Twins & the Horse Show

Recently the twins had their second ever horse show.

This is the horse Gracie showed, Itchy.

And Maddie showed Best.

They both did an amazing job and each ended up with a handful of ribbons.

The show was down in Corvallis, MT and lasted for three days.  On their first day they did modeling.

This is where they lead their horse in a certain pattern & have them stand a certain way.  

They both did a great job!  You don't get the patterns until that morning, so it was quite an accomplishment for them both to complete the pattern without a mistake.

They also did the walk, trot, and canter.  Again, they did an amazing job!  (If you want a better version of the video click here)

Joshie & Danica passed some of the time by helping pass out ribbons with the judge.

That night we had a memorial service for the man that got our family into Fox Trotters and showing them, Bill Free.  He passed away this Spring and had coached each one of us at one time or another.  It was a pretty awesome ceremony to commemorate him.

Speaking of coaches, we need to give props to the twins' coach- their Grandpa Buck.  He's taught them everything they know about showing and has created some amazing horse girls.  Here he is giving some last minute pointers before one of their classes.

The next day Maddie and Gracie did the Trail Class.  This is a course that they once again had to memorize the morning that they did it.

It's full of obstacles like opening a gate, walking through it, and shutting it all from on your horse, swerving through cones, opening a mailbox from your horse, side passing over logs, backing up through an "L" path, and going over a bridge.

Again they did the pattern flawlessly and we were so proud of them.

At a horse show there is A LOT of waiting.

Jo and Danica had a couple of LONG, and for a kid boring, days.  But they were such troopers about it and behaved so well.

Grandpa also showed Itchy.  So for a couple awards ceremonies they had to ride double to receive their ribbons.  So cute!

The twins also did the walking, trotting, and cantering portion of the show.

Again, they did a great job.

We weren't the only ones who were proud of them...

...they were proud of themselves too.  As they should be!

The twins were the youngest competitors at the show.  Most of the time they competed against teenagers.  But in this picture they were also competing against adults!  They got mentioned in the local paper for being so young.  Click here to check out the article.

Through the whole show the girls stayed calm and confident.  Which surprised me because they were competing against people so much older than them.  I think they were just having so much fun.

Itchy tends to be on the lazy side.  Through the whole show people would giggle when this little wisp of a girl would whip her lazy horse.  My guess is that the horse barely felt it, but he would still pick up the pace for her.

 We ended the day with pole bending...

...and barrel racing.  The girls had fun & did a great job.  

Maddie even won an extra award, the "Judges' Youth Award" for her attitude and performance throughout the show.  The judge later told my Dad that she got it because the judge overheard Maddie tell us after one of her classes & receiving a ribbon "Look what WE did!" referring to herself & her horse.  

We are very proud of our little horse women and are looking forward to next summer's shows.

Click here to see all the pictures from the horse show.

Fourth of July

Our Fourth of July this is was wonderful, as usual.

First off, my brother Jack was home on leave for two weeks.  So it was good to see him.  We hadn't seen him for nine months, since he got deployed.

We got to spend the day with family & friends.

All the kids ran around having a blast.  I imagine I will try to recreate this picture when these monkeys are graduating from high school... and their parents are still making them come to the ranch for the fourth of July. And they'll pretend they don't want to come to the ranch, but deep down they'll love it because it will remind them of when they were kids and came out every Fourth of July and ran around and had fun.  And then their moms will all insist they stand in the exact same positions as they did in this photo so we can set the two pictures side by side & say "they grow up so fast".  I imagine there will be a lot of eye rolling involved, but we will have two very priceless photos.

We made our traditional American flag dessert.

Jo didn't want to do the Slip n' Slide, so Daddy helped him out.

The little girls took over the pool & no one messed with them.  I pity the fool who would try to take on these four spit fires!

Everyone wore their festive Fourth attire.

There were horseback rides for all.

Even the moms escaped on a little ride.

Of course we all ate a lot of scrumptious food.

And a ton of red, white, & blue desserts.

There was a lot to do...

see...

and discuss.

Danica "helped" in the kitchen most of the day.  It's her favorite room in the house.

While we waited for it to get dark enough for fire works we had a s'mores bar.  

The kids loved making various s'more creations.  

They all had way too much sugar.  But for one night it was okay.

Here Jo is starting to tweak out a little due to sugar overload.  I'm kidding, he's taken to not smiling for pictures, but rather making funny faces.

I wonder where he gets that idea from?!

Finally it got dark & we were able to kick off the fireworks portion of our festivities.

We had the perfect amount of fireworks to entertain our troop of little ones.

Danica got to hold her first sparkler... not a decision that I had the privilege to weigh in on.  However, she did come out unscathed and she was thrilled she got to do it.

Overall, a very successful and fun Fourth of July.  Hope your's was wonderful too!