Monday, April 26, 2010

Vacation Week Ends

This past week was "Spring Break" for Rachel and Samantha, so we took a break from homeschool too. We had some beautiful weather and spent a LOT of time outside. I have no photos from this week as the battery in my camera died and it took several days to locate the charger.

Sunday, we traded horses. A friend, who knows horses very well, offered to take Lewee and fix his feet (tender and painful from his previous owner's neglect). In exchange we brought her older mare here to be spoiled rotten. Her name is Frau. She is the sweetest horse and loves to be groomed and petted. Once Lewee's feet are better he will be sold to a more experienced rider than our girls.

On Monday the kids played outside, catching frogs, riding bikes, clipping goats and cleaning barns.

Tuesday we had our 4-H sewing club meeting in the morning. The girls are all working on sewing projects to enter into the 4-H fair in July. Afterward, my brother-in-law came over to trim up the horse's feet. Then we had plans for after lunch, to do some community service by cutting an older person's lawn, but Mr. Johnson beat us to it. So we raked up the grass clumps and went food shopping at Aldi's (I LOVE that store!). Hannah and Nathalie were each dropped off at friend's houses and Sam took Abby to the Draft Horse Association meeting to solicit donations for the 4-H Draft Horse Show.

On Wednesday I washed the windows and screens on the house, inside and out. After Lunch I went to work, leaving the girls to finish cleaning the insides of the last two windows. Rachel and Samantha had two friends come over for the afternoon. On the way home from work I picked up Hannah and her friend, who would be sleeping over.

Thursday Abby had her friend over for a picnic lunch by the lake, Nathalie went with her friend to Old Mystic Village, and Hannah's friend was retrieved by her parents. After I got home from work, MY friend came over to check out the two baby goats she has bought and to see how we have our barns set up. We had a lovely visit and she hired Rachel to train her goats to walk on leash. Sam and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary (the actual date is April 24, but Sam wasn't going to be home then) by going to Chuck's Steakhouse in Mansfield. After, we did some window shopping at various stores in Willimantic. Yeah, we're wild like that!

Friday morning began with horseback riding lessons for Rachel and Hannah. While they were riding the rest of us planted red, white, and blue petunias at the flag pole on the town green for Abby's 4-H project. After picking up the girls from riding we went shopping for the 4-H camp auction baskets. The girls this year earned their own money, picked a theme, and created their own baskets to donate to the auction to benefit the 4-H camp. We had a fun afternoon together visiting Micheal's, Wal-mart, Joann's, and Borders. When we returned home the girls did their animal chores while I shrink wrapped their baskets, then we were off to the auction!

We LOVE going to the 4-H auction. Every year for the last five years the girls have donated their time at the auction being runners, gophers, and helpers. We meet up with friends that we often only see at the auction and just have a grand time. I think I laugh more for those two nights than I do for the entire rest of the year combined! It makes for long days though, as we didn't get home until after 10:30 PM. This year Nathalie's friend came home with us so she could help us with Saturday's community service activity.

On Saturday we woke up extra early (4:45AM!) to get the animal chores done so we could be in Vernon at 7:30 AM for parking cars at the Wool and Fiber Event. The day started off slow as we filed cars into the parking spots. But soon, we were out of empty spots and the cars just kept coming! At one point, a person was a little frustrated that I had no parking spots. I jokingly suggested she figure out a way to stack her car on top of another one. Thankfully, she realized she was being unreasonable and apologized with a smile.

Finally around 3:30 we were able to quit as the event was winding up. We drove home in a very quiet van as nearly everyone fell asleep! We quickly did the animal chores when we arrived home, and cleaned up to go back to the auction. The girls were still eager to help out, but definitely lacked the same pep they had had the previous evening! We managed to get home that night around 11:30PM.

Sunday we let the girls sleep in to 7AM. We had a nice quiet day with a special missionary speaker at church.

And now we're back to our "normal" schedule... whatever that is....

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