Picture Post

It's about damn time I posted some pics! Other than what I post with each picture, not a whole lot happening these days. We have not progressed yet any further on the adoption topic, we need to contact a couple people and will be doing so very soon.

I'll start with Cooper. Its not often we get a moment of silence with him, but every now and then he calms down enough to just hang out nicely with us. He originally was strictly a "floor" dog with no permission to come up on couches and chairs.... buuuuut we've been wavering a bit (okay a lot) on that issue these days and he's pretty much become a chair/couch dog too. Although he sometimes likes to put his front paws on us and hangs out for a short time, he rarely wants to jump in our lap and if he does so, he doesnt stay long. He kinda likes sitting by himself in one of the chairs, but even then, he is never there for more than 5 minutes at a time.. Restless Dog Syndrome!

Now Russell on the other hand knows very well how to sit and relax, he'd do it all day if possible.. Give him a lap and a blanket, he's good to go. Above is the normal Cooper.. Ellie is in the chair behind Derek and Cooper is just going crazy for attention, doing all he can to get someone to play with him.

Cooper's been becoming a bit more aggressive lately, more than we'd care to see. A few weeks ago we came home and found Russell with a punctured ear, and he seems to be circling Russell a lot more these days, puffing up and trying to establish his dominance. The other day as we had Ellie in the bathtub, Cooper and Russell got into a fight outside the bathroom door. It was then that Derek gave the go to "snip snip". Not sure if it will help with the behavioral issues between Russell and Cooper, but it certainly won't hurt.

So Cooper had his boys removed this week by Andrea.. He is spending the week with me at work, so I can monitor him to be sure he is not licking/chewing areas he is not supposed to and to also keep him confined so he is not running around.

I bought him some adult diapers.. helps keep him from the licking/chewing when I cant keep eyes on him at all times.

Sometimes he will lay peacefully by my chair and other times he is poking me with his nose, he's trying to put his paws up on my desk, he's doing anything he can to get attention! He sometimes growls at my boss when Scott walks by my desk and he barks when customers walk in the door, but he sticks right by me when I leave my desk. Its been an interesting week with him, I like having a dog with me at work, but I do feel bad he is so bored.

I really hope removing his boys helps settle his behavior some, if not that will be a pretty big dissappointment. We had hoped to breed Cooper in the future, but maybe we just dont need to deal with breeding and puppies, maybe nature was telling us we have too many other directions in life to head and we dont need to go down that road.

As I left for work the other morning, I heard Ellie & Russell start howling as loud as they could. I dont know if that was a howl of happiness that they would have the house to themselves again, or if that was a howl of loneliness in knowing they would have to go another day without Cooper. Actually, Ellie was probably upset and Russell was wishing it would be that way every day!

We actually got what I would call a snow storm around here! :) The weather forcasters typically like to call any small dusting of snow "StormWatch2012" but this time they were justified in calling it so. It snowed 6 straight days at our house anyways, possibly even 7. We had over a foot of measurable snow on the ground, with probably a good 2 feet that fell around our place.

The horses LOVE to play in the snow, rolling and bucking. The picture above was after the first round of snow we got, with 4 or so inches on the ground.

It's so fun to watch the boys roll and play.. The tree on left split in half (not sure if the remaining standing portion will make it) and the tree on the right (you can only see the trunk of it) well it fell over. :( It's not like we eat the apples anyways, but the deer always enjoyed the fruit.

This picture was taken when we had our 12" on the ground! Beautiful!! I LOVE to ride in the snow, so I took Red out, put a blanket on him (so as to keep me clean) and got on him, rode him around the pasture a few times with his halter. It was snowing and all was silent (except for the occasional crack of a tree branch breaking). Derek came outside to see what I was up to and I told him I wouldnt be riding for much longer and joked that it was only a matter of time before Red was going to spook at something and I would be landing in some cold powder! Well about 3 minutes later, Red spooked and off I came, although like a cat, I landed on my feet.. damn horse! I decided after walking from the back of the pasture through the deep snow, it was just too much effort to get back on, only to know I would get spooked back off again. :)

Here's our broken tree.. it sure looks a lot prettier covered in snow!

Anything covered in snow is more beautiful... :) Although I LOVED LOVED this round of a wintery blast, it sure makes for a mess when it leaves.. The snow covered roads stuck around for a solid week, Derek's job was shut down for 3 days thats how bad the roads were even in town. I was only able to skip 1 day of work, my boss knows we have 4WD so it's hard to justify not going in. :( It's been a straight week of rain now and we still have small patches of snow in our pasture. We were unable to pick poop out of the corrals for 10 days. When the snow stopped and the rain started, it took another 5 days for the ice/snow to melt out of the corrals so that we could clean them up, boy do I feel better that is done!!

We've decided to sell Dexter. I think Derek is still a bit reluctant about it, Dexter's going through another growth phase right now so his butt is actually taller than Oakleys.. I think Derek sees the size potential and is worried we will regret the decision. I'm sure he is going to be a tall, well built beautiful horse, but with us trying to focus on starting a family, the last thing I need is a project! :) As much as I love working with young horses, we just dont have the place to do it here at the house and I want to focus on so many other things that my lack of committment to make time to work him, is stressful on me. He's getting to the point where it's prime time to be working him and I just am not getting out to do it. Maybe it's a lack of motivation with horses in general, I'm going through a "blah" phase.. maybe when the weather turns around I'll feel better and more motivated to get back in the saddle.. but for now we'll wait til closer to spring to advertise Dexter.

Oh did I forget to mention about Cooper, that he has this new habit of swallowing whatever he can get in his mouth, as fast as possible! The other day he ran into the laundry room and came out with a sock in his mouth. He came over to show us what he had and as we were starting to reach down to grab it from him, he realized he wasnt going to get to keep his prize, so he opened up his throat like a baby bird being fed and literally swallowed that sock WHOLE in 3 seconds! Thank goodness I had just enough Hydrogen Peroxide to inject into his stomach to get the sock back out.. a few days later, he swallowed a piece of material Ellie had found.. so another round of peroxide was given... silly dog actually likes the flavor of the peroxide, I think he's doing this on purpose!

While Derek was clearing our sidewalk of snow, he thought it would be fun to get some of the snow off the roof of the shop! :)



The horses are not the only ones that love the snow.. Cooper & Ellie think it's the bees knees.. Russell likes it alright, but now that he's an old man, he prefers warm and cozy! :)

Cooper looks so silly with his toe-balls! The snow latches on pretty good when the kids are out playing in it.

Ellie was out in the 12" snow for less than 2 minutes and she got so full of snow-balls that she basically became a walking snowball. She became bull-legged and soon she realized she was struggling to even walk so she stopped, leaned over to fall into the snow, lifted her back leg and looked at me with such sad eyes saying "help please!" I coaxed her onto the deck and this is my poor little girl...

Her entire belly was FULL of snowballs, she could barely walk on the deck even and the only way to get them all off, was to put her in the bathtub in warm water to melt them off. I love that cute little damn dog so much!!! A friend recommended a product that is used on show horses that does not allow snow to stick to her fur, we bought a bottle and will definately use it during the next snow storm because Ellie is unable to even run and play in the snow, the snowballs are such a problem for her.

When the snow was only about 4" in the yard, it was much easier for Ellie to get around, although she did still get balls that had to be removed in the tub, they were not as bad as her being in 12" of snow!

They are fighting over who gets to carry the duck around the yard!

As you can see from this round of pictures, that Cooper is lovin this weather too.. These were taken before he was neutered. Boykin Spaniels are sometimes referred to as the "Bouncing Boykins" and as you can see, that's exactly what he is!

Some People...

As I was driving home yesterday from work on Hwy 2, I saw a loose sheep next to the highway, eating grass. It blended in very well, so most probably didnt even notice it but I do like to think that I pay attention to my surroundings pretty well! :)

I turned around and decided to let the owner know. Every day I drive past an electronic reader-board that indicates how many days since the last serious accident on Hwy 2, so I didnt want this sheep to set that board back to zero. The house was not visible from Hwy 2 and after a couple times knocking on the door, 2 teenage girls finally answer. I informed them that their sheep was out by the Hwy and she says.. "Oh thats our goat and she gets out all the time, she'll be fine." I said "Well she could kill someone if she gets on the freeway, its a dangerous situation..." the girl just shrugged me off, said it was fine and shut the door.

Well her "I dont give a shit" attitude was not satisfactory to me, so I called animal control and left a message. Still not satisfied and sick about the idea of the sheep (or goat as she called it) that it could kill someone, I called 911. I had left the property at this point, I wasnt going to cause a scene on site but it pissed me off!

If you are going to own animals, then do everything in your power to ensure the safety of the animal and the public!! They were going to dispatch someone out to the home, I was unclear if it would be a sherriff or animal contol and not sure if that happened last night or not, but animal control called this morning and left me a msg that they would be visiting the home today and if I see the animal out again, let them know as they would then issue a ticket to the home owner..

Makes me feel good to call in stupid people like that! Sure I've made mistakes and my animals have had escape problems a couple times over the 8 years that I've owned my home, but I always fix the problem when I am made aware of it and I dont just let them continue to get out just because I'm too lazy to do anything about it. It all stems back to being a responsible home-owner and pet owner... and some people should not be allowed to own either!

Bowling Update

I dont get to bowl weekly, but when I do get to bowl, I'm still doing pretty good! My average is only 114, but with the new ball that Jennifer gave to me, I'm starting to increase that average every week by about 5 pins.

I also started throwing the ball in a more proper way.. previously I would throw a straight ball with a backwards flip, meaning the back of my hand would be facing the pins when I released the ball, instead of the palm. Now with this heavier, better ball, I now throw so that the ball has a little curve on it and instead of aiming for the pins, I now know what it feels like to ignore the pins and aim for the arrows! Its a whole new world to me... foreign, but I'm figuring it out.

I know where I need to put the ball idealy to attempt to get a strike, its the spares I still have to work on perfecting my curve and knowing where to place the ball etc. My highest score to date is 161, that was throwing the light ball the wrong way.

My highest score with my new ball is 156 and I hope to make that my average some day! I'd love to break a 200, not sure that is going to happen anytime soon, but I am trying.

Merry Christmas ~ Happy New Year!

I'm a little late for Christmas wishes. I didnt find a 1 yr old child under my tree, wrapped in a blanket and ready for me to love, so Santa didnt bring me all that I wanted, but I had a good christmas! :)

We've put it out to our little world that we are lookin to adopt, so now we are waiting for someone to just call us up and hand over a toddler! Is that realistic? Nope, but one can hope... Maybe we should just ask someone to get pregnant with the intention of handing the baby over, again not even close to realistic! lol We definately have gotten some tips and phone #'s of people to contact etc, just need to sort through it all, now that the holidays are behind us, and we are no longer tied to horse club responsibilities, we can focus on our next path.

I made some really cute bird seed feeders and seed balls for our gift exchange, definately will make some for myself. It was a crafty year for gifts, my family all made things for eachother. My favorite gift to my family was the book I made with all the pictures I could find of Carrie. I did it through Shutterfly.com, took me over 70 hours in just 2 weeks. I think the book has about 400 pictures, it is 54 pages. It's really nice and a great book for us all to look upon when we want to see pictures of Carrie and her life.

We actually were awake through the New Years, my aunt Dena got married New Years Eve in Seattle on Lk Union, so we were able to watch the Space Needle fireworks in person this year! We had a hotel room with Jen/John but we actually didnt use it... Well Derek tried to use it, he went to bed around 2am and I went over to Jesse/Sean's room to visit. At 4:15am I get a text from Derek so I go check on him, he is roasting in our room so he gets dressed and heads to the truck to cool off! lol I went out with him, we stayed up talking for a couple more hours, slept from maybe 6:30-7:30, went into the hotel to eat our continental breakfast, then everyone else staying at the hotel was stirring and getting up, so we went back to our room. lol It was an interesting night!! The next night, I was in bed by 7:30pm and didnt get up til 10:45am, yep 15 hours in bed...

The wedding was fun and seemed perfect for Dena and Paul. Her dress was amazing and the photo booth was a lot of fun!

I have realized lately that Dexter is not getting enough attention and although I can catch him and he is just fine to handle, he's still super jumpy/spooky and he's just not reached that "click" moment where he realizes he has nothing to fear. So I've been trying to spend more time with him lately and just putting him through the ringer with odd things. I'm testing his patience but he's gonna be 2 this year, so its time for him to grow up and start acting like a young man and not a yearling colt :)

Derek's job is going really great, they have yet to dissappoint us. Derek is in a groove and they seem very happy with his work! This is going to be a good year...

This is the time of year that I get most frustrated with owning horses! The barn sits lower than the paddocks so rain water runs into the stalls, the paddocks need fresh gravel as it's getting a bit messy in some areas, the horses are filthy from laying in wet stalls and paddocks, the hours are shorter so there is no time/daylight to ride, and the horses are so bored from being cooped up, that they keep running through the divider fence!

Last night was no exception to all of the above.. It used to be Red/Oakley next to eachother, but Oakley kept busting through the fenceline so we put Dexter where Oakley was at. Derek came home to find Dexter in the barn isle and a busted fenceline, boards broken out of the stall wall and amped up horses! Derek was out there alone at first since I was not home yet and he walked up to a very nervous Dexter to feel his legs to be sure they were OK and Dexter bit him on the back. So I get home and Derek is about ready to shoot all the horses!

Here's what we assume happened: Dexter and Red were playing along the fenceline with eachother, sometimes Dexter rears up in play, he probably came down on the fence. So now they are together and Red (who can be a real asshole) probably chased Dexter around a bit, they both ended up in Red's stall. Red probably was trying to kick Dexter but instead kicked two 2x6 boards out of the wall and Dexter probably panicked for his life at this point, so he jumped through the feed window into the barn isle, bending one of our gates in the process as he probably came down partially on the gate. GRRR I think this all had happened within 30 minutes to an hour before Derek went out to feed, so Dexter was still worked up and probably afraid and with no halter on him to understand he is now under human control, he thought Derek was a threat. I know Dexter didnt do it maliciously, it was all just in the heat of the moment.

Those 2x6 boards are not flimsy weak boards that easily break, those were some very hard kicks that Red had to have done.. really pissed me off actually because had he connected to a leg, it would have been very ugly to come home to that. We moved Red to the other side of the barn, so now Oakley and Dexter are next to eachother and hopefully this will be a working combination! Although I am certain one of them will probably run through that darn fence, but atleast Oakley will not kill Dexter.

So last night I was frustrated, and the horses are so dirty and I just havent had much ambition to get out and brush them or do much with them lately. Hopefully after the holidays I get out of this horse funk because I do miss riding. I think after all that mess, I needed to just chill out so I spent the entire evening working on making a christmas vest for Derek to just relax and not have to think about anything. Derek went to bed early since he had to get up early for some OT at work and at one point, I was about 80% done and Derek came in to see if I was coming to bed anytime soon.. I said "what time is it anyways". Well it was 1:30!! I thought it was maybe 11.. holy moly. But I was so close, I couldnt walk away, so after another hour, I finally was finished and went to bed. I just have to put the buttons on it, but I want Derek to have it on before I do that so I know where to place them. I'm almost done otherwise with the holiday craft projects, just a little bit left of one and then I need to get to wrapping!

Secrets revealed..

Christmas is a week away basically and I still have much to do to prepare for it all. I did finish one MAJOR project a couple days ago, I spent atleast 70 hours in a two week time frame making that one.. really glad it is done and I am super excited because I think it turned out amazing.
Our horse club Christmas party was this past weekend, I was in charge of organizing it. I made bird seed balls to give to each attendee, they turned out really cute and most members seemed to like them. :) The party was at Rhodes River Ranch.. a real nice horse facility in N Arlington, the restaurant overlooks the arena and stalls. It is a cool environment, quite fancy for being in a barn and the food was delicious. This year was a big turnout, with 43 members/guests! We always have some year-end awards and this year I received 2 of them. Our club has a "ride-hours" challenge, we keep track of every hour we have our butts in the saddle from Nov 1 - Oct 31 and the guy/girl with the most hours wins. There are certain criteria you must meet to qualify for the award, you have to be a member of course, you must attend a club work party and you have to volunteer in some capacity of the club atleast once during the year.

Well my ride-hours were pretty sad for 2011!! I turned in only 58.5 hours (last year I was more than double that). The guy with the most hours had 225 and then the girl with the most had 182, however the gal did not qualify since she did not do a work party this year, and since not many in our club take advantage of trying to win this award, I won by default!! Do you know how embarrassing it is to be a very active member of a horse club and win with so little time in the saddle.. ;) Next year will be better.

I also (by suprise) won a year-end silly award. I was recognized for all the work I do in the club, as I am the Treasurer, Secretary and run our website, as well as volunteer to help with our 2 major fundraisers, trailbossing and working to come up with new and fresh ideas for attracting new members etc. Well earlier this year for our Prize Ride, there was a lot of drama around the issue of who was going to get the gate key to open the tree farm for our event and it was decided that I would have the key. Well I received the key alright, but as we loaded up the horses and headed to Arlington to set up for the ride, damn if I didnt forget that key at home! So more finagelling had to be done to get someone else in the area to come open the gate and then have another friend stop by our house to bring us the key... I received the "Key Player" award! I was embarrassed of course, but it was pretty funny!
I got a few pics of the dogs "posed" in front of our stockings and the tree.. Cooper always looks so serious in pictures, his normal goofey self becomes a statue! lol Ellie is the only one with some character in her expression and Russell, heck he's just thinking "will you hurry up, this is long enough being forced to sit this close to Cooper, give me my blankey to crawl under and leave me the hell alone, bah humbug!"
So Derek & I have been together 20+ years now, amazing in all that time (which includes now too) that we have not been pregnant nor heard the tick tock of the baby clock. We've talked about adoption off/on for the past 10 years, always saying that if we felt the urge to have a child, we would most likely go that route as I dont have a real great desire to be pregnant, neither of us feels like its important to spread our own seed and we both know there are lots of children that need parents. We've discussed that we know we would be good parents and over the years have talked about the ways inwhich we would raise a child, but it has always been a matter of timing for me.

I have always felt that the best way to do things is: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a home and then comes the baby carriage! ;) I do not look down on people for not doing it in this order, but I could not consciously consider raising a child when I was living paycheck to paycheck and when I was not ready and willing to put my hobbies and interests behind those of a child. Derek & I both feel your life becomes all about your child and that you come 2nd, so we just needed to wait til we felt it was right to take that next step (for a long time we were not sure if it would ever feel right). Well the tick tock clock has been ticking lately and although that clock has not quite convinced me to get pregnant, we finally are feeling that we are missing out now by not having a child to raise! :)

Here's the ideal.. We would find a friend of a friend of an acquantance type thing that has a child they for whatever reason have decided not to raise, and would like to adopt it to us! We'd prefer a child 1-4 years old, young enough to still establish an early bond but not necessarily an infant. I would take an infant if the situation worked out that way, but it is not necessary. We are going to start looking into the process after the first of the year. We are not at all sure how it will end up, but we dont want to regret not moving forward. It would be close to free if we decided to adopt an older child (6+ years old) as the state pretty much funds that process, but since we want a young child, it will cost us upwards of $10,000+! That is the part that sucks, but it is the cost of what we want.

In all seriousness, we just want the word out there to our friends and family because you just never know who knows someone who might be considering adoption for their child but doesnt want to go through the state program etc. So the secrets out, the cat's outta the bag...

Leave it to me..

to take on more projects this Christmas Season, than I am prepared to handle! :)


Andrea (my sister-in-law) suggested we could make homemade gifts for our exchange of presents this year. We had already planned to make one thing, and after a couple weeks of ignoring the issue, we quickly had to wrap our heads around the concept. With 1 visit to Ben Franklin, we were quite successful with a few new ideas. I'm also working on that super secret major project, the one that is going to require 100% perfection from the creative section of my brain. I just wish I would come up with these ideas a month or two before December instead of only giving myself a couple weeks to get them all done!

I even gave up riding this past weekend so we could run errands, start on projects, and get our christmas tree (although it is not in the house yet, it sits on the back porch where it scared the shit outta the dogs the first time they realized something "different" was on their porch!) lol My dogs are way too sensitive to change...

I had invited a friend to ride with me this past weekend, we were gonna go out on Sunday, but as the end of Saturday came around, I realized I had accomplished zero of what I needed to in order to be able to ride the next day and there was just not enough time and energy in me to get the horses, tack and trailer ready for a ride! The last time I opened my horse trailer tack door (a month ago), I saw green bridles hanging.. mildew/moisture has taken over some of my leather tack, so in order for me to ride, I have a lot of cleaning to do.

Turning a page..

So much time for me to update the blog and so little motivation to type these days. I feel bad that I have no pictures to share lately and it's not that I have zero to say. I just hope I am not boring anyone to tears..

November is always a tough month for the family, Carrie's birthday came and went as did the anniversary of her death. I was pretty upset and down that the girls didnt seem to want to have a get-together this year, our annual "remember Carrie" night! So I just dealt with it inside and toasted with myself. I know we are all busy, and I have to work at telling myself that just because it is important to me, doesnt mean it is as important to the other girls.. We all have such busy schedules but I do miss them girls!

Derek & I joined up with Jen/Johns bowling league on Wed nights. We LOVE it, but we are not real excited that there are 8 people on a 5-person league. So we are always rotating weeks off, which is the right way to do it for such a large team but its kinda tough because we both want to bowl every week. Dont get me wrong, we LOVE our team, Jen/John have some really great fun friends and we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them, we all fit right in together with similar personalities. :) Now that I bowl somewhat regularly, I have finally started to pick up a rhythm on how to bowl best that works for me, and a couple weeks ago I bowled my highest game ever of 161.. WhooHoo!! Yep tootin my own horn. Especially considering my average was about 103 when I finally got my bowl on! lol I still have brain farts and throw an off-game, but anything over 100 is good for me..

I finally put my hunters safety education to work, and told Derek I was ready to go out hunting! I could not believe my own ears and that my brain was telling me I should go shoot some ducks.. :) This past weekend we headed out Saturday morning, bought my license and proceeded to drive all over N Snohomish County on a very windy blustery day, but do you think we saw any ducks flying or sitting or hiding or swimming? nope.. not a damn thing anywhere. We walked out to a couple duck blinds, it was obvious at one that some killin had happened earlier in the day, I guess getting out around noon is just too late! lol I had a good time though, got my first hunt under my belt. I didnt dress in the camo gear since I dont have it, but what I wore worked just fine. I was a little bummed to not get to shoot a duck, but it was good to see Cooper out there being a crazy kid. Poor dog, I kinda feel bad for him having to act so well behaved all day because nothing is being shot down for him to retrieve.

Thanksgiving came and went as well, we hosted at our house with about 15 family members over. A bit snug and cozy, but the food was good, company was great and I'm glad its over.. LOL My house is still actually semi clean after all that, the one good thing about parties at your own house, it gets cleaned pretty good and actually lasts for a while.

Derek started his new job this past Monday, so far so great. Still seems to be an excellent company to work for and he likes his job and his bosses, so thats a good start. He is home before me, has the animals fed (usually) by the time I get home. We've received no other letters from unemployment so we were able to get caught back up finally and moving forward.

I'm starting a new project (super secret) as a christmas gift to my family, it is one of those that I will spend a lot of time on with the pressure to get it done soon and my brain and eyes will be exhausted when I am done, but worth it. I was up til 2am last night working on it.. It is not a sewing project, but I did just today take my machine in for what I thought would be a service call to figure out why it was not working properly, turns out I was not operating it properly! :) Apparently although I was going through the motions of threading the top and bottom, I missed one little step on each which was to keep tension on the thread as I wound it around the little nooks and crannies.. amazing the difference that made! holy moly... I'm excited to sew things again, I have been struggling for a while with tension problems and rats nests in my sewn items, now I just need to go to Ben Franklin and find a project.. oh why do I wait til the last minute on these things and then rush to have to get it all done?

I'm also organizing our horse club christmas party in a week, not that I have to do a lot, but I'm just burnt out and ready for a break. Thank goodness we found a new Treasurer, I will help her as long as needed but I am SOOO looking forward to handing it off.. My brain has been tested too much this year and we have so many damn hobbies, I need less responsibility. :) But that never goes away, there will always be chores to do and bills to pay, the biggest headaches of all.

And last but not least, the animals updates. Well not much to say, other than the dogs drive us absolutely bonkers every night when a commercial or TV show has a doorbell in it! They all 3 tear off to the front door, bolt through barking like someone is trying to rob us, and then come back for round 2, 10 minutes later! The goats are pissed, they need their own sleepy house and they dont have that right now, they have to share a stall with Red. The dryest stall is Dexter's but he's an ass and doesnt let them just hang out in his stall so they scream and yell every morning and night, I'm sure telling us they expect better accomodations! and the horses, well as long as we are feeding them they are semi happy! They would prefer to have the pastures to run around in, but to avoid the muck, they are confined to their corrals. I've been turning them out about every 10 days to run around, but this past weekend as they were running about, Red was a little nastier than normal and kicked Oakley in the ass.. I wasnt real happy about it, and Oakley was okay, but I'm thinking seperate turnout is necessary to avoid disaster. I'm thinking I might try to get in a ride this weekend, I invited someone, so I'm in it whether I want to be or not at this point, if she says yes. Its damn cold right now, low low 30's at night so an early morning ride sound terrible at the moment! lol But I need to get my ass in the saddle, I miss riding.

Derek hasnt been motivated to ride much, we joked the other day that I know exactly why he doesnt want to ride! His saddle doesnt fit Oakley.. and I mean, it just doesnt work.. period! So he has lost the itch to ride because he's bummed his saddle doesnt work and he doesnt want to have to sit in mine.. LOL So maybe if I can find someone to ride Oakley and try my saddle on Oakley to see how it works on him, then we can find Derek his very own new saddle so he will be a happy camper again.. :)

Its going to be a great day!

Could it be that things have turned around once again for us? Lets keep our fingers crossed that this is the case.. Thursday morning Derek woke up, dressed for the day, hit the off button on the bedroom TV remote and as it was turning off, the last thing he heard was "It's going to be a great day" and he thought to himself.. "ya know what, Today IS going to be a great day!"

He went off to an interview that morning, didnt hear anything the rest of the day but the interview went well and he was impressed with the company. Friday as he was out in the blustery rainy weather attempting to find ducks to hunt, he finally got the call that the job was being offered to him! When he got home, he checked his email and he had a formal job offer in writing. This company seems like a great company with really good benefits, better than any other shop he has worked for. He would be the main painter at PCM, which manufactures and paints latches, doors and windows for boats, anything from tug boats to 500' luxury yachts!! We are both really happy about this job and we hope it is as good as it seems to be. And they offered him only $1 less per hour than he was making in Seattle (oh this job is in Everett, close to Boeing). Since Thanksgiving is next week, they would like him to start the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Derek is really excited to get back to work, being an at-home couch potatoe is not his gig and he's going stir crazy! Plus, he's not a good house-wife substitute and I will be a much happier person when he is back to work! :) Because when he is home and the house is dirty, I can tend to get a bit irritated that the chores are not being done, however when we both are working and the house is messy, I place more blame on myself! lol.. crazy logic but I am looking forward to being less irritated at my messy house. :)

... and most important, his awesome streak continues! I am proud when I can tell people that Derek STILL has never been to an interview that he did not get an offer for the job!! That is amazing... he's been offered probably 6 jobs since his layoff 3 months ago, but only one was worth accepting. I must be married to a really great person with a lot of self confidence & exceptional people skills! ;)

Our focus and theme for the weekend included a lot of discussion on making positive changes for ourselves and moving forward to the next chapter of our life. We have some new goals and thoughts on where we are headed and I surely am hoping I can stick to it.. I'm not a good goal setter as I rarely finish what I start, but maybe I can change too.

Our happy weekend came to a halt on Sunday morning when we received a phone call. My cousin Sean is married to Sophy, well Sophy's mother was crossing Hwy 99 in Everett Saturday night as a pedestrian and was struck by a vehicle, she died at the scene. No drugs or alcohol were involved by the driver, it appears to be a very tragic accident from an error in judgement. Sean & Sophy had just moved to NC a month ago, of course they flew in last night. I am just very sad for Sophy and her family, seems unreal and once again reminds us that life sometimes doesnt give us tomorrow.

On a positive note, the 4-letter word has been potentially forcast for the lowlands this coming weekend... S N O W ! ! ! Yep, I said it.. snow snow, beautiful snow... well lumpy rain is most likely what we will get, but I cant help but smile and get excited for the white stuff.. I love it!!

Of Course...

Of course Unemployment had to find a small way to screw some money out of us! We got the lump check finally in our account this week, but it was much smaller than I anticipated. Derek called the unemployment office today; come to find out that because he opened a "work share" claim in January with his 2nd to last employer from Snohomish, that he has to finish out the year with that old claim and cannot start a new regular unemployment claim until January. The difference you ask? Well $117 per week is the loss we have to endure for 4 months, equating to $2000!!! GRRRR.. sons-sa-bitches

Lets lighten this up

After that last post and holding back a few tears, I'll lighten up the blog a minute with some other updates! :)

The GREAT news of the week is that we FINALLY got the legal notice in the mail yesterday regarding the hearing from a week ago.. and the judge did find in favor of Derek basically, so he now qualifies for unemployment benefits! His employer has 30 days to appeal if they choose, but we dont think they will. Considering they did not even call in for the initial hearing, there is no reason to believe they would try to appeal the decision. I keep checking our bank account, we could really use that fat check about now to get caught up on things..

This is a HUGE HUGE relief! Derek now will focus on working with the unemployment office to get some retraining.. not exactly sure what direction yet he will go, but they have counselors he can talk with and pick a field that is growing and not a field that is on the major decline such as his which has experienced a 152% loss in work according to the unemployment office. It feels great after almost 3 months of stress and bullshit worry, to finally be able to have a sigh of relief and know we will be okay.

When we got down to Seattle yesterday, we parked in the garage and were walking down the street, looking for the main entrance... Not an easy thing to find! :) As we were walking, I saw a guy in a wheelchair with a chick, they were outside smoking. What was the harm in looking at the guy?? Well apparently me drifting my eyes his direction prompted him to blurt out "I broke my tweeker!!" WTF!! I just turned my head and kept on walking.. Derek says "this is why you keep your eyes forward and dont make any eye contact Piper!" As we left the hospital, I was sure to keep my damn eyes on nothin but getting the hell out of downtown! I'm such a country girl...

Derek had a minor setback with Cooper a week ago. He took Cooper out to a little more public hunting area and it seemed that Cooper was just determined to have a bad day.. he wasnt listening like he should and it was a lot more battle of heads than expected. Which is OK. Cooper is still a pup after all and Derek realized he's not quite ready for full board hunting trips. Cooper didnt listen as Derek attempted to call him back from an encounter with another dog, and the other dog was not so happy to have this young thing come bouncing up in his face, Cooper almost got his ass in a fight of his own, but as soon as the other dog started to fight him, Cooper cowered and ran like a chicken! Derek was very apologetic to the guy, and the guy was apologetic as well, even though it was not his fault his dog got protective. Cooper was in the wrong!

Cooper also had no interest in picking up birds that day so Derek clipped the wings off some birds he had shot a few days prior, and tied the feathers to his training dummies. He'll now get worked with those until he is comfortable picking them up. He just needs more positive reinforcement to be associated with live birds.. It definately can get frustrating to have a dog that used to love birds to a dog that now is so timid about picking them up but it teaches you to remember patience and understanding when working with Cooper because it's not his fault he has this negative association and if we do this right, we will build a stronger dog that will learn that this is a good thing!!

My Brother.. Eric

This has been a week of worry and stress. This past Saturday I got a call from my dad, he told me that Eric was jumped late Friday night by 6 guys and had a skull fracture, he was okay and on his way home from Harborview. I immediately was sick to my stomach, I was really upset and angry, scared and confused. I knew Eric would not be up for much company that day and since we had a planned horse club Movie Night at our house that evening, we worked on cleaning the house throughout the day and planned to go visit Eric on Sunday.

A few hours later dad called back and told me it was not six guys that jumped him, just one. He had misunderstood what Andrea had said, which was that there were maybe 6 guys standing around as one of them hit Eric. On Sunday, we got a little better idea from Andrea and Eric what happened, although Eric doesnt even remember being at the bar/restaurant that night, he only recalls waking up in the hospital.

According to Eric's friend, Eric and this guy were arguing/debating about political issues between Eric's fire district and Stanwood's. For some reason which is not clear, they went outside and at some point Eric got punched in the face hard enough that immediately knocked him out, he hit the ground and Eric's buddy jumped on top of him to protect him and his buddy is pretty certain that atleast the one guy, if not others, kicked them when they were on the ground. The guy took off of course and they are still trying to track him down and find out who he is, as he will be charged!!

Eric is NOT at all the type of guy to instigate violence or put himself in a position to get in a fight. Andrea was dancing, so she did not see any of this happen but I just know that NO WORDS are EVER worth hitting someone like that. This guy was probably looking for a reason to fight someone that night and unfortunately, my brother was the victim.

My brother did suffer a skull fracture, he had a pretty good indent on his forehead above his eyebrow, I guess they call that the orbital socket. On Wednesday, the doctor at Harborview told him they wanted to get him in the next day for surgery. So yesterday, they cut my brothers head open from ear to ear, he has a shaved headband basically where they cut him, and then they pealed his skin/face back far enough to get access to his eye area so they could install some small metal plates and screws. :(

It all sounds so scary... I was very upset yesterday at work, knowing what was going to happen to my pour brother and worried that there is always the chance of complications. We are not talking about a minor surgery here, this is a pretty big deal, I think anyways! He came through very well though, we were finally able to see him last night around 8pm. He was tired and groggy, so we only stayed a few minutes with him. I did not like seeing him lying there, but it really made me think about the what-ifs and how thankful I was that it was not any worse.

The criminal case has been turned over to Everett, which is a good thing! Apparently since they realized this was not just a simple punch to a guys face, that my brother suffered such major damage that they would put in the bigger effort to find this guy and prosecute his ass!!!! This surgery is a minimum $30,000 surgery plus Eric has to take a month off work... I am hopeful they will find him and he will go to jail.

I was pretty emotional yesterday, I was thinking a lot about my sister and how I never imagined my life would be so unlucky as to loose her and that if something that tragic could happen to me, then it could happen again some day and I should not take anything for granted. I love my family more than I tell them and just the thought of loosing any of them will bring me to tears, but it also gives me a little more strength in realizing I should try harder at making positive changes to myself so that one day they are not crying over me.

No Video Yet

We've not done a video yet.. I had to send our camera back to Kodak for repair to the flash that quit working, apparently they are replacing the entire camera.. still waiting!

We did manage to get the horses home, it is nice to see them daily and spend time with them when I want to, now that I can just walk out my door to do so.. that doesnt mean I actually have been spending more time with them! :) Well just a little more I guess.. I worked with Dexter the other day, I havent handled him in a couple months since he went out to pasture, heck he was an old pro, remembered everything I worked with him on this past spring/early summer. He's still a little skittish every now/then, but he's come a very long ways. Every once in a while I try to tell Derek we really dont need to keep him as a 3rd horse, with money being tight and all, but he refuses to listen to reason and insists that we are keeping him. I know he is one I probably will not regret keeping, as long as he keeps growing!

My 38th birthday came and went pretty quietly this year.. I had lots of birthday wishes on Facebook though, that was nice. It was low-key, spent the day being lazy watchin a movie at home, dinner at the folks... It was a nice birthday though, my parents came over and installed a shelving unit in the closet of my craft room, something I've wanted for a long time. So I guess I better get to work and organize that room again! work, work, work..

We have spent the last few weekends getting a lot of things done around the farm. A couple dump runs, reorganizing crap from one area to another, pressure washing, gutter cleaning, etc. Feels good to get some of these things done, I feel like my place doesnt look so dumpy now that a lot of the garbage and crap and misc things are put away or thrown away. :)
Derek took Cooper out hunting twice now, and I am very excited for the progress being made. Sounds like Cooper is doing excellent, he is listening and happy to get out. He comes homes stinky as he still loves the water and no matter how stale the water is, he jumps in! Apparently he jumped into one ditchline and it was just yucky mud type bottom and he just kinda stood there looking at Derek as if to say "What the hell kind of water is this! and How do I get out?" LOL We are very proud though of him, Derek got him to land retrieve a bird that had been shot the other day, they practiced with the dead bird for a few retrieves. And then yesterday they shot about 6 birds over a pond, Cooper retrieved 2 of them. He spent more time swimming and gulping in water than retrieving, which was part of the problem. He still has a big reluctancy to pick up real birds, so when he brought back the 2, Derek knew that was good enough for the day. We think Cooper still has a slight negative vibe about picking up real birds from his training days and the use of the collar. Derek says its almost like he thinks to himself that he knows there is supposed to be a reason he doesnt like to pick up real birds, but he cant quite figure out why that is, so he reluctantly takes them. In time I think he will forget about all the negative of the birds and realize how fun it is and will not hesitate. He is a work in progress and he's come a long ways!
Derek can now get Cooper to sit on a whistle when he is out searching for his dummy. And if Derek says "over" or "back" with the proper hand signal, Cooper is really starting to pick that up and excel at knowing what those mean. He even did it in the water, Derek blew the whistle for him to stop and he turned towards Derek and stopped swimming, and then Derek directed him "over" to go find the bird and he swam where he was supposed to! I'm so proud of that kid.. wish I could see him work in the field, Derek says it is a lot of fun to watch him and it has changed his outlook on going hunting. No longer is it boring to just sit and wait for birds. Cooper sits with Derek and watches the flocks come in, he pays attention to what is going on and Derek is teaching Cooper to "creep" up slowly while walking next to him! :)

We eventually will need to spend a little money and work with the local trainer in Monroe to learn how to teach him to "sit to flush" because right now he gets so excited when he finds critters in the fields, he just gets to jumping and chasing! But when we take him upland bird hunting (grouse & pheasant), he'll need to learn to sniff out the birds and then sit, so we can catch up to then shoot the birds as they flush up out of the grass.

Now that Derek has taken Cooper out a couple times, Cooper is antsy every day.. wondering if he gets to go out with his fasha! The little buddy is a horn-dog right now though, poor Ellie is getting a little tired of it all.. some nights she is so grumpy at him he can hardly even look at her! Cooper is much better about not teasing Russell though, that is good, but he still loves to dominate Russell by hovering over him! :)

Derek's unemployment hearing is tomorrow.. fingers, toes, limbs, legs, arms, eyes, whatever we can cross is crossed, in hopes that things go our way. It has been a long week of anticipation, really draws on your stress level when you are in limbo like this. I know, regardless of the outcome, I will feel a lot better knowing the decision, even if the wrong one. We should have a very good chance of qualifying, my hope is that his previous employer does not call in and try to screw it all up for him. There has not been much luck on the job hunt these days, not a lot out there that is willing to pay a decent wage...

It took a full week to get over the itching from those damn bee stings! I was almost going crazy even still after 6-7 days with the itching on my thighs and under my arms.. maybe because it was the softer skin?

We busted behinds this past weekend, getting things ready to bring the horses back home. Tore out the old goat shelter and took it to the dump, finished one of the stalls off as the new hay room, realized last years hay was too moldy from getting wet, so we sold it as cow hay, stacked the last 2 tons of this years hay in the new stall, and spent a good 4 hours picking up all the sticks and branches in the pasture and burning them.. the one thing we did not actually accomplish was getting the horses home! It just got a bit too late to do that and we have one more section to clean out before we can bring them home, so the plan is to finish up this coming weekend.

While we worked in the barn, we locked the goats into the backyard to keep them out of trouble (which really means to keep them out from under our feet and being major pains-in-the-asses!) Monday night as we slept, we awoke to the cries of one of the goats.. Meenie seemed to be upset. I carried him down to the barn and could then see he was frothy in the mouth and he was grinding his teeth constantly! I didnt know what to do for him, my initial thought was that he was choking, but because he threw up, it couldnt be that. The next morning when I was texting with Andrea about it, she asked if the goats had been exposed to any Rhody bushes! I called Derek at home and he went and checked the rhody bush, sure enough it appeared to have been chewed on in spots... damn!! Rhody is very poisonous to goats.. I found an antidote recipe online, so Derek went to the store to buy the ingredients and gave the poor kid a couple doses yesterday. He also noticed that Eenie seemed a bit sick too, so he got a dose or two also.

They both seemed to be doing okay last night, Meenie was drinking and neither goat was frothy at the mouth. Derek is giving them both more doses today and we are hoping to reach Andrea again, as we might need to give them some fluids to keep them hydrated. I know the mixture is working though because there was puke all over the stall this morning! It is good that they are getting all that shit out of their bellies.. I am still very worried and although I hope we are out of the woods, I think we are still on the edge and it could go either way. :( I would be super sad to loose any of them, I just love these baby kids...

Tomorrow night Derek & I are hoping to get video of Cooper! That damn dog, his new favorite toy is a big horse ball that was out in the pasture. It has a handle on it and he thinks it is the best toy ever!!! He picks it up and spins out of control around the living room, sometimes throwing it but mostly just jerking that ball back/forth against his own body and spinning!! He got going so fast last night, I lost track of what end was what, he became one brown blurr. We were laughing so hard, I told Derek this was our ticket to $10,000 on AFV. :)

Bees!!

This was not the best week for me, health wise! No I'm not sick or anything like that..

Tuesday in the middle of the night, I had to let the dog out and as I walked back down the hallway to the bedroom, I hit a TV with my right foot, instant burning and pain in my toes, I got'r good! :( It was incredibly painful, Derek was trying to ask if I was okay, and all I could seem to mutter out was "Shut the F* up, I dont want to talk right now!!!" or something like that.. lol

The next day was our bowling night (we joined up with Jen/Johns bowling team) and it was my night to bowl, but was unable to since my toes hurt so badly I could barely get my shoes on. I blame Derek, he blames me! See.... the TV came out of our bedroom, a very heavy old fashioned type and since it was so heavy he just set it outside our bedroom door. It was in the way of the guest bathroom so when Tyler spent the night the night before, I moved the TV slightly so he could get in/out of the bathroom. So technically it was Derek's fault for leaving the TV in the hallway for so long.. I will admit I forgot the TV was there and that I had moved it more into "stub-toe" zone than it had been previously.. BUT if the TV had been put in the garage, this all would not have happened! :) One of my toes still hurts pretty good, not sure if I suffered from a minor crack/break in it or what.

2 days later on Friday afternoon, I was anxious to come home and start working on a project around the house. I decided to go out and knock down berry bushes for the goats. Derek asked me not to, he wanted to relax and watch some DVR shows, but my butt had been sitting all day at work, I needed to get out/about! Plus Cooper wanted some attention so I thought I'd play with him in the pasture too.

I was out beating on the sticker bushes, the goats were right there with me, eating them as I hit them closer to the ground. I knocked them down in a couple different places then decided it was time to play with Cooper. As I put my beating stick against a stump, I looked down at Cooper with the decoy in my hand and told him to "heel". I noticed he was acting really weird and about that same second, I also realized he and I were being attacked by bees. I immediately went into panic mode, tried to run but fell flat on my face, got up and started screaming to Derek "HELP.. I'm being stung by bees.. Derek HELP!!!" well something along those lines. I ran through the barn and towards the house, screaming the whole way as I could feel the little bastards stinging me as I ran. I noticed Derek was standing by the hose, I knew that was very smart quick thinking on his end! As I got to him, the water had not yet come through, he started to run away from me and I'm thinking.. where the fuck do you think you're going, help me!!

I think he had a momentary thought of bolting himself as he got stung in the face, but he knew he had to stay and help and as the water finally came on, he sprayed me down all over, I couldnt get wet fast enough. I also stripped my pants off as I could feel them inside and he said I had about 30 swarming me. I got nailed atleast 15 times, Cooper got hit a few times, I think Ellie got a sting or two and I'm not sure how Russell came out without a bite, I think he was just off in lala land while this was all happening.

Me, Derek and the dogs ended up okay. Of course we had NO benadryl in the house or any topical cream to use, Derek is allergic to them, his face swelled up pretty good and mine swelled up a bit too. I think neither of us wanted to drive to the store to get any medication, he was afraid he might pass out and I was not feeling well either at this point. I got stung in the head a couple times and those really hurt, I felt a bit light headed with a headache and overall just tired, weak and lethargic. That night was miserable for me, I was awake every hour from the burning and stinging and itching feeling all over me, plus when I ran I really tweeked my left foot and it was throbbing and hurting really bad.

An experience for sure, made me really appreciate my horse when we end up in a bee situation on the trail. Although I've not had that happen with Red (yet), he's so sensitive that I worry in a bee attack, he might just buck me off! I was never so afraid for myself, it really scared the crap out of me because as I ran, I had no idea how Derek was going to be able to help me or how I was going to get it all to stop. I think it took me a good 20 minutes to get my breathing under control, I was hyperventillating long after the bees were gone and even as I showered, I couldnt stop.

2 days later, I still have some bumps that itch pretty good every now/then but it is slowly getting better. We went out to the pasture today to find the bees, took a while as they were not where we originally expected them to be. Derek threw rocks at different areas we thought they might be until we saw movement. They are ground bees in this dirt/stump pile. Once we saw movement, we bolted into the truck and drove up to it, unable to really pinpoint where the nest part is, but decided to back off for a while, wait til dusk when they settle down and we'll get Derek all decked out in his thick hunting gear so he can go out and spray them, hoping to find the actual nest.

The plan for the day was to get the barn ready to bring our hay and horses home, but that is on hold until we can deal with these bees as they are very close to the barn. I'm hoping to have a better week!

Bye Bye Edgar

With all the other "stuff" going on lately, I almost forgot to mention a very important fact of our life right now!

We have contemplated for months now on the Edgar issue and what was the right decision to make for us and him. The last time we took him camping was Memorial Weekend and he showed signs of colic for 3 days and then after that trip, sometime in June he went lame again, the 3rd summer in a row for that to happen. The shoers think he might have navicular issues. Derek did not have much time over the summer to ride anyways, that shitty-ass employer he used to work for kept him busy with a lot of OT over the summer. But summer ended, Oakley came back home to us, and Edgar was still a bit "off" and we had to make a decision.

Edgar is still 100% rideable but he is not 100% sound and he should not go camping, to avoid any potential colic issues. I posted on Facebook that we were looking for a home for him, as I did not want to sell him or advertise him to just anyone, we really had hoped to find a friend or friend of friend type home, he's just too great a horse to give to anyone! An old school friend contacted me almost immediately through FB and chatted with me that he and his wife might be very interested. Timbre's wife Jennifer had a horse and they recently had bought a pony for their son, Timbre was feeling a little left out and wanted a nice solid horse to have around incase he felt like riding with his family. I was so excited because that pretty much summed up exactly what we wanted for Edgar. I told Timbre I would not pursue any other home for Edgar until he told me yeah or ney on taking him.

They came out to look at him a week ago, there was one incident when they were there. It was dusk outside, we saddled Edgar and Derek & Jennifer rode him around. Timbre then went to get on, but he had his toe right in Edgars belly so when he attempted to get on, Edgar panicked a little with all that pressure on his belly and he spun around, Timbre made a good 3 or 4 second attempt to stay on but with both his legs still on one side, he didnt have much of a chance! He kinda fell off and hit the ground face first.. OUCH! I felt sooo bad, Timbre was okay and he did get up and made a 2nd successful attempt to get on w/o incident.. whew! We talked to him and told him what happened and why Edgar panicked. They were not upset about it, Edgar just has super sensitive sides. A week later (this past Sunday) they drove out and picked up our Edgar to take him home! They are very happy with him and I think it will all work out and it sounds like Edgar now has a permanent forever home, I really just could not be any happier about the whole deal. Edgar will still get ridden but will not be expected to handle really hard riding. Timbre is worried he might not get a chance to even ride Edgar because Jennifer likes him so much! :) I was sad to see him go, but a big part of me was really happy because I actually hate to see such a good horse sit and go to waste when he could be utilized still and we hardly have time right now to ride the 2 we got! :)

Derek & I had set out a week ago to get our yearly supply of hay. What a fiasco that was! The entire situation was one big cluster of frustration.. I could turn this into a huge post with exact details but lets just say, originally the hay was supposed to be delivered to my barn for a set price.. well that price jumped $600 making it unfeasible to do. Next plan was to drive to Buckley to get the hay instead of our usual trip to Spokane for the same hay. Brandon (hay dealer) tried to tell me I would be getting 10 bales short of my normal load.. he and I had a bit of heated discussion which involved calling the farmer in Spokane to help clear up. Brandon caved in finally and told me he'd have my 200 bales and to come get. We drive down with 2 trailers intending to pick up those 200 bales. Brandon is not there but guess what, he only has 183 bales! So I load up 180 bales leaving the 3 wet ones behind and pay for only 180 bales. I'm not real happy because he shorted me 1 ton of hay!!! Actually should have been super pissed off, but there was so much turmoil over this hay, I just let it go...

We safely made it home (after stopping and adding air to the trailer tires!) and we have it all basically put away except a couple tons that will go to our house instead of my parents barn. The bummer of it all is that this hay dealer bought up all of next years crop of Blue Grass, so I will not have access to this hay any longer for the super good price and will have to be just like everyone else and pay regular prices for my hay... It was good while it lasted but nothing last forever, right!!

Happy Birthday Cooper!!

Yep, today our Cooper is one year old!! He is the most rambunctious, obnoxious, high energy dog I have ever been around, but I love him to pieces; he is quite the character! He LOVES to get out and work with dummies and now that fall is here, Derek is itchin to get him out hunting..

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
MoJust 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.

Bumping Lake Family Camping Trip

Well we finally did it.. the 6 of us got out for a family camping trip (Mom/Dad/Eric/Andrea/Derek & I) We had been wanting to get out, it just took all summer for us all to have the same weekend free. My brother originally had planned to head over to Banks Lk area and boat in to camp, but Derek & I really preferred to not do it that way, we kinda like using our camper :)

With just a few days to spare before heading out for the extended weekend, I found a private campground on Bumping Lake in Goose Prairie WA.. What an amazing drive that was!! We went over Hwy 410, one we had not ever been on before, we were innocently driving along when all the sudden we came around a bend and there was Mt Rainier!! I missed getting the really good shots, this was the best I could do on such short notice.
Bumping Lake was beautiful and the campground was pretty cool actually. We had 2 side-by-side campsites right on the water, so we were able to park the boats right infront of us for the weekend. The morning sunrises were so peaceful, I woke up early enough to catch them. Saturday morning I sat in my bathing suit waiting for the sun to peak the mountain so I could get my bath in, the water was clear and inviting at 7:30am!

While I waited, Cooper kept himself busy sniffing out squirrels and such. I'm sitting at our campsite looking out at the lake in this picture, there is a small rock beach on the other side of that log leading to our waterfront.
Here's another view of the lake and mountainsAs the sun came up Saturday morning, I was practicing with the panoramic option on my camera. The beachline was actually straight, but the panoramic makes it looks curved here.
Derek could not get the motor running in our boat, so we left ours behind; we were able to go out in the boat Eric brought. The fishing S U C K E D!! And I mean SUCKED... Mom caught one trout that they released on purpose and Eric caught one trout that Andrea successfully released accidentally! :) Apparently she is not a good "netter" of fish! We had a nice fish finder and even with that, we saw very minimal fish, it was incredible how FEW fish were in that lake that showed up on the finder. Down in the area we were camped, when the water was calm, you could see to the bottom, on Sunday before we left we attempted to troll for fish but realized it was pretty pointless as we would lean over and just looked in the water and saw only one or two lonely fish every 10 minutes and they were sittin on the bottom of the lake.

Cooper was a really good boy for the trip! We only brought him along. He spent some of the time tied up in camp, and some in the camper.
Saturday morning after breakfast, Derek took Cooper out in Eric's boat for a while, it was Cooper's first boat ride. He did really good and seemed to enjoy it! Derek of course didnt catch anything..
Our neighbors at the campground informed us of local trail to Boulder Caves, indicating it was an easy 1/4 mile hike. So we loaded up into Erics truck and drove to the trailhead, which was only about 25 minutes from us. It was a really nice trail, but it was not 1/4 mile, more like 3/4 mile! Dad and I were the slowest of our group, we are in no shape to be hiking uphill that much, but we did it! :) Well dad made it 80% of the way and he decided it was far enough. He waited as the rest of us continued up the trail to the caves.
Once we reached the top of the trail, we dropped down into the canyon where a creek flowed through the caves.. It was a good thing our campsite neighbors told us to bring a flashlight, it was pitch black inside w/o light!!

This is just outside the entrance of the caves which are downstream of us just a few feet.
Starting to walk down into the cave opening
It was a pretty hot day (mid 80's easily) so the dogs were all very eager to get in the creek to cool off.
Now that the pups are all wet, we can continue! :)
It was too dark to get any good pics inside the cave, my camera put spots all over those pictures, but this is coming out of the cave.. it was really cool and we managed to get through w/o any bat incidents!It felt great to make the hike, as badly as I wanted to turn around at times, it was a fun family excursion. We were ready to head back to the lake and jump in to cool off.When we got back to camp, Eric really wanted us to try to swim Cooper w/o his life vest. Cooper had swam with me earlier that morning when I took my morning bath, he looked so sad sitting there watching me, so I put his vest on and he had a great time! He would stay pretty close to me, I did not have a leash on him, he would venture out only about 6 feet from me, so I would swim out a ways, he would follow and then we'd swim back. The only problem was he liked to swim so close that often he was pushing off of me with his paws.. not good when he has nails that are too long!!

When we all got back from the hike, we decided to give it a try w/o the vest, and what do you know.. Cooper swam!!! YEAH! He did the puppy paddle a few times, but for the most part, he was figuring it out. Eric was throwing tennis balls for his dogs and Cooper seemed eager to play the game, but we held him back, hoping by him watching, maybe it would click how to retrieve in water, which he had yet to figure out how to do. When he seemed ready, we threw a bumper for Cooper to retrieve in the water.... well he swam out to it and kept right on going! :( bummer...

Eric was out in the lake, so we threw the bumper to him and when Cooper got to it and was about to swim past, Eric grabbed him and told him to "hold" while he was swimming, so Cooper put it in his mouth and swam back to us. We tried again and this time Cooper clicked!!!! He picked up that bumper in the water and he was HOOKED... He thought that was the coolest game ever, to swim AND retrieve. It really was such a relief moment for Derek & I to see our dog finally figure it all out.. His only issue is that once he gets the bumper in his mouth, he goes back to puppy paddling instead of swimming.

Overall it was a terrific weekend, except for the lousy fishing, but I would definately go back to the lake, maybe earlier in the year when fishing might be better. We have all decided to make it a priority to do a family camping trip every year, maybe going to a different location every year.

On our drive home, we pulled over to get some photos with the great scenery.

CHC Ladies Ride

I always enjoy when I can take 5 days for a weekend camping trip! Especially when my horse and dog are involved, as well as good friends. I was trailboss for the annual horse club ladies ride this year, decided to move it back to Silver Ridge Ranch in Easton this year, I enjoy the riding and camping over there.

Amber came along with Oakley, it was her last weekend with him as he came home with me for good. She would have gladly kept him, but timing is not right for her and Derek is in need of a riding horse since Edgar has been having lameness problems off/on this summer again. :( I brought Ellie along, thought it would be a good bonding weekend and a good safe environment to work off-leash with her and see how she handles it. She handled it perfectly! She was my little angel and I was so proud of her!! Just made me love her so much more, by the 4th day I was able to keep her off-leash for most of the time I was in camp. She was comfortable in the camper as well and would lay quietly when I would go out riding.
The lake was SUPER SUPER high this year, the highest I have ever seen it by a couple hundred yards!! And thats no exageration. It was so beautiful this year and because it was so high, it was perfect for wading the horses in to cool off. Had I been prepared, I would have rode in my swimming suit (well with clothes over the top as that would not be a site for sore eyes to see me riding down the trail in a bathing suit!!) :)

The area Barb & Nadine are looking straight over at is normally not covered in water. We were up on this almost-an-island high section. The weather was perfect for us, in the 80's mostly.

Amber & I. Oakley looks so great!!

Amber & Oakley in the creek. The trails around the creek were not great, they have been de-commissioned in this area to keep ATV's out which is a pretty big bummer. We tried crossing the creek and hitting the hills on the other side, but those trails have not been maintained much and there was a lot of blowdown.

Hot & Dry! I love this picture and amazingly it was taken with my horse riding the same direction as all of them! I turned as sideways as I could get in my saddle (which isnt far) and turned the camera behind me, hoping to get a decent picture.. looks like I succeeded.

This was my favorite place to ride to over the weekend! Went here all 3 days that I rode, a really nice watering hole to play in. Amber's looking down at all the baby fishes, there were hundreds!
Chillin!

On Thursday as we rode, I hid some flagging out on the trails and then told the ladies Friday night that if they found a group of flags, to bring them Saturday night for a prize. I had 4 prizes to hand out, it was fun. I also brought some bells and beads for the girls to make either a bear bell or just fun bells to hang from your horses or dogs, some made bracelets and rings and tack attire, it was fun... Amber & I rode 3 days in a row, putting in 12 hours, I think I wore her ass out though, she was a bit sore.. :) she does not have the natural cushion that I do.

By Sunday, Ellie was ready to go home.. as well as me. We are loaded up and almost ready to hit the road. She seems happy to know her life will get back to a normal routine.

Once she realized we were headed home, she just sat back and enjoyed the full-bast AC on her face!!! AHHHHH
It had been a very stressful couple days building up to the ladies ride this year.. I left on Wed wondering if Derek was going to have a job when I got back on Sunday and it turns out he did end up unemployed within that 5 day period. But all is OKAY and with the BS, it truly was for the better for him. It just means something bigger and better is waiting on down the road... :)