A Sad Goodbye

The past few weeks have been pretty emotional around our house. We have had to say goodbye to two of our horses. We have been keeping our horses on some property in Elk Ridge for years now, and there were some issues that came up with the land and so we needed to move the horses. We have been looking to buy a house with land but have not really found the right place. So we decided that the best thing to do was to sell the horses until we get a place of our own. So about 1 ago we sold Sierra- I will get a photo of her on here. We have had Sierra since she was old enough to leave her mom. It was heartbreaking- But Colby did it while we were at ball games and so she was just gone one day. But on Saturday it was Smokey's turn to go- we loaded her in the trailer and meet the guy at Cabela's it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. We got Smokey right after Brett got burned, she was his therapy. He LOVED riding her and would spend hour upon hour with her. It was good for both of them. Brett did 4H with her and did very well. She helped build his confidence back up and he was more of the old Brett.

I was doing alright on the ride up, but when we got her out of the trailer it hit me like a ton of bricks. I started to cry, Brock said that he did not want to sell her and he was crying. The new owner came and they had two boys about the same ages as Brett and Brock, they were so excited to have a new horse, hopefully they will love her and take good care of her.

We are now down to one horse "Joe" that we need to sell and then we will sell the horse trailer.... It is hard to loose a pet - especially when your not ready to say goodbye.

Erika

Summertime Chores.

OK, so I am sure that none of you have this issue....Summertime chores. It seems like I can leave a list of chores for the kids to do and by 9:15 am I am getting calls asking if they can go and do this or this! So I will ask are your chores done and of course the answer is "YES" so I will let them go. Well once I get home I usually tend to get upset because not only is the work not done but the house is usually a disaster. So after one day where things just seemed like I might have to run away and not come back, Colby told the kids that the next day he wanted a DETAILED report of what each kid did throughout the day.......Minute by minute! I was cleaning out my purse and found this and just wanted to remember just how cute it was.

If you notice Brock wrote his name next to each thing because he was wanting to make sure that he got the credit for each thing he did. He wrote the start and finish time and the chore and then the total time of each task. I think one of my favorites is the one near the bottom of this list * Clean kitchen it took him 1 minute. He actually had 2 1/2 pages of things that he had done throughout the day. All the boys actually did a list like this and I do have to say that since Colby had them do this, they seem to make sure that they do better. The joys of summer.
Erika

Cousins

Wow, life has been BUSY! We have been finishing up baseball seasons and trying to finish up the remodel on the kitchen....

This past weekend we got to tend Payton and Cameron Bryce while Bryce and Michelle ran to St. George for the night. It was a lot of fun having the cousins over and letting them get to know each other.

On Saturday Brett got home from a week of scout camp, he was greeted by Cam, Brock and Payton. We decided that we would go down to the farm so that Payton and Cam could ride the horses. Brett decided that he was going to ride Smokey bareback, he was riding around the arena and having a fun time and all of the sudden there be came a problem, I was laughing so hard I asked him if he needed help I thought that he said no so I decided that I would grab a picture of him.

Once I grabbed the photo I again asked him he if needed help- this time he yelled "YES, I told you that the first time you asked" Oops! Sorry, he did a really good job of hopping with the horse as she was walking around the arena.

Once he got off the horse he put the saddle back on her and let Payton and Cameron Bryce have a turn. Payton got on the horse and sat there- then said that she was done. Cameron Bryce on the other hand loved it. He wanted to ride all by himself and not have anyone lead Smokey. I told him next time he could do that.

Once we were done riding the horses Brett brought over a new puppy and asked if he could keep it, being the good mother that I am, I told him of course we could keep it as long as it stayed at Merrill's place - he did not think I was funny! We had a great weekend, and hope Bryce and Michelle had a good anniversary.

Erika