FINALLY!!!!!

This morn. (fri. 29) Ellie finally had her pups!!! it was around 1:00am when she finally had the first one (the chocolate daple)who is a male, and then an hour later had the light brown one (who is a female). They look like kittens, except for their little heads are bigger, soooooooooo cute!

Family Biking

We decided to bike on the Trans Canada Rail Trail on Monday, but the kids found it quite (yawn) boring. As you can see below, they had more fun on the rail than the trail. We did find a park (Mono Cliffs Park) to do some real mountain biking on later in the afternoon. Most of them had a great time, but a few were too tired to enjoy much else.

Monday. . .

. . .we went to Caledon, ON for a day of biking and hiking. Jim took the day off of work and the weather was perfect. Here are some pictures of a small park of some badlands. The kids (and Dad) had lots of fun running and biking there. We had brought a picnic lunch and ate it there. There were a couple of bike crashes, but nothing too serious! Above is Andrew biking.

Jim trying Andrew's BMX bike.

D Rally

Last weekend was a big one for Leah and Blaze. She went to a pony club event called the D Rally. She had to compete in 4 events on which they got scored on. There were probably 150 riders/horses at this rally, but not all were in her category. The above photo is her getting ready to do the Dressage event.

This is a photo of Leah on Blaze in the stadium jumping event. They did real well and placed 6 out of 29.

Here is a photo of them doing the Cross-Country course. There were several jumps set up in a large field and they had to jump them in a certain order within a certain amount of time. In this event, each rider was allowed 2 refusals, but on the third, they were disqualified. Blaze had his 3rd refusal on the last jump, so Leah was disqualified from X-country. Otherwise, they did well. (No falls, broken bones, or ER visits!)

This is a photo of some of the other riders in their pony club group. They are in the warm-up ring just before it started.

Surgery?

I just had my doctor's appointment regarding my knee. She said the MRI showed that I had 1) torn cartilage 2) a stretched or torn ACL (ligament) and 3) the beginning of arthritis in that knee. She is sending me to an orthopedic surgeon to schedule me for surgery for the torn cartilage and possibly the fix the ligament. I am then to have several months of rehab and buy a $1600 knee brace! I sure hope my husband's insurance pays for this! I am not having much pain in it right now so it is tempting to just not do anything. I will see what the surgeon says.

On a different note, we are pretty sure Ellie May is going to have pups (I know we said that before, but this time she looks pretty big!). We have been busy fixing up the dog shed to make a few pens to seperate her from Odie when she has them. We may already have 2 of them sold. But,. . . .I guess you can't count your puppies before they are born! Ellie is due the end of August, right when school is due to start again!

Leah is busy preparing Blaze for the D rally. This is a big day for people in Pony Club. She will compete in dressage, show jumping and cross country jumping. Hope he does well for her. Wish all you horse lovers could come for this; I think you would really enjoy seeing the event.

We are currently planning to go to Canada's Wonderland in one week with the Youth Centre. All my kids are going to go, but we need at least 20 people to come to pay for the bus. We are getting a great deal at the gate, so I hope we get to go. Jim is not coming because he has a training day he has to go to.

Fun In The Sun

Monday up here was a holiday (Civic Holiday) so we decided to pack up our bikes and head to the beach/bike trails. Andrew had to work at McDonalds so he was not able to go with us. We had a great time on the bike trails and even got to wade in the Maitland River by the waterfalls. We then had a great lunch at our favorite restaurant, Patty O'Neals in Goderich. After that, we went to the beach and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon in the water and sand. The weather was great (a little rain on the bike ride) for the day. I did bring by camera, but left it in the van so there are no pictures; only memories!

Our Week. . .

. . .in review.

Andrew has been quite busy with McDonalds this past week and even had to ride his bike to work from St. Jacobs one day. I was at work at the post office there and couldn't get him to work in time, so he rode with me and biked to Elmira (only about 4 miles or so). He was just glad he didn't have to ride from home (15 miles), so he didn't mind having to get out of bed at 6:30 to go with me to work.

I have been working 2 jobs this week; mornings at the post office, and afternoons at the youth centre. I am glad for both jobs, but when they come on the same day it gets pretty busy. The kids have been enjoying coming to the YC every day with me to play RockBand and Guitar Hero. I have mixed feelings about them playing these rock songs every day and some of the songs I won't let them play. We have been doing some fun day trips at the YC; including movies, swimming, water park, mini golf and we have an ongoing contest this summer which has other fun activities. Needless to say, the summer is going by very FAST. Not a whole lot of time for riding, but the bugs are TERRIBLE in the woods anyway.

Hannah and Leah did the neighbor's chores this week. He raises German Shepherds and had several pups there. They enjoyed playing with them and got paid well. Daniel and Julia did another neighbor's chores and had to collect chicken eggs every day. Sadly, one of the chickens died while we were doing the chores. I guess you don't call in the vet for a chicken!

Aunt Jane came for several days last weekend and we enjoyed having her. We also had Ken and Mardell Dietz, Ken and Bernice Schneider, and Walt and Betty Herrmann for supper one evening. This small house can be stretched to hold a good sized group when needed!

Jim has kept busy at work, but is ASKING if we can go horseback riding again sometime this weekend! We've got to find a better helmet for him though!