By the time we got to Clarissa's and unpacked all that we had brought, the sun was setting and we barely had time to help get horses fed and it was dark. We found ourselves very at home with Clarissa and her son Dennison and stayed up late talking and sharing stories. We went to bed with smiles knowing the next day was going to be so much fun!
I awoke to one of Clarissa's roosters greeting the morning and scooted myself out of bed to try catching a WV sunrise. The sky was so pretty!
Before the sun came over the mountain, the fog rolled in with the clouds right behind.
The fall colors were rather muted although the grass was still very green.
Some trees were bare and others were quickly losing their glory.
The mist settled near the creek and then was gone just as fast as it came in.
All of this came and went in about 30 minutes. It was beautiful and eerie at the same time. The temps had dropped low over night and the low hanging clouds were promising at least a little bit of rain for the day. That wasn't going to stop our plans though!
In October, Equestrian Girl and I set off on a big adventure. Our first stop was at Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus, OH. While I have wanted to go to Congress for years, this was going to be one quick trip because it wasn't our REAL destination. We were only stopping there to drop off a saddle we had sold. A friend was going to hold it for our buyer who was from Canada.
We managed to spend a few hundred dollars in the VERY short amount of time we were there and snap this funny picture of me.
And then we hit the road again heading south east.
Pretty soon we were crossing the river into West Virginia and on our way to my friend Clarissa's house!
I got to be the passenger for most of the trip since Equestrian Girl had recently finished drivers ed and insisted on driving as much as possible. I only have a FEW more gray hairs.
And not having to drive, I was able to take a few fun photos out the windows.
After a crazy scary drive up and around a West Virginia mountain, we soon made it to Clarissa's place and I finally got to meet a woman I've been talking with and emailing for about 7 years!!
This picture was actually taken just before we left but I like it better here.
As much as it pained me to sell Stanley, I knew he wasn't cut out for Equestrian Girl's next equine adventure - jumping. While he could handle some low jumps on occasion as he did this summer doing the cross rails class at the Spur Shows, it really wasn't his thing. While we looked for a horse to do eventing with, we signed up for some lessons. Well, EG did, not me.
This beautiful Warmblood horse is Ritz owned by our friend Maggie.
Maggie has trained Ritz from a baby and she knows her job well enough to handle EG who only knows the littlest bit about jumping.
I hope you can see the big smile on Equestian Girl's face in this picture. She was having SUCH a good time riding Ritz and handling her big jump over the cross rails!
By the time the sun was setting and the lesson was wrapping up, they were both getting tired but had so much fun! No doubt that Equestrian Girl is going to enjoy this.
It's no secret that watching motocross scares me. Watching through my camera lens helps. I can take a couple hundred pictures in a single race that only lasts about 6 minutes. A good chunk of them don't turn out all that great but that's the beauty of digital photography. Delete.
Freelin is one of my favorite tracks for taking pictures. There are several different spots where I can go for a different view of the track and I can see almost all of it from any one spot.
There are several spots where I'm very close to the track.
The big concrete pipe you see just to the right of Austin's front tire is actually a tunnel under the track. It's over 5 ft high - I can walk through without ducking.
One could think that a shot like this was on purpose. It wasn't. Austin is in the background in perfect focus. The other guy photobombed me. It happens quite a bit since the track criss crosses back and forth.
Arial shots like this are actually the easiest to catch sometimes so long as I know where he is and that he'll be coming over the hill soon.
And of course, my big ham loves to be interviewed by the announcer and didn't even notice me taking this one!
Since I don't have to cook today, I'm spending at least some of the day catching my blog up to date! Its been a crazy fall though I don't have much of an excuse. Well, I do have a little one, but it's not enough. In the mean time, I'm going to start blogging away before I head over to my sister's to eat some of her fabulous cooking and cookies!!
I'm an admitted calendar fanatic. My Franklin Planner was about the closest thing to a Bible that I carried with me everywhere. When I got my first smart phone, I never thought I would stop using paper. I LIKE paper. I found I didn't move readily to the phone calendar but I did start using Outlook at work and the Google calendar at home. And syncing them all. To my phone.
But something was missing. I was keeping a calendar at work. A calendar at home of all our appointments, birthdays, etc. Then I had the school assignment calendar for the kids with all their homeschooling stuff. And a to-do list. And a shopping list.
I was sure with all these apps available for my iMac, iPad and iPhone that surely there had to be one that would combine all this stuff for me, right? For six months I would try this one or that one. Some had features I really liked such as those that would provide a link to a map when I included an address for an appointment. Some showed my friend's birthday's from FaceBook and the time of the sunrise and sunset along with current temperature. Some were only for the iPhone and didn't have a companion app for the iMac. Others were just for iPad.
I found myself returned to the Google calendar and figured out they also had a task list I could incorporate. That was nice but still left holes in my ideal.
Early in the summer I had been invited to try the Beta version of a "homeschool calendar". I sort of blew it off after signing up because I just couldn't imagine that a homeschool calendar could do what I wanted it to do. Then near the end of summer, I got the message that my trial period was going to expire and maybe I should give it a try before they start charging for it. Charging? It was good enough that they thought they could charge for it? Hmmm.
Well wasn't I surprised to find that this homeschool calendar called "Homeschool Planet" actually could do just about everything I wanted!
I could schedule chores for each kid to repeat on whatever schedule I wanted. I could schedule all their assignments and if they didn't mark them done, I could tell the calendar to move EVERYTHING forward a day or just add that one to the next day. I could schedule things for the "day" or at a specific time. I could COLOR CODE everyone!!! (My inner geek sings when I can color code). They have a grocery list widget that I can send to myself via text or to hubby :). There's also a to do widget with texting or emailing capabilities. I can print the day, week, or month. And it's all pretty intuitive and easy to use. That's a bonus.
I was a bit concerned because there are also things that it can't do. It can't sync with my Google calendar. That almost killed the deal for me. I could live without all the kid's assignments on my iPhone but my appointments and meetings??? Would I really have to try to log into the website from my iPhone to view the calendar? Well for now, yes. They have promised me they are working on a Google sync and it's a priority so for now, my schedule remains on Google calendar. They also promise me they are working on an iPhone app. That would make me very happy. Sync my Google calendar and give me a simple iPhone app - oh yeah baby. Calendar heaven.
This is a bit late but earlier this summer, Scott took this picture of me with my parents after we had dinner...I think my Dad is looking pretty darn happy!
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