'm now ready to just lay it out there.
Where to start, well here's a quick weekend rundown of my Aug/Sep starting with first weekend in August. 5 days camping, bachelorette party, 5 day riding/camping, 3 days camping with family, labor day weekend including a HRC practice day, Jen/John wedding, CHC Prize Ride, 3 days Hunters Safety Class.
I've talked about some of that already, thank goodness! Labor Day weekend we opted NOT to go anywhere.. For 1) we just couldnt afford to go anywhere with the recent unemployment status and 2) we really needed a semi low-key weekend to ourselves! I invited Crystal to go riding with me at Lords Hill, we had a nice ride except the part where my pants (that are only a yr old and fit JUST FINE) ripped! They are jeans that you have to pull up into your crotch a bit in order to spread your legs etc so as I went to get on a rock to get on my horse, I didnt pull my pants up, and in the midst of my leap, I heard "RIP". Sure enough, I had torn them and then as I got back on my horse after lunch break, they tore some more... Pisses me off cuz the jeans were NOT too tight on me, heck I could pull them off my ass and grab a handful at my thighs. It was a little odd riding with split jeans, just doesnt feel natural :)
That same weekend we took Cooper to his first hunt retrieval practice. It was a pretty hot day (if you consider low-mid 80's hot and I do!). The first practice was with ducks/dummies thrown in the pond to retrieve. Cooper was really hesitant to go in the water at first, Derek had to coax him in, but once he was in, he eventually found his marks. We have A LOT of work to do. We think Cooper was suffering from shyness, he wasnt sure why all those people were there watching his every move so he was a bit timid at first but I was really happy he did make a couple water retrieves successfully. After that we took him out to the corn field for land retrieves.. Not so great there. He was hot and he was not going out far enough for his retrieves so we have a lot of work to do on that too.. but that's okay! We were 100% happy with his first training day and the progress he did make. We are not 100% happy with where Cooper is at for the money we put into him but thats another topic and one I am not going to blog about.
We did take Cooper out to my parents to work him in the pasture a few days after that, he did really good and I actually enjoy training him with Derek. He is such a great dog and so eager to please, he is trying. I think he works better for me! LOL
With all the attention Cooper craves on a daily basis, I somehow find a little time to give to Ellie and Russell. Russell is not quite so grumpy towards Cooper these days, but one of Coopers favorite games still is to get Russell all pissed off by jumping all around him when Russell is relaxing on the chair! It is pretty funny but they both get to barking so much you cant hear yourself think.. if only they could do it silently.
I give Russell and Ellie spa day every now/then to comb out the constantly shedding hair. Not sure they consider it a spa treatmeant, but I put them on the table, brush them out and trim their nails.
Somewhere in the midst of all those camping trips, we picked up our 4 new baby kids, Nigerian Dwarf Goats!
Eenie
Meenie
Mynie
Mo
Just for perspective, Mo is full grown for the most part as he is a year old and the other baby kids are about 5 months old, so they are not much taller than our dogs! They are really great little boys, eager to greet us at the gate.
To start, we had them in the yard to eat down the brush and stickers growing, it took them about 5 days to realize they could eat the brush! They were raised on orchard/alfalfa hay, so when they were put in the yard and not fed any hay, they started to get a bit skinny and I got very concerned because they were NOT figuring out what to eat.. but FINALLY they took to the brush and you cant keep them out of it now... whew!
Jennifer & John's wedding was 9-10-11 :) It was a beautiful wedding, she had asked me to be her maid of honor and had no other girls standing up with her. I was so honored for her to ask me, we've grown back to being close friends again and it was really nice that she trusted me to be there for her. I hope I was all she expected from me! :) It was a 4-day event.. lol Not sure Derek realized what he was in for, but it consumed that weekend. Thursday afternoon was rehearsal then dinner then drinks, I had to fight back tears just from the darn rehearsal! I failed..
Friday the boys spent the day together, a little golf at the driving range and then some drinkin. Us girls ran errands for half the day and spent the late afternoon at the nail salon, gettin pretty! I had a pedicure, only the 2nd one I've done in my life. The first one was for Carrie's wedding. My feet are SO hard and cracked, I was really embarrassed. The gal had to SCRUB and SCRUB the bottoms of my feet to get them clean, she used this file thing.. she really earned her $ that night! But my fingers and feet were much prettier when I left. We went out to a bar afterwards and met up with the guys to hang out. Saturday of course was the wedding. I had stressed A LOT prior to the wedding on getting a nice enough outfit to qualify to even stand next to Jen, I think I succeeded ok. By no means could I compare to her, but I didnt feel like a troll either!
The sandals I found to wear were incredibly uncomfortable.. I did not have proper time to wear them in so I stood there in pain, hoping it would not last too long so I could go sit! lol It is not easy finding really nice pretty sandals for these big ole size 11 wide mammoth feet, especially when summer is basically over... Sunday we had brunch down in Seattle to watch Jen & John open their gifts. By Sunday evening, I was exhausted! Jen looked amazing though, I cant wait to see their wedding photos. I'm hoping there is a good pic of Derek and I from the wedding.
The horse club had our annual prize ride the following weekend, since Derek is still unemployed he was able to help flag the trail on Friday with Oakley. I was proud of Derek for helping because he had to carry those flags on Oakley and they both did really great with it all. We rode for 4.5 hours and realized that was the first time Derek had been back in the saddle since MEMORIAL Weekend! The only bad part of it all was that his saddle clearly did not work on Oakley, as we discovered when the saddle came off after the ride. Derek is a bit sad about it, he LOVES LOVES his Tucker...
This past weekend was my Hunters Safety Course out in Sultan. A 3-day event! I had to be in class Friday from 6-9pm, then Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 9-2. I had a lot of built up apprehension about going, I had no friends to go with and was worried about feeling out of place. I knew I needed to take the class and pass the test to qualify to buy a hunting license but I was still really worried about it. I also knew I would have to handle guns I was unfamiliar with. As I sat alone at my table Friday afternoon, a guy came in with his 2 kids and a friend of the kids.. they sat at my table and I was really glad that they had. They were all really nice, the guy was maybe 4-5 years older than me and his 2 kids were 11 and 15 and then the friend was maybe 14. We all joked around and had nice conversations, I thanked them on Sunday for making my experience a lot more enjoyable! Me and 2 of the boys took our "Field Test" together on Sunday, we had to walk around an outdoor course with a rifle or shotgun in our hands and show we could handle ourselves in a safe manner as a group. The 3 of us passed that section just fine. We then had to go inside for our written test. I knew I did pretty good on the test, felt like I might have missed a few since there were a few questions I was a little unsure of but used what I thought was the most logical answer.
After 10 minutes I walked up to see how I did and I was told I was the ONLY one to have scored 100% on my test!!! I was shocked! I mean not super shocked, I did feel I did pretty good, but I was suprised to have not missed 1 single answer.. Of all 26 in the class, about half of the class was adult men and I beat them all... I was pretty damn proud of myself for doing so good and hopefully I can retain it all. I did text Derek every now and then during our breaks over the 3 days, asking if he knew this or knew that etc about hunting rules! Of course he knows it all (well thinks he does anyways), so not sure why I even bothered asking him! LOL I learned a lot.. and now look forward to getting out and hunting, hopefully my back will handle it okay. The 2 boys that were taking the class with me, they both passed too!
October has drastically died down with scheduled activities, I am looking forward to it. Not to say there is "nothing" for us to do, oh we have plenty! We've neglected all the things we had hoped to get done this year around the place.. we have a ton of unfinished projects and a lot of dump runs in our near future. Its time to get organized and get on track with less clutter in our lives. Derek is still unemployed, but we are not stressing about it and just accepting that what happens is meant to be. It is NOT easy these days since unemployment was denied, but we will work on getting that decision reversed and moving forward to new adventures.
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