First horse show of the season

Licensed to participate in Equine Canada and the OEF (Ontario Equestrian Federation)  horse show events.

Placed into a new division along with 18 other participants, competition and learning curves were around every corner.

Always smiling despite how nervous she was at possibly forgetting the order of one of the eight jumps in any one of her separate division courses. 

For her first time in this upper level show, she was real successful in not forgetting the order of jumps, and unlike quite a few others, she was never disqualified for missing one, or having her horse refuse a jump. Such a confidence booster!

For the first time participating in this higher show level division, she placed 7th of 18 in her best of the bunch. 

Congratulations lovely lady, you did great! 

Now rest up until your next show! 

21 + 22 / 52 weeks

52 weeks of daily life in pictures: trials and celebrations,
the extraordinary and mundane -- 
whatever is unique to the week. 
Join me if you like.

 

** Time spent paper crafting is always wonderful and enjoyable, that is, when time of course permits such a creative outlet for me. This slogan above has special meaning, likely also to anyone reading it. Simple pleasures are often evoked from a phrase like this.

** Living amongst a boreal forest, our many-legged and furry insect friends have come to visit, en force! Many of these creep and crawl everywhere; caterpillars, mosquitoes and black biting flies have become a problem.

We have begun happily encouraging all of the children in our neighborhood to go ahead and borrow our well stocked supply of bug bottles and netting houses.
 

** At last, the weather has warmed and using the outdoor sand riding ring for horse lessons has become a reality. Everyone seems more chipper, more content when riding outdoors. Between the fresh air and the sunshine, all have been eager to perform well in their flatwork and in improving their jumping.

Our older daughter has her first riding show of the season this weekend after being advanced to the trillium level (equal to moving from a house to rep league), she is very much looking forward to a super busy day after being entered by her coach into eight divisions.  I'll be sure to begin sharing photos next week.

 

** Well, Wagjag coupons did it again! We bought into two of them for a unique dog grooming system, and what a system it was. They are not immersed in water, rather a device similar to that of a hand held upholstery cleaner sprays water on them, and they are steamed, and cleaned  with it. 

Look how fluffy these girls are looking, especially after the amazing dryer with a velocity to blow old dog hair right off their skin into the air, the rest of us covering our mouths and nose. Our clothing was covered, and we too had to shake off. 

What a neat system, otherwise known as the new, car wash line up for doggie washing. Very pleased with the outcome this day.

** There was an air of excitement when the paving company visited to create a large 52x44 inch pad outside of our garage doors. 

Hockey nets, sticks and roller blades have had winter's dust blown off of them and now they are constantly out being used. 

Basketballs are being bounced and neighbor children are enjoying hosted hockey nights on our property. I can surely foresee much activity on this pad over summer.

** Our parenting philosophy has always been to keep our children moving for optimal wellness. This son decided to become number 10 once more off the ice, and he's now playing ball hockey once a week instead. On top of his soccer, and other activities, he's feeling mighty in shape for next year's ice hockey already. 

 

** While my husband sat and mowed the lawns with his lawn tractor, one of our sons and myself took the initiative to get some cedar trees buried shortly after the heat of day passed. Firstly, two of our guys were able to dig out about eight inches of rock pan to create the bed, and our older son/my hubby were able to fill his truck with soil. 

Working at a brisk pace to remove the soil so this same son could then proceed to take his truck to work for the evening, in tandem it was also time for younger son and mom to roll up our sleeves to dig, pull, haul, bury and fertilize the trees. 

Whew, a huge job that required a long span of time, and the mosquitoes and black flies found us by the end. Never in my life have I been bitten so much by black flies! Ouch! 

But, it was so worth the effort to have the trees in place, tied to the fence just in time for the wind storm passing through during the night. Now to use son's truck to pick up the finishing bark mulch and the job will be complete.

* The mighty oak tree begins with a seed.

Mighty Oak

Stand tall oh mighty oak, for all the world to see,
your strength and undying beauty forever amazes me.
Though storm clouds hover above you,
your branches span the sky,
in search of the radiant sunlight you
count on to survive.

When the winds are high and restless and
you lose a limb or two,
it only makes you stronger, we
could learn so much from you.

Though generations have come and gone
and brought about such change,
quietly you've watched them all yet still
remained the same.
I only pray God give to me the strength he's
given you,
to face each day with hope, whether
skies are black or blue,

Life on earth is truly a gift
every moment we must treasure,
it's the simple things we take for granted
that become our ultimate pleasures.

~ Karen J. Parenteau

Living amongst the rodents in our forest who require food storage for winter, it's always amusing to find oak trees growing in the strangest locations, knowing a chipmunk likely buried the acorn there underground sometime in the past.

I found two within the same general area of my back garden bed, and everyone was intrigued with the visual of seed to tree growth. This is nature appreciation and science at its best, isn't it?

** A productive week around here, we hired our younger son to completely remove the firewood pile nearer to the dog pen (where we dug the garden bed for the trees), and stack near to the fire pit in the forest area to conceal its ugliness. 

Why we never thought to do this before is puzzling, however we are so pleased with this simple thing, and our son is so pleased with his pocket money.

** We've been actively crafting the past while around here and for me, it's always sweet to notice when individual creativity is actively at work. 

** To be so blessed while living within a province who's floral symbol is a trillium flower, well now it's even more incredibly beautiful to find them on my own property all about the forest floor in spring and spot them from day to day. 

From white to pink, many varieties have been in full bloom this past few weeks, some up to a foot in height basking in the sunshine. 

A protected flower at that, I'll leave you this week with a close up of their loveliness below...

Well, that's it for me for now. 

God bless you and yours.

Always hug the ones you love and live 

your very best life each and every day folks.


Go Canucks Go! 

Head on over to Barbara's to check out the invitation to join the
52 week photography link-up party.

Birthday week photos...

A little more from our two birthdays last week...

So enjoyable, it was with great pleasure we devised a plan to offer one birthday bag with unexpected results - 20 small gifts to open, one per year that has already passed in his lifetime. Fun!

Onward to the next birthday...

Lunchtime birthday brain food...chocolate cupcakes.

The birthday cake came three days later when two young boys joined him on his very first paintball day long adventure experience.

Gifting on the front porch after Dad was summoned to the opening moment.

Three days later...on our holiday Monday, this was the scene below;

After watching the mandatory introductory safety video, the boys were outfitted, signing waivers and collecting their gear for the day's events ahead.

Yes, a full day for playing on the 70 acre fields out yonder. Already the boys were surely beaming and smiling a whole lot...

Signing waivers while donning the camouflage attire on site, he felt all ready to get out and experience the unknown ahead.

And a wonderful day was had by all... 

 "Wow Mom! That was GREAT! How soon can we go again?"

And for both the boys, the best birthday gift of all was witnessing the Vancouver Canuck NHL hockey team advance to the finals. 

Go Canucks Go! 

There are only two ways to live ...

'But if any of you want wisdom, 

let him ask of God, 

who giveth to all men abundantly, 

and upbraideth not; 

and it shall be given him.'

~ James 1:5

“There are only two ways to live your life. 

One is as though nothing is a miracle. 

The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

~ Albert Einstein

“I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. 

I challenge you to join the ranks of those people 

who live what they teach, who walk their talk.” 

~ Tony Robbins 

Prom night...

Finally. 

At long last, this night has come, about a year delayed for this daughter - her long awaited prom night is now here.

The theme for this year's Prom is "Elegant Hollywood", so much better than the "Bollywood" first mentioned which was to be the promotional theme.

Selections were few and far between for something fitting into the specific themed category, something elegant of course, but for our self professed tomboy, she was quite fussy when shopping for such a dress. 

I suppose if luck was on our side, my initial thoughts of actually dreading the shopping excursion with/for her to locate such a feminine item turned out just perfect. We were thrilled to find this dress soon after hitting up one of the outlet stores nearby. Within an hour of leaving home, the dress was sold, and bagged in her hands. 

And she likes it! 

And best of all....she looks quite like an exquisite (and elegant) young lady in it!

Even if she didn't desire much for makeup, no lipstick and certainly not a necklace, other accessories were welcomed, a gorgeous hairdo was had, so most definitely there was a simple and yet stunning elegance present this day! I thought the long white satin gloves and short jacket she tried on with it at first were smashing, she thought it was all too much. Oh mom....but she did like them, she did.

Truly she did. (wink)

"My other already chosen pink jacket will do", she said.

If there's such a thing as a danger to a mother when her heart begins swelling too much, that would have been me, though a happy swelling at that. 

My goodness, my heart about burst shortly after snapping these photos, with not only our daughter all decked out for prom and the happy excitement she was able to share with her friend (also dressed up, a first for him), but also to have our son (he's taking his gal friend to her same prom night, the four of them together for the evening) involved and summoned in for the photos with them made it all just precious. 

Super heart swelling - let me tell you!

And then they asked for photos alone together, brother and sister so pleased with their soon-to-be excursion for the dinner/dance evening. 

And next, as something very typical and so ordinary, the three of them all wanted photos together. I snapped on two cameras and three cell phones, and you can bet all of the photos were off into cyberspace very shortly.

So Nice.

I. Like. This. Bunch.

Behind every photo there is truly a story.

Behind the photo above is a story about his new suit. Not able to attend his own prom last year because the family was traveling to Europe to visit with elderly relatives, this was sort of a prom for him too. 

Off he went to price out a suit, shirt, tie, belt and shoes, summoning up the courage to part with such an amount of money when he was a jean and lumberjack jacket type of young man. Once at the cashier, it was a scratch and save day, so after scratching his card all of the ladies were shocked, thought not as much as he was! He ended up with three 50% off numbers, his entire booty ended up a mere pittance of the original tally.

He is now the proud owner of some fairly fancy attire, and quite proud to be able to wear it to accompany our daughter to her prom.

My husband was not at home when all the photos were being snapped, then suddenly there was a call and this was the scene above when the phone was for our young man friend. My husband gave him the evening expectation parameters; drive safely with our precious cargo, be a perfect gentleman, have her home on time, you know the drill...too funny.

How beautiful these two lovely young people are..

A perfect gentleman, he opened the door for her, and then even helped to tuck her dress inside.