Down on the Farm

The first few days we spent at my Dad's home in Missouri were packed with farm filled activities. Sebastian was gutted when he heard Popa had gotten rid of the goats but there was no shortage of fun. The funniest was when Sebastian got dumped off when he tried to ride Dilly. He had a nasty bruise for a few days. We had consecutive nights of severe thunderstorm warnings which brought amazing clouds but just a bit of rain. The weather was hot and humid. Best that can be expected in Missouri in July!

Another Racing Pic

Here is another picture of my father at the racetrack. This time he is on a horse trained by my Janell's grandfather. Keep in mind that Janell married into my family!

Saturday Fun

Lucy is back. Seb's riding instructor went to another stable for a couple of months (basically since Christmas). He's had a couple other instructors during the interval but none of them quite connected with Seb the way Lucy did. Well, we don't have to worry about that anymore. Yesterday, they decided he needed a different pony so we are saying goodbye to Manny and welcoming Penny. Also, Lucy and he have agreed a goal for his first riding competition in September. He's excited. I'm nervous!

Our neighbour, Jill (the woman who used to own our house), Abigail, and I went to the fabric store to get our fabric for doing our sashing and borders for the quilt blocks we did last year. Jill's got totally different colours (pinks/blues/purples) than I do (burgundy/greens,/yellows) and it was fun getting lost in the fabric store hunting down the perfect matches. Jill and I both agreed that getting lost in a fabric store is almost as much fun as getting lost in a library!

I forgot in my book group post last week to Congratulate Maria & Martin (and India) on the birth of their gorgeous little boy, Finlay. Marc & I made dinner for them and took it round to their place. Marc actually did all the cooking. He makes this most wicked Prawns in Coconut Milk served with Ginger, Turmeric & Coriander Rice. It's an excellent meal to drop round to the home of sleepless parents. India, the big sister, the coping well with her new role of big sisterhood.

I went out last night with some girl friends. It is amazing how circles of friendship get formed and grow and intertwine. Keeley, Kate, Melissa, Amy and I all met at our NCT (National Childbirth Trust) birthing classes when we were pregnant with our first children. We bonded in the strangeness of being taught to pretend to write our names in the snow peeing standing up (fully clothed, of course, but no less humiliating given we are women, not men and had only known each other for about 6 hours). Vanessa joined our group when we met her in our water aerobics class and the birthing classes put on at the local hospital, which Marc & I went to to make sure the NCT had "nut and berried" us to death. We just wanted more than one perspective....but that's another post. Vanessa is also a midwife. A very good midwife. I do believe she has actually delivered a couple of our babies. I, for one, know, for sure, I felt better having access to her infinite birthing wisdom. And Adrienne met Keeley and Amy at the NCT classes they took with their second child. Adrienne, Keeley and I all live on the same road. We find our circles of life interact often.

The girls met up at a Greek restaurant, Anatayla , in Windsor. The food was great. There was lots of wine. And the entertainment was impressive. The belly dancer only managed to get Adrienne to her feet and she gave it a good go! Later in the evening after copious bottles of wine had been consumed we did get up and dance in between the tables. I find the whole dancing in restaurants thing odd. In Colorado you can't dance in a place that doesn't have a cabaret license. Typically only nightclubs have cabaret licenses. Nobody cares here. Kate told me to imagine I was in a miniature nightclub. With no men. That's right, there were very few men in the restaurant. and the ones that were there, weren't dancing! We had loads of fun and the taxi driver got a kick out of the fact that he dropped 3 of us back along the same street. Thanks to Amy for getting us all organised and booking the restaurant.

In our drunken stupor a few plans were made (short, medium and long): all the girls are going to go see Melissa perform in The Full Monty in the Old Windsor Memorial Hall in June, Adrienne, Kelley and I agreed to run the Windsor 8K in September (so now is the time to start training again), all the girls are going on a short break skiing in February 2008. I think there was more but my head is a bit heavy and my memory is a foggy.

I'm feeling a bit worse for wear but what a fabulous evening! I loved the giggles and Keeley is an amazing dance partner!

If you fall off a horse......

get right back on. Well, Sebastian learned that lesson on Sunday morning. He had his very first fall. Manni was trotting and Seb must have been day dreaming because he was soon on the ground. He landed on his bottom and was not injured. He jumped right up and got right back on the pony. No fear, no tears, just stubborn determination and a keen appreciation that he must pay attention. All important lessons for life.

We went to IKEA on Saturday which is sooooo much fun. My sister loves IKEA and they don't have one in Colorado. She is sooooo jealous of me! I hate to admit it though....on Saturday we were wholly uninspired or shall I say, IKEA was uninspiring. We have a long list of desirable items but IKEA had nothing that captured our fancy. We left having bought nothing on the list. Of course, that didn't mean we left empty handed, which is even more frustrating!

Sunday we had afternoon tea at the Bastow's. I have loads of photos to share. Unfortunately, I made the leap into Windows Vista yesterday. Marc is upgrading our operating system and has not loaded all the programs I need to import photos from my camera's memory chip. As soon as that is complete I will update my post. ETA=Sometime tonight before he goes to bed!!!!!!

Action Packed

Yesterday was an action packed day. We all walked Sebastian up to the island to resume his riding lessons. A man, a boy and their dog. Abigail wanted to ride her scooter up but after, oh about 1 minute, she decided this was far too much like hard work and Mummy ended up carrying the thing up and back.



The riding lessons are held at a horse rescue centre and his new riding instructor is named, Helen. It was a bit difficult because Caron, the owner of the stable had to go into hospital the night before and Helen had never taught Seb before but once we got the tack sorted, Sebastian got up on Mani like he hadn't missed a whole 6 weeks of riding and off he went. I've never seen such a natural and confident rider in a boy his age. He's got a very special relationship with Mani. He just loves it, and even Abigail, who is normally a little scardy cat around the ponies, decided Penny deserved some fresh hay. Look at the smile on that face. We really enjoyed meeting the infamous Lottie, the pony in the last photo. It is suspected that Lottie is over 40 years old. When she came to the rescue centre she was little more than skin and bones. And she's just about as friendly as a little puppy.





On the walk back home, I was struck by what a beautiful morning it was and how lucky I am . That's our house on the left and the view of Windsor Castle from our house below. We are having unseasonably warm weather and we saw daffodils in bloom as we drove to Coral Reef, the water park in Bracknell.

That's right. After riding we had some lunch of fresh baked bread (which Marc had started when we got up) with some cheese and ham. Then we went off to the water park. Abigail takes her ballet lessons at the Leisure Centre in Windsor and after each lesson she begs to go swimming. She holds her breath like a blow fish and swings her arms about out in front of her like she knows she destined to be an Olympic breast stroke champion. Seb still can't swim without his armbands, despite having swimming lessons every week at school for 1/2 hour. He is scared to death to jump from a standing position into the pool. Abigail on the other hand has absolutely no fear and quite happily jumps regardless of anyone being available to catch her. We had a blast!

I had planned on making my grandmother's famous fried chicken for dinner but by this time we were a bit pressed for time. We ended up doing tacos.....well, not exactly. I left the taco shells warming up in the oven too long and burned them. This was a bit of karma for me because the last time we had tacos Marc did the same thing and I gave him a really hard time about it. Being the wonderful husband that he is, he didn't say a thing. We just used flour tortillas, so sort of tacuritos (1/2 taco, 1/2 burrito).