Trip to the East Coast

Last Monday, we came home from a week long vacation in the east coast. We flew into Boston, drove up to New Hampshire and spent the week there. We drove to Vermont a couple times as well.

The first day, we spent the whole day on the plane. Or, most of it.

The second day, we drove up to New Hampshire. It was about a two hour car drive. When we got there, we got a tour of the barn that was a two minutes walk away from our friends house (where we were staying). That night, we all helped make dumplings for dinner.

The third day, I went with one of our friends to the barn for a day. I wasn't able to ride that day, but I did get to help out, take pictures, and watch the other riders do cross country jumps.

 

On horse back, cross country is a long course of jumps which might include logs, ditches, large obstacles to jump over, and water, which your horse has to wade through.

We swam in the pool later that night, and after dinner played games outside.

On the fourth day, I got to ride. I was the only western rider out of the group of girls in the riding camp, the rest rode english.

Here is a picture showing a western saddle and an english saddle. Sorry the english saddle in the picture doesn't have any stirrups!

Usually, only English riders jump, because their saddles are better designed for jumping. I did a few low western jumps on a horse named Jaws. 

That afternoon, we swam in a pond.

On the fifth day I tried out riding English and did a couple more jumps. The stirrups on an English saddle (where you put your feet) were a lot thinner than on a western saddle, and my feet kept sliding out of them. Also, the English saddle doesn't have a horn, so it was weird at first, not having anything to hold onto while I was mounting.

On the sixth day, we watched one of our friends and several of the horse campers do a horse show. We saw them do cross country and jumping. Afterwards, we went mini golfing and swimming at another pond, with several small water falls.

On the seventh day, we had a lazier day of watching Olympics (go America) and filming a video we have wanted to make for a while. 

On the last day, we did a quick trail ride. I got to ride Jaws one last time. He had been a very good boy all week.

   

He's the tallest horse I've ridden. 17 hands!

On our way to the airport, we stocked up on these delicious maple candies you can only buy in New Hampshire. 

Yum!

Bad Black Cats

Yesterday, I was trying to do a Black Cat photo shoot. It failed. Miserably. I went into the bedroom (on Tuesday's, we have to shut the kitties in my parent's bedroom in the afternoon so they don't get out).

 

My picture of Nono and Buddy "snuggling".

I was trying to get a picture of Coale, but he was sitting on the litter box. Not using it. Just sitting on it. He gave it a sniff, and walked away, and began inspecting the floor. Coale is known to be very picky about how smelly his litter box is, and if it is too smelly, he will hold it for a long time. After a long time he will do his business on the floor. I scooped the litter box, and while I was busy doing that, Buddy walked into my parent's bathroom, and I heard him lapping something up. I assumed he was drinking out of the shower (which is ok), and showed Coale the clean(er) litter box. 

Fortunately, Coale did not use the floor. Unfortunately, Buddy was not drinking out of the shower. 

Ewwwww. Bad kitties.

Visiting

Last weekend we visited one of our cousins. We walked to the beach (it wasn't very far, you could easily walk too it).

We climbed a lot of  the rocks around the beach.

We also found some sea creatures.

And some weird looking ones.

On our way back from the beach, we met one of the cats that lived around the area. Apparently she is a great hunter.

Stand up Paddle boarding

I got the pictures from the stand up paddle boarding and kayaking day.

Stand up paddle boarding.

This is my favorite picture.

Since I don't have any pictures of me kayaking, here's the next best thing. A picture of me stand up paddle boarding being photo bombed by a kayak paddle!

During my the stand up paddle boarding trip, I completed two goals. One, I didn't fall off my paddle board. Two, I touched a bee and did not get stung.

And I still need to get my camp pictures.

Back to School

We went back to school last week. I'm blogging because I made a new goal to blog once a week on during the school year (which so far, I haven't done so good on).

Nothing that interesting happened at school the last week. We started playing in Advanced Band (that is now called Wind Symphony because it sounds more formal and professional), we took our first math test (I hope I did okay), and we did a neighborhood run (which is basically a 1.5 +or- a bit mile run around the outside of the school campus).

Last Saturday, one of my sisters had a birthday party. At the party, we did tie dye (which is always fun and a bit messy).

I tie dyed a shirt.

I used red tie dye because I wanted a red shirt, but it turned out pink. Oh well.

And I also tie died socks.

I love socks.

On Sunday, I went stand up paddle boarding and kayaking with a friend from school.
I don't have the pictures from her yet, but I will post them when I get them.

One of my new favorite things to do now is tie die, even though I've only done it twice.

After trip animal update

Jax came over to play at our house twice since we got back. He's a little bit bigger than before. It was hot outside the first time, and he wanted to run and play fetch the whole day. The second time he came, it was still hot (It's been really hot around here lately). So our solution (we did this both times he came over) was spraying him with a hose. He ran from it, he ran to it, he several doggy shakes, he wiped the water off his fur and on our pants, and he ate the water. After spraying him, his fur was cold and it felt so good when he rubbed it on our legs.

Buddy is as friendly as ever (and when we returned from our trip, a little more clingy then normal). After two weeks in Europe, I had almost forgotten how much more friendly and tolerant Buddy was than other cats. Yesterday, he sat on my stomach while I did a bridge.

The horses have lately been overall good. My horse instructor is out of town for the week, so I'm helping take care of the horses.

One of the other people that helps with the horses sometimes braided Sedona'a mane about a week ago. Later that week, we round pinned all of the horses (Sedona, Wings, and Kona) together. Wings trotted and cantered a little, but when Sedona wanted to zoom past, she would stop and turn sideways so she blocked Sedona's path. We took Wings to the center of the ring and worked the other two. Kona cantered a bit, but Sedona blasted of and went Zoom. She ran (which is faster than gallop) at top speed, snorting as she went.

Here's Kona wanting to eat Wings' grain. This is one of my favorite pictures. She's been doing pretty good. Last week, we gave Sedona and Kona their baths on one of the hottest days. Earlier this morning, I round pinned her and Sedona. She ran around at full speed with her tail up and snorting. Sedona was not running or being helpful in any way, so I moved her to the center and tried to work her again later.

Lately, Kona and Wings have been becoming friends. Here's a picture of them eating together. When we returned them to pasture together at the same time, they walked over to the water together, crossed necks and drank together. Wings pulled back on her lead rope one day and got most of her back out of place. Two chiropractors came (two different times, her back was that bad), and now, she's better. We're walking and trotting her a bit each day to work her back up to lessons.

Motormouth and Sedona both explain to us very loudly how hungry they are until we feed them. When Motormouth sees the car, he crosses the street so he can tell us how hungry he is before Sedona gets the chance. I tried to get an audio of him when he was hungry, to help explain why his name is Motormouth, but it didn't work.

Teddy isn't at our house anymore. He left before we went to Europe, but we'll defiantly watch him sometime over the school year.

Our trip in France

This was what we did at the airport with cool brand new suit cases.

I've blogged about our time in England, now I'll blog about our trip in France.

After we took the Chunnel to France, we found our hotel and went out to dinner with our cousins (all of which speak French). At the restaurant, we met a friendly black and white kitty that liked to be petted. 

After our dinner, we took a longer walk home and stopped at an ice cream place. I got a Mango sorbet (Mango in French is spelled Mangue). By the time we got to the hotel, we were all exhausted. I usually take a while to fall asleep, but that night, I instantly fell asleep. 

They next day, we met up with our little cousin's grandparents and walked through a garden, rode on a carousel, got more sorbet, and saw the Eiffel tower. Later that afternoon, we said good-bye to our little cousin's grandparents and rested at the hotel for a while. That evening, we went on a boat and bus tour and saw the Eiffel tower along with a more detailed tour of Paris. We got back to the hotel at 11pm, so again, I easily fell asleep.

We found a smoothie place for breakfast the next day and took another train to the countryside. It was a four hour train ride. When we got there, we got the rental cars, and drove to our rental house. France's countryside was very lush and green looking and smelling. It was also humid. The green humid smell reminded me of Texas

It wasn't very hot outside that night because although it was 10pm, it was sunset. But our house had no air conditioning. I got ready for bed and tried to fall asleep in my sisters's room, one of the five bedrooms (each bedroom had two beds). The covers were very thick in her room, so after an hour of going around the house to find a place to sleep, I found a comfortable bed.

The next morning, we went to a village to explore. The first thing we did was buy a bunch of bread. My cousin bought a stick of butter and some cheese. It was much hotter than the night before outside. So we waded in a nearby creek/river (I'm not sure, some body of water). We tried to catch the little fish that swam in the shallow water, but it didn't work. 

After that, we had lunch in a gardeny restaurant, were we met our third cat in Paris (the second one was a white kitty we saw near our yard, she was nice but shy.) This kitty was mostly black with long hair. During lunch, we had a minor accident with stinging nettle, I won't say who it happened to, but just so you know, honey helps the stings. 

We visited one more village and took a short walk around it. Since it was getting really hot and we were all melting, we left quickly. But not quick enough to avoid learning that a) the only air conditioned building in the village is closed on Tuesdays (it was a Tuesday) b) there was a gift shop with a really cool inflatable dolphin that we bought, and c) that there was a really good ice cream stand with sorbet for the vegans. 

We escaped into the air conditioned cars and drove home to cool of in the pool, but not soon enough to save the cheese and butter from… melting all over the car. 

That day in the pool, we named the dolphin Dorsee. I wanted to call her Dorsal because it seemed like a good dolphin name, but everyone started calling her Dorsee, and the name stuck. Me and my sister became more successful at riding her. I eventually learned how to jump off the edge of the pool and mount in mid air, but our cousin had trouble 'successfully' riding her. Having Dorsee made the pool a lot more fun.

Another cool thing that happened at the pool, was our little cousin learned how to swim by her self with water wings. While her mom was videoing her swim to her dad, Dorsee (because one of my sisters threw her) photo bombed the back ground. In the background, you can probably see a flying dolphin. 

The rest of our trip was similar to the first day. We explored villages and castles and swam in the afternoon. On the second day, we visited a medieval castle and found a rope dangling down from the ceiling. All of the kids and my dad climbed it. I was surprised I could climb it. When I took gymnastics (I was like 6) I was terrible at rope climbing.

Unfortunately, our trip zoomed by, and we had to say good-bye to our cousins. But over our trip, I learned a lot more French than I knew before. I learned about 32 new words and/or phrases in French. 

After the countryside, we visited the Eiffel tower.

We were monkeys even on the Eiffel tower.

Trip to Europe

We're leaving for Europe this evening for vacation. We will visit England and France.

We arrive in England tonight. We will take the underwater train to France, and then meet our relatives in the countryside. We will stay in a barn. I assume the barn will be updated so there are beds and rooms for people, but I'm hoping there will be animals in the barn too. Unfortunately, it will be REALLY hot in the countryside of France. Really meaning 90+ to 104 degrees. Fortunately, we have a swimming pool at our house/barn. I'm really excited (especially about the pool).

This is the barn we will be staying at. The picture looks very different from what I expected (I thought it would be red).

When we go back to England, we will see family friends and play with them for a day or two (I forgot).

I won't be able to blog from Europe, so there will be no posts for two weeks. But when I get back, I will have LOT to blog about.

Warning! The blog post after this will be really long. It will be two weeks worth of adventures of my first time in another country. There will be a LOT of  writing and pictures. I will try to limit it. After that, I will be blogging about what our kitties did while we were gone and what they're doing when we're back.

Trips during School

In February, we went on a vacation and skied. I didn't blog about it because I don't usually blog during the school year. Before this trip my sisters and I had never skied or even really seen snow. On our first night, we flew in and spent the night at the hotel. But before we went to bed, we played in the snow in the parking lot of the hotel. It was first time we had been allowed to play in snow (we played in the snow at the car rental place, but we weren't allowed to then).

The next day we drove up to mountain we would ski on and went to our rental house. It was freezing when we got out of the car. It was 19 degrees and we weren't wearing snow pants or a scarf. After it warmed up and we got our snow pants, we sledded. For the rest of the week, we took skiing lessons and after lessons, skied with our parents.

Sledding

And skiing. The place we learned to ski didn't give you your poles until you were more advanced.

Another vacation we went on during school was over spring break. We went to visit our grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. We stayed at a relative's house. Their house was a block away from a fun park we played at about once a day. 

We went on a long hike one day in a beautiful forest. 

At the end of the hike was a beach, which we explored and climbed on the rocks.

On another day, we went to a different beach. The only rule our mom made was "Do not go in the water.". 

Obviously we listened