Camp!

I went to camp from a couple weeks ago. In this camp, you spent the night, rode horses, did archery, did art, completed challenge courses, tried high rope courses, stand up paddle boarded, and kayaked.

There are no pictures from camp because I didn't bring a camera.

                        

I came to camp with 3 other good friends from school. Luckily, we all got in the same tent, so we were able to sleep and hang out together.

I was in a horse back riding program. The first horse I rode wanted to go fast. He wanted to walk out and be faster than the other horses. That was a problem as we were third in line (there was a line of us walking our horses) and the two horses in  front of us were moving very slowly. On our next horse ride, we went on a trail ride. The horse I was riding wanted to trot and touch the horse in front (the touching the horse in front was according to one of my friends).

When we did the "paddle section of our trip we went to a harbor where we divided our time paddle boarding and kayaking. I think I liked stand up paddle boarding best. In our stand up paddle boarding time, we learned how to turn, paddle, and we played a game in which we switched paddle boards with a partner. In our entire lesson, I fell off twice. When we kayaked, we learned to paddle, turn, stop, and we did a relay race. During our kayaking lesson, we saw a seal barking at some people who were trying to get in their boat.

Teddy is Here!

Teddy is at our house for part of the summer vacation! He is with us right now! The kitties like chasing him around and pawing at his ball. The kitties are also confused when he rolls over them! The picture above is of Buddy and Teddy.

My First Ride On Sedona!

This is a picture of me and Sedona. I've never gotten a chance to ride her because she is a more advanced rider's horse (she is my riding instructors horse) and she had a shoulder injury so she couldn't be ridden by students for a year and a half! Until now… She is recovered and after my ride with Masai, my horse teacher said I could ride her!

Me and Sedona.

This is a picture from the ride. After I first got on Sedona, my riding instructor put a lead rope on Sedona and let me get the feel of her. Soon after getting on we were riding around the ring. We walked, trotted, and cantered. Her trot and canter was very smooth. You could barely feel the bounces on her trot!

Masai Ride

I rode Masai in the top arena by myself at the stables. This is not a picture of the rise I took today, but this is a picture of me riding Masai in the top arena (a year-ish ago). We walked, trotted, cantered, and on our way back, we took the tree farm loop (a small trail around the upper arena) back to my teacher's horse's stall. The ride was great! It was fun to just ride around on Masai.

Another picture from the ride about a year ago.

Playful

My cat Buddy is super playful, even though he is 7 years old. He loves to play with string, feathers, and this rainbow ball he has had since we adopted him (which was when he was nearly one year). This is a picture of Buddy and Noel playing with a string toy. The sitting one is NoNo and the leaping one is Buddy.

Hunting buddies!

Maybe if I take it out of it's forcefield...

Are They Really Supposed to be Doing That?

Our kitties are always causing trouble and when we aren't looking at them, they're usually doing something bad. Here are some of the things they have done caught on camera.

Coale is on the top and Noel is on the bottom.

I wonder what would happen if…

Let's catch the hamster!

Okay Buddy.

No, I'm positive I'm allowed to be up here.

(Even though Motormouth isn't ours)

No, I'm sure the horsey won't mind that I'm in his breakfast.

Let's eat him!

Not surprisingly, Buddy would not leave the counter that he's not supposed to be on while I wrote this.

Teddy the Hamster

This is Teddy. He is a very cute hamster. He is being cute for the camera. Teddy is very fluffy.

This is Teddy with the kitties. The kitties are more scared of Teddy than he is of them. The kitties do not think it is fair that Teddy has a forcefield. Teddy has earned his dominance by rolling into the kitties (to a kitty is very scary), by rolling over kitty paws (very scary again), and rolling over kitty tails (the scariest!) The kitties follow him around, but are nervous around him, mostly because of his forcefield.

Teddy will be staying at our house a bit this summer. He will have fun, but I am not so sure that the kitties will! 

He Doesn't Like it When I Leave

Buddy gets sad when I leave the house. According to our baby sitter, he howls when I am not home. He gets upset when he sees suitcases or luggage because it means that he is staying home while we go on a trip. Buddy is always happy to see someone come home. He likes people and doesn't like to be lonely.

He is happy to see us. He doesn't like being shut in a room with our other kitties while we have people working in the house.

Horse helping

Every weekday, I go to the stables to help out with the horses. This is a picture of me cleaning a stall. The horse in the background, is Kona, one of the horses I ride and help care for. She is hanging out in the back of the stall I am cleaning.

This is a me with Motormouth, the cat who follows me around the stables because I feed him (Motormouth is his name because he talks A LOT).

Here is Masai, one of the horses I help out with. I get to ride the horses pretty often, 3-4 days a week. Masai is one of the horses I ride a lot.

May Tap Performance

This is from my May performance. I did a tap dance routine while dribbling a basketball. One of the most fun parts of this routine was trying out tap steps with the basketball. We came up with some interesting things.

The tap dancers did two more group dances, I was in one of them, see the pictures below. I am the one in the white/silver hat. It is my lucky tap hat.

Gayle is in the back "inspecting" us.

Me and my mom.

First Summer Trail Ride

   
This is a picture of the horse I  rode on my first trail ride of the summer. The cat sitting in his lunch is one of the barn cats. He follows me around the stables because I feed him. The hand sticking into the picture is mine. I'm not sure what I was doing, but I think I was calling Motormouth, the orange cat in the hay. On our trail ride we saw a couple ponds, lots of hills, oak trees, and a few creeks. My favorite pond was big and had lots of cattails growing in it. The trail ride was about an hour long. It was great!

Lots of Apricots

Our apricot tree made a lot of apricots. We were only able to pick about half of them, and this bag isn't all of our apricots. We had multiple of these sized bags full of apricots.

We made apricot crisp, and we also made apricot jam. We have LOTS of apricots

Buddy. Boy, The Mighty Hunter

This is Buddy, the mighty hunter. He is very playful and tolerant. He also believes that any food that comes out of a can and that we won't let him have, must be delicious. In the picture above, he is very proud of the "prey" he is holding.