Cowboy Up

Sorry, these are sort of random pictures. These were taken back in February. I found a horse trailer for sale out in Havasu city, which is about a 3 hour drive. Being the stubborn person that I am, I decided to drive all the way out there to pick it up by myself with Devon on superbowl sunday. Dad had a case of the sunday yucks and was staying home from church. Once he realized that I was driving all the way out there, he started to feel better and decided to go with. We had a fun drive all the way out and back and we ended up getting home right at halftime. I felt bad that he had to miss the first half of the game. So for his birthday, I took him out for a trail ride. These pictures showcase the natural beauty of the state in the early spring (or winter). This area is called the White Tanks and is about a 5 min drive from the boarding stable.

Here is dad on Charlie, you can see how tall the Cactus gets. This one would be several hundred years old.

Dad's trying his hand out at being a cowboy. He is grooming Charlie and you can see my other horse Scooter in the background

The big screen

Devon had his first movie theatre experience a couple weeks ago. We went to see "Night at the Museum". He was really excited to get his own popcorn and candy, but when it was time to walk into the theatre, all he heard was "boom boom rooooooaaaar". He started to cry and we had to wait for the preview to end before we walked in. Devon did remarkably well and enjoyed the movie. The next weekend we went and saw "UP", but he got bored halfway through and we had to go across the street and get ice cream while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa to finish the movie.

Summertime!

This is my attempt at a watermelon cake. Unfortunately, since all our cameras were destroyed by the evil ocean last weekend in San Diego, you are only able to see this via camera phone. I was trying to finish this up last night and get Devon ready for bed. I saw him putting his hand in the bag of chocolate chips and figured he was sneaking a midnight snack. I turned around 30 seconds later and he is shoving overflowing handfulls of chocolate in his mouth, it's all over his face, hands and pj's. He then starts running around squealing... instant sugar high!

Devon's Green Thumb

Devon and I went to Walmart and he told me that he wanted to get some flowers. So I asked him to pick out the ones he wanted and he chose his favorites. We came home and he planted his flowers... what a great job!

All done! I hope my Ma-maw likes it!

Terrible Two's

Since I don't want anyone to feel left out, I thought I would share a typical Devon Trantrum. This particular one occured on his birthday 3-21-09. He started out tipping the yellow plastic chair over and then falling to the ground, kicking his feet and screaming his head off... We then proceeded to roll across the floor, banging our head on the ground...

... Still rolling and kicking, here you get the full view of his face, turning red...

...And now we've rolled all the way to the table. At this point I think he was really starting to get upset because mommy was laughing and taking pictures.

Amazingly enough though, Devon's vocabulary has begun to grow by leaps and bounds, it seems that every day that I come home from work he's saying more words. Today, we had a good day and he only had about two trantrums, both of them only lasting a minute or two and mommy didn't end up with fat lip from him convulsing his body and throwing his head back at me.... Ahhh... I love this age!

Baseball to Hockey

Greg and I decided to have a "Sports day" on Saturday. We started out the morning with a Oakland A's vs San Francisco Giants Spring Training baseball game. Greg used to go to baseball games with his Uncle and family when he lived in California, and he is a huge A's fan. This was my second baseball game and I had just as much fun watching the game as I did people watching.

Greg is 6'3" and I am 5'3"...

Here is Greg finding out how fast he throws a ball... I think it was around 51 mph. I'm sure mine would have been around 3 mph.

Oakland A's Won!!

We finished the Baseball game around 4pm, and drove home to give Devon dinner and meet up with the baby sitter for the hockey game. Greg and I had to change our shirts.

We had seats up pretty high, but it was neat because you could see everything. Our seats had 'All you can eat' bracelets and we munched on Nachos, popcorn, hot dogs, and soda. Aubrey and David bought tickets for Mom and Dad for dad's birthday, so Mom, Dad, Aubrey, David, Alanna, Kris, Greg and I went to the game.

At the 3rd period of the game, my friend Leslie and her husband, who has season tickets, invited us to sit down with them on the lower level. We were about 10 rows up from the ice. They had this huge monitor and halfway through the game they show a 'kiss cam'. Leslie and her husband were shown on the moniter, it was too cute!

So, after our sports weekend, I'm exhausted and my cold is turning into something a little more serious... probably strept throat again. Regardless, I had the best time and I'm hoping to be able to attend a sports game at least once a month. Greg and I are talking about possible Nascar for next month.

So, it's been a little while since I've updated this blog, and seriously, I have really good intentions to get caught up. The next couple posts might be out of order so bear with me.

I bought a horse trailer with my tax refund for $900. Dad and I drove out to Lake Havasu city (which is about a 3 hour drive) on Superbowl Sunday, we made it home just in time for the last quarter. Anyhow, I've been using the trailer a couple times a week. On Friday, my friend Leslie (who is doing a half-lease on Charlie) and I drove out to find a cool trail ride, and we came upon this neat trail on the riverbottom. I took Alanna out there today to show her what we saw

This is my Horse Scooter. I beleive that he is a Morgan Mix, and I've had him for about 3 years now. He was abused before I got him and has a lot of trust issues, but once you get past them, he's an outsanding animal.

This is my brand new saddle. I got this for myself for Christmas and payed $500. It's the first leather saddle that I've owned. It's actually a roping saddle and I'm hoping to attempt some team roping at our stable.

On our trail ride, we came across two wild horses. They let us get fairly close, but Alanna and I wanted to get closer, so we chased them across a mountain. Our two horses were so excited they wanted to keep chasing them.

This is a cactus skeleton

Here is Alanna riding Charlie Horse, you can see the truck and trailer in the background. There is water that runs in the river bottom and Alanna and I rode our horses into the water. Charlie was walking and suddenly he hit a deep spot and was up to his belly in water. Alanna freaked out and made him climb the little cliff to get out of the water.

Here is the 'after' shot of Scooter. You can see how sweaty his back is from the saddle.

Here is Charlie's 'after shot'. You can see how dark his legs are from the water.

Mommy Made Playdough

I put Devon to sleep at his normal time of 6:30pm, but the little stinker just wasnt ready for bed. So, I got him up to play for a little while longer. He was determined to get into things that he knows he's not supposed to, and this time, he was obsessed with the Play-doh tub that Grandma uses for Daycare. So, I plopped him in the highchair, so he could watch what I was doing, fed him some goldfish crackers and started cooking a non-toxic, edible playdough. I didn't want to use the common Peanut Butter variety, because I don't want him to think that he should always eat it, so we opted for the Koolaid version and shorted the koolaid on the recipie. It turned out great! and let me tell you, I tasted a bit of it and it's super salty! Devon loved to play with it and we made playdough masks, and glasses and squished it up for about 3o mins!!



Kool-Aid Playdough Recipie

1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Salt
3t Cream of Tarter
1T Vegetable Oil
1 Cup Water
1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large sauce pan. On Medium heat, slowly pour in the Water and oil, stir until a doughy consistency. Remove from pan and kneed until it cools down. I discovered that if it's still really sticky, you can put it back into the pan and flip it a couple times until the edges firm up.

The end result is the same consistency as store bought play-doh

On Sunday, Devon was Crabby cakes and I was sick. At the end of the day, he was driving me crazy, so I filled up the pool and let him and Regen swim. Devon loves to play in the water!
My new camera takes pictures so quick that I can get great shot's like this one!