New faces

Horses: Horses are such willing photography subjects...though it's often hard to get them to smile for the camera, let alone actually look at it! This boy's name is Flurry and he's a Gypsy Vanner. Gypsy horses were the horse of choice for the gypsies in Ireland. They were built like draft horses and able to pull heavy loads but were small enough not to need as much food as a big draft horse. He's a new guy at the barn with his owner Carin.


This boy is a Paint like Stanley but with minimal white markings. I can't remember his name but he's new too. He spent his first evening jumping fences to the point where the barn owner's daughter thought she had lost him in the dark when she went to bring him in from the pasture. I've only had brief passings with his owners but I'm told this is their first horse and they are pretty new to the business.

This is Kiss. Kiss is a Saddlebred and is very tall, and fast and excited. Her owner is Lori and while she isn't all that new to the barn, I've never photographed her before because she doesn't get to go outside in the pastures much. She's a fancy show horse who Lori hopes will be a champion for a kid some day. In the mean time, she keeps us on our toes when she comes barreling by us!

Motocross: The kids have big plans for riding the dirt bikes up north this weekend. Camera will be on standby...these could be the last motocross pictures of the year...

Homeschooling: Some weeks are good and some weeks are bad. This has been an EXCELLENT homeschooling week!! All is good in the world and both kids are spot on track - actually Equestrian Girl is done for the week and it's only Wednesday.

Mud

Horses: Anyone with horses knows mud is inevitable. And while it is actually starting to dry up around here, the rains of the past few weeks were bad enough to create some serious mud bogs. These pictures were taken on Saturday when we had a beautiful fall day but it was still muddy. Equestrian Girl has an elaborate method of turning Stanley back out to the big pasture while trying to stay out of the mud. You can't quite see her in the first picture as she slips through the gate leaving him on the wrong side.


Now she has to stand in just the right spot to be able to lift and open the gate wide enough for Stanley to get through while still staying out of the mud.


If you didn't think the mud looked that deep, look again. Where are Stanley's feet?


After he's turned loose Equestrian Girl tells him to walk on the paths that are dry so he stays out of the deep mud and keeps his feet clean. You can see the grassy pasture in the background but he has a ways to go to get there since there's a fence in the way.


Then Equestrian Girl has to climb back around and out without getting in the deep mud while holding posts and gates. It's pretty tricky trying to stay mud-free this time of year!


Motocross: Motocross Boy might have another racing friend soon. The Barn Owner's son had bought this little thing he called a dirt bike that was really more of a mini-bike with fat tires and a big seat. It wasn't running right so they asked Scott to fix it. To make a long story short - it's not well made and parts are not exactly readily available. So tonight the boys took Motocross Boy's 110 cc and 65 cc bikes over to the barn along withe mini-bike for Barn Boy to ride. Saying he loved it is probably an understatement.

Homeschooling: Motocross Boy was having a tough time with math this past couple of weeks so we decided it was time to go back to Aleks.com for math again. I really like Aleks math. It doesn't let him move on to the next topic until he's showing mastery and it does regular assessments to make sure they are remembering what they've learned. This week I've had him taking a series of quizzes on old material to make sure he's remembering the basics. We've had to do some one on one time to jog his memory but that's okay.

Equestrian Girl uses Aleks math too. She's about 6 topics away from finishing math for her grade for the year but she loves math so she'll just move on to the next grade. She is seriously in tune with school this week and has spent about 10 hours in two days doing the week's assignments. I think she is almost done for the week!

Motocross Racers Celebrate

Motocross: Yesterday was the MPX Motocross Banquet. This is where they hand out the year end trophies and the kids all get to see what they look like in normal clothes and the parents don't recognize each other because we are clean - especially the moms - we are even wearing make-up and have our hair done.

The banquet was huge with over 300 trophies to hand out and over 600 raffle prizes!!

They started the evening with a limbo contest. Motocross Boy did well but didn't win.


Motocross Boy loves his trophies. He got three out of that huge stack of them!


Here's some of the boys he raced with - he's third from the right in the black t-shirt.



Motocross Boy and his crew.


Equestrian Girl came and had fun too. She hung with one of the other little sisters but her eyes were dancing over all the cute boys.


Motocross Boy and his buddy

More Indian Summer in November

Horses: Equestrian Girl went out on a trail ride with a couple of women from the barn. On the left is Colleen on her Tennessee Walking Horse named Chip. He's Stanley's best friend. On the right is Erin on her Quarab (part Quarter horse, part Arabian) Casey and poneying her yearling Morgan, Phillipe. It was the perfect fall day for a trail ride!!

Indian Summer in November

Homeschooling Happiness

Homeschooling: This morning Motocross Boy had one assignment left to do. He needed to read for 15 minutes. He happened to be sitting in the office with me since he had just finished an assignment on the computer so he reached over to a stack of homeschooling stuff I had sitting on my desk for inspiration and grabbed a book called, "A Little Child's 50 States of America". While the pages are those thick cardboard baby book pages, the content really isn't all that juvenile.

Here's a sample:

Have you ever eaten a slice of fresh, juicy pineapple? If you have, it probably was shipped from Hawaii to your grocery store.

Motocross Boy started with Alabama and was on Hawaii when he told me he had just watched some car show on the Speed Channel that was filmed in Hawaii. Then as he read the little list of the capital, state nickname, state flower and state bird, he started laughing. Hawaii's state bird is the Hawaiian Goose! And here's what's cool...he spun around in his chair and googled "Hawaiian Goose". Before I could spin around too, he had a picture of one on the screen and was reading about Hawaiian Geese even though his 15 minute timer had gone off!!

Yesterday we skipped his math lesson. Why? Because Dad wanted to put new siding on the side of the garage. Major LIFE math lesson in the works here!! First he had to measure the side of the garage. Then they had to figure out how many 4'x10' sheets of T1Eleven were needed and how much would be left over. Then how much trim wood was needed. And finally, multiply all those numbers to figure out the cost! It was all real, it all made sense and he did it all perfectly. If I had put all those individual math problems (same everything) on a piece of paper he probably would have gotten at least half of them wrong.

THESE are the reasons why I love homeschooling so much. We can let the kids explore what they find interesting and use REAL LIFE for learning.

Equestrian Girl went shopping on line at Aeropostale. She figured out everything she wanted, added it all up and got the tax and shipping. Then she got a coupon that gave $10 off for every $40 spent but it was only good in the stores and not online. Then she figured out what it would cost to buy the same stuff at the store using the coupon plus tax but no shipping. The store was the way to go saving over $30. I couldn't help but take her today to buy a few of the things that she wanted so bad!

Horses: It's like old home week at the barn. Another old friend that we used to board and ride with has moved into our barn with her QH. That now makes 4 of us that came from that barn...and all of our horse share a paddock.

The odd man out in that paddock is a 3 year old draft cross. He's been more or less left on his own for a very long time with absent owners. Equestrian Girl needed a "project" for the winter and asked if she could teach him some ground manners and showmanship. Our barn owner checked with the horse's owners who were reluctant at first but agreed when he told them we do know what we are doing. Last night Equestrian Girl had her first session with him. She started out just walking him on his lead and asking him to stop on command. The first few times when she would stop he would wrap his head around in front of her invading her space in a bad way. Very gently she told him that this wasn't acceptable. Two more tries and he was stopping when told and keeping his head straight ahead. Before long he was doing that so good that she added in backing after a good stop. She would turn and ask him to back. The first few tries she had to really pull on the lead rope down towards his chest while making her back sound. By the fourth try he was doing it just by her sound! I'm sure she is thinking this is all way too easy but the darn horse didn't help that thought by learning how to "set up" in about six tries!

The horse's name is Hidalgo and he does indeed look like the movie star horse. His ears were all donkey-ish the whole time! He was listening and trying soooooo hard and just LOVING all the attention! We stopped after about 20 minutes not wanting to over do it and then spent a little time on grooming - something that he badly needs. This is going to be a fun project and I'm hopeful that someone will pick up where we leave off in the spring and get him started riding. We just aren't qualified to go that far...

Motocross: Sunday is the banquet for the MPX series of races. I think Motocross Boy gets a trophy...or two...or maybe even 3!!

The Baja Monster Mash

Motocross: And they are off!! This was the second moto on Saturday in the 65 cc class 9-11 year olds. Motocross Boy's last time to ride in this class since he is now 12!


It was pretty cold out - he had to wear his coat over his chest and neck protectors.


He LOVES hitting that little jump at the finish line - even when there are several laps to go.


Yipee!! Motocross Boy learned how to put that leg out going into the corners!


Must have been a good race - Dad looks happy!



Gulp. Makes me a nervous wreck when the bikes are jumping this close together. I can't believe I'm actually able to take a picture and have it turn out - my hands were shaking. Good testament to the auto stability control in this new camera.

This is how pre-teen girls get around at Baja...how they troll for boys...how they show off...how they have fun!



Baja looks so different when all the leaves are gone...it was Halloween weekend and definitely had a rather scary look.
Motocross Boy didn't bring home any trophies for his last 65cc class of the season but we all had fun, made some great new friends, and are looking forward to next season!