Briar Creek Stables

This year we have switched Carly to a "regular" riding program. She is riding with Kris Daniel at Briar Creek Stables. Kris is awesome. We have found out that some of things that Carly was being taught at her old program were not correct. Kris has her work cut out for her, but she seems up to the challenge. Carly was leading her own horse from the beginning.

Kris took her out into the pasture and worked on her confidence in the saddle. She was having her let go with one hand and wave to the bugs in the piles of poop. Carly asked 'Why?' and Kris responded, 'Well, no one has ever waved at them, don't you want to be the first?' Kris can think up a game in a second. She has the best ways to get the rider to do what she wants without them realizing what she is doing. At the first of the lesson Carly wouldn't even bend and touch her boot. By the end, I was a little afraid she was going off the side. I am looking forward to what is to come.

Kris is trying to convince Carly that she will not let her fall off Flicka. Kris still competes. At the end of the lesson she gave Carly one of her own blue ribbons for dressage. She told Carly that she wanted to give it to her because she had done such a good job. Carly can't wait for her next lesson, she cried when we left. This is going to be great!

The First Day of School 2010!

The girls were very excited to start school this year. They had picked out their backpacks and filled them with the required supplies. They had attended Open House and met their teachers.

I was NOT ready for them to start school. I really enjoy their company all summer and just hanging out around the house.
We had plenty of time to take a picture out front, we were there really early. Carly got her favorite fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Maureen Lalino. We have known Mrs. Lalino for about three years and Carly has been counting down the days until she entered fourth grade and could have Mrs. Lalino as her teacher. We are looking forward to a great year!

Leighton got Miss Megan Potts. We love Miss Potts. Leighton was very excited to get the teacher that she requested. Last year, Leighton cried randomly during the day for the first six months. When I asked her if she cried at school on the first day, she looked at me with a disgustedly puzzled look and said, 'For what!?!'

If Miss Potts looks familiar.......

She was Carly's first grade teacher and THE BEST teacher she has had. She is GREAT!

A note about Leighton's clothes: We are working on her being a leader, not a follower. She goes along with the crowd and lets others make decisions for her. We decided to let her make all the decisions when it came to her clothing to increase her confidence. As long as it was weather appropriate, she could wear what ever she wanted. So, Leighton picked out this tutu to wear the first day of school. It is amazing how much confidence she gets from her clothes. I warned Megan about what we had done and made her promise not to judge me on my child's attire.

I Have the Best Friends!

The girls needed their ritual, day before the first day of school, haircuts. But, I couldn't get to the salon, so Britain came to us! She set up shop in the kitchen and made the girls beautiful.

I love this short cut on Leighton. I need to do a better job of keeping it that short.

Carly's hair always looks awesome, she is very lucky.

Jensyn's hair wasn't touched. It doesn't seem to grow, it just gets curlier.

REALLY?

This beautiful girl is ten!!! and I don't want to talk about it!I am so lucky to call her my daughter. I cherish her more every day.

The Zoo

No trip to Utah would be complete without a trip to Hogle Zoo. It is still my favorite zoo. The kids waiting patiently to get in.

And in case you were wondering, Yes my sister dressed her boys in bright orange because she is a freak like me and is deathly afraid of someone taking her kids. What can I say, it runs in the family. Leighton loved the merry-go-round.
So, did Jensyn. Can you see the glee in her face. She didn't want to get off when the ride ended.

I must interrupt this post for a short story. Carly has a thing for mirrors. If she can see her reflection or shadow she will look only at it. She has even been known to look at herself in other people's sunglasses. She will usually continue her conversation, but visually you have disappeared.

OK back to the zoo.

Carly was having the hardest time getting on her ostrich. I didn't get it, she always got on her horse so easily. I was pushing from the bottom and she still couldn't get on. I finally went around to the other side to pull her over when I noticed this...

You guessed it, she was too busy looking at herself to actually try to get on! Then she spent the entire ride watching herself go around and around. She was in pure heaven!

Jensyn loved all the animals but seemed to like the meerkats the best. She didn't want to leave this window.

No trip to the zoo is complete without measuring up to the gorillas. My nephew kept saying he was the 'adult female' long after we had left the gorillas. We started to get some weird looks.

On the ride home, the girls were marveling at how close the mountains were. I thought some of you not from Utah might enjoy the pictures, too. And yes , Mom, I took the pictures while I was driving. But, I did it without looking which is why I took 15 and only got three decent ones.

Bear Lake

My favorite place to play in the water.....Bear Lake. The water is BLUE and there are no snakes or sharks. What else does a girl need? The girls LOVED it too! They loved it so much that we ended up going back later in the week.

I love this picture of Jensyn. Her chubby little baby body is the best.

Leighton loves the beach. She takes a little bit of time to warm up to the water.

Grandma helped them make their own lake with a river.

Leighton had the best time searching for shells. She hit the jackpot. All the white=shells.

Sand angel.

Dee had told them all about the Bear Lake Monster. She is kind of like the Loch Ness Monster. Well, we spotted her and made sure to take a picture for him.

Through the window with water spots.

On our way back to Grandma's we stopped at Devil's Slide. It is a rock formation that looks like a huge jagged slide. The girls have begged to slide down it every time we pass. Once they got a closer look, they changed their mind.
They also learned about skunks. Apparently the opossums that we have in NC have over powered the skunks. You rarely see one. A large portion of the road between Bear Lake and Grandma's was full of dead ones and the girls spent the entire time like this.

Lots of Fun in Utah

O.K., so maybe getting my children up to watch the Pioneer Day parade only one day after they had spent an entire day flying was not so much fun. But, doesn't Leighton look thrilled?

O.K. What about Carly? Whoops, she isn't even awake!

Jensyn is always good for an early morning....

play in the gutter water. YUCK!

Quote from the guy in front of me: "I'm not getting up one more time for the flag, but if the prophet goes by I will stay on my feet for as long as I can see him!" That is how you know you are in Utah.



Leighton got to drive Grandpa's race car onto the trailer so he could take it for some testing. She was so proud of her steering abilities until Uncle Kyle came up the driveway and asked 'Who parked the car so crooked?'

Jensyn was all buckled up for safety. I think she figured she could do it since it looked kind of like the five point harness in her car seat.

You can take the redneck out of the south, but you can't take the south out of the redneck.

Hence, the baby with no clothes on.

We had a fire and roasted s'mores and then told stories. My niece wanted to play a game where you start the story and then the next person stops you and continues the story until the next person stops them and so on and so on. Mary started this story about princesses and fairies and saving the maiden. It went around and started getting pretty good. Carly was supposed to end it. Apparently she couldn't think of any way to end this epic so she improvised with the lyrics to her favorite song from Twisted Sister.

She looks around at all of us and says, "I guess, You're gonna burn in Hell."
We all burst out laughing. My Dad had a coughing fit, I nearly wet my pants and I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what in the Hell we were doing out there.

Grandma let Leighton paint her nails. Leighton insisted upon a different color for each hand.

After that Grandma wouldn't go anywhere without Leighton. I think she was hoping that people would assume Leighton painted them. I wonder if it worked.

They helped in Grandma's garden and Grandpa set up a pool for them to swim in.

They had their own sleepover with cousins on the deck.

Complete with a redneck drive in.

The t.v. pushed up against the screen of the window. We used to do this as kids and it was one of my favorite things to do.

We took a trip up to see Great Grandma Clark. Uncle Brandt saddled Queenie for the girls to ride.

Carly was a little irritated that she had to be led around. But, Queenie had just been bred and was not too happy to be away from her man. Even Jensyn got a turn. She loved every minute of it.

Our visit with Grandma Clark was short and sweet

and from there we headed to Bear Lake.

The Day That Would NEVER End!

The Plan: Plane departs Raleigh/Durham at 6:15 p.m. EST. Plane arrives Minneapolis/St. Paul at 8:05 p.m. CST. Eat dinner at a wonderful airport restaurant. Plane departs Minneapolis/St. Paul at 9:45 p.m. CST. Plane arrives Salt Lake City at 11:35 p.m. MST. Girls in bed by midnight.

Total trip time: 7 hours, 20 minutes (not including drive time to/from the airport.)

What Really Happened: Plane departs Raleigh/Durham at 6:15 p.m. EST. Plane arrives Minneapolis/St. Paul at 8:05 p.m. CST. Eat dinner at a wonderful convenient airport restaurant. Plane departs Minneapolis/St. Paul at 911:45 p.m. CST. Plane arrives Salt Lake City at 11:35 p.m.1:55 a.m. MST. Girls in bed by midnight3:30 a.m.

Total trip time: 79 hours, 2040 minutes (not including drive time to/from the airport.)

What did we do to pass the time? We found a quiet spot away from everyone else and .............................

acted like fools.

You thought I was going to say slept.

This hill was great to run down. I even talked them into rolling down it once or four times. When they would stop running, I would ask them if they were tired. If the answer was no, I sent them back to the top.

Why would I do such a thing?

So that the kids would fall asleep immediately once they got on the airplane.

It worked for these two. Don't they look like kittens all intertwined?

It did not work for this kid, though. She was so big and got to sit across the aisle. She deemed these two men her boyfriends and chatted their ears off until they both fell asleep.

We were very excited to see Grandpa when we got off the plane.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the girls with their luggage. We flew Delta and I wasn't about to pay for checked luggage. I made Carly and Leighton use their roller bags and backpacks. Jensyn had her backpack with her airplane 'stuff'. I carried three bags. When we would get ready to get off or get on, I would say 'backpack up' and they would all get their backpacks on and line up behind me. We got a lot of smiles as we walked down the terminal. I am not sure if they were smiling because they found it amusing or because they pitied me.