William graduated!

This past Friday evening William graduated from high school. He is going to be working during the summer & then in the fall he plans to attend basic training at the International Alert Academy which is a Christian program that is tougher than the military's basic (yes, even the Marines) because they want to teach the boys not to rely on their own strength but to rely on the Lord.

Aerial Shots

Well, today was a very eventful day. Daniel & I started to put up the fence around the pasture for the horses when the lady who is now boarding her horses out here showed up w/ horses in tow, & we were not ready for them. Well, we just stuck them into the backyard of the guest house & got to work finishing up odds & ends around the yard. Still not finished w/ the fence cuz I need to order some more parts :( Well, before another storm blew through my bros had to paint the roof with some water-proofing paint to hold it until the insurance people could come by to assess the damage. So here are some shots that William took while he was up on the roof.

He decided to take a pic of me when I climbed the ladder :) But on the roof there you can see some of the damage from the storm the other day.

This is the storage shed & if you look really closely you can see part of the red corral in between the two sheds- this is where Wyoming is staying until I can get her gentled.

This is the guest house w/ the two horses munchin away @ the grass- great lawn-mowers by the way ;)


Here is a close-up of them. I'm definitely gonna need to get a better pic of them, lol :D

After the storm

For the last couple of days we have been going through some very bad weather. In fact a tornado touched down right down the road from us. The Lord sure was protecting us & the animals! They all seem to have faired pretty well, and the only damages that we sustained were a cedar tree falling, a large limb from the large live oak broke & fell, and some shingles came off of our roof. Otherwise we are all doing very well. Praise the Lord!

Here are some pics of Wyoming that I took this afternoon w/ my camera phone- hence the bad quality. :) Oh, well! You get the idea;)

Here she is greeting me because she wants her food, and yes she needs to gain a little weight.

The flies keep bothering her.

Eatin' some hay.


Ok! All finished w/ the hay, now where's my food!!! ;)

Horse Update

I have been staying very busy with school plus getting everything ready for the mustang. I was supposed to be training two wild mustangs but the plans got changed, actually for the better. I just didn't have quite enough room for both; & it is alot easier to train them seperately, especially since the gelding can be a bully around the mare. So only the mare was brought down. It has been only a little over a week since she has been here & I am seeing a gradual change in her. She for one thing has to gain some weight and also gain trust in humans. Because she is from the wild, she has never been around humans, so I have to work on building her trust in me before I can actually do anything else. It has been said that this part of the training can take a long time, but once they build the trust, the rest of the training is alot easier & smoother. I have been able to start petting her on her face while she is eating, but she won't let me near her if her head is not in the bucket. And if I sit on the ground she will come up to me & sniff/smell me all over as long as I don't move. I am definitely learning alot of patience, especially since all I want to do is throw a saddle on her & go for a ride ;)- soon :).
But on a bright note for me, I can soon do just that & ride all I want. Starting in a week or two, I am going to be boarding 2 more horses for a lady in my church who is in need of a place to board her horses w/out "abuse." The place where she is boarding them at the moment will not let her horses out in the pasture so they are stuck in the stalls all the time. Plus she is having problems w/ both of her shoulders so she can't do alot with them so she needs help exercising them. Yea, these guys are trained already so I get to ride anytime & really anywhere I want!!! I'm so excited:) I am definitely going to have a busy & fun summer ;)

Here are some pics of her that I took the other day.

By the way, her name is Wyoming. Isn't she pretty!

Old Fashion Day Picnic

Our church has an annual Old Fashion Day w/ a different theme every year. This year's theme was the Renaissance/Medieval era. I already had a dress from a banquet that I had to play & sing in at school but my mom had to come up w/ costumes for the rest of the family. For the boys is was easy, we just went & bought armour & for my dad my mom just made him a crusader "cape" to wear over his chain-mail. So my mom just had to make the lil girl's costumes. I think they turned out really cute!

Our family minus my mom who didn't make anything for herself (because it would just get in the way while she cooks, yep nice excuse :P :)

William trying out his armour w/ dad's chain-mail.

Daniel trying to look cool while trying out his armour.

William at the picnic showing off his costume :)

Hannah & Charity- aren't their outfits soooo cute!

Hannah w/ her "Pony Pals" Krista & Brooke.

Don't mess w/ this lil girl; she's takin' on two twice her size ;)

We had some games & activities trying to keep w/ the theme. Well, I think tug-of-war counts.

HaHa, got a pic of mom anyways- for those of you who dont know she hates getting her pic taken so it is a challenge to get one. :)

Charity (w/ her buddy helpin') hittin' the terradactyl pinata.

What get together is complete w/ out a good time of fellowship among friends.

Now here is the reason why you dont see any pics of me. (Yes, I know they probably didn't have any sunglasses in the old days but the Texas sun is just too bright ;)

And of course anytime you combine boys, outside, sunshine, and a field- you get a football game :)

Charity & her Buddy- Mr Hamelund.

Just another pic of our family together to end off this post.

Note: To see more pics of our Old Fashion Day go to my church's website at http://charitybaptistkilleen.org/oldfashionedday.htm

Mustangs

I will be putting up the pics from our Old Fashion Day but I did want to put up the reason for not posting this past weekend.

On Friday, we got a call from a gentleman who is donating a horse to the Renes. He had decided to get them a mustang but he needed someone to go up to Arkansas to pick them up on Saturday. My dad had to go to SanAntonio for work & couldn't go, so I had to learn how to drive the truck w/ horse trailer. I had never had to pull a trailer before but I learned how to pretty fast. Actually, I got the hang of it before I even left town :) Well, it was decided that Daniel would go w/ me & that we would leave Friday evening & stay in a hotel near the Texas/Arkansas border for the night. Well, due to some set backs we left at 8pm & got into the hotel somewhere after 1:30am. For some odd reason I could not get to sleep (hmm, maybe it was that energy drink that I drank to stay awake :) Anyways, we left there about 7ish & were at the auction by 8:30am. I got to help pick out the two mustangs- the gentleman got one for the Renes & one for himself. Driving them back to his place was fun because they are both wild & were fighting back there while I was driving through Dallas/Ft Worth traffic. Fun stuff! :)
Here are some pics that he sent me- the horses cant leave his place for at least a month so I have to be content to just see pics that he sends :)

The Rene's is the dark mare. His is the sorrel gelding.

Here they are enjoying a bite of hay :)

The mare eating.


Isn't she pretty! Yes, she is dirty :)

He sent this pic of a Texas longhorn.

Have no idea why he sent this pic to me but I thought it was a great pic.

Here is his sorrel gelding.

Right now I am looking for some fencing materials to be able to put these guys up down here. If everything works out I get to have two horses around here for a few months. :)

Fun w/ Renes 2

Well, the Renes came back for a short visit this past month.

Here are some pics of our fun times together.

Board games are always a blast- especially when your good friends are over :)

Here is my mom preparing a feast for us all (by the way- it was yummy! ;)

Peter & Hannah playing RISK. They always had a blast playing on a team & wiping out the "bad guys" :P

Hmm, looks like Charity is trying to climb on the table while Peter & Hannah are setting up their game. But in the background you can see Tabby & I playing the piano & organ.



Charity insisted on helping so she was given a lil piece of dough to role.




Here she is again having a blast. She kept sticking her hands in the flour bag until we finally took the bag away, lol.



Well, while they were here my brothers & their friends decided to put together another movie. What made this one so awesome is the Renes can speak Russian so there are authentic Russian speaking parts. My brother isn't quite through editing it but when he finishes it I will try to put it up on here.




Here is a pic of one of my brothers friends named Joshy; he got to be a Russian who just responded w/ "Dah" which is Russian for yes.



Well, since my brothers had their friends over my lil sis Hannah invited her friend over. Here she is w/ Brooke playing "Connect Four."

Brooke's brothers Nathan & Josh- other actors & director of the movie.

My lil bro Daniel. Great pic of him taken before they started taking the movie.

Daniel again but this time w/ his gun. Yes, it is a real gun & yes they used it for the movie. But dont worry it was not loaded & they are very cautious.

Our terrorist, Nathan. Isn't this pic awesome! :)

Daniel & Josh on the left awaiting instructions while Tejay & William discuss the movie on the right.

Joshy, Daniel, & Josh getting ready to head on out.

We are all now eagerly awaiting the completion of the movie.

Also, looking forward to this summer when the Renes come for an extended visit.