Thought you'd lost me eh?

First off, thank you to all my friends who noticed I was MIA for a while there.  I appreciate all your messages and phone calls!  Nothing has been "wrong" on this end other than just being to tired/busy/blocked to blog and when I have blogged my posts have disappeared into the nether-reaches of the internet never to be seen or read again.  Seriously, I've made 3-4 posts that somehow never made it on to my actual blog... no idea where they ended up, but I hope they're happy wherever they are :)

Lots been going on here!  The garden has kept M busy and she's been bringing in bucket loads of tomatoes every time she ventures down to the garden.  The boys are in heaven!!  They love tomatoes and eat them right off the vine like big messy apples!  A big thanks to Suzanne for recommending the Black Krims.  Those are quite the favorite this year and there's gobs of them!  They look a little weird, but the taste is phenomenal!!  Thanks for the suggestion!!

We've been working with the horses alot lately.  I'm not sure that we'll be doing lessons like I did 10 years ago, but it's great being back in the genre.  I've missed working with my girls and although Aimee and Alise are enjoying their well-earned retirement, they still enjoy the occasional jaunt out with the kids.  Xander has a beautiful (enviable) natural seat that is just incredible!  I know his early years with his Kyrgyz family are probably the reason (he remembers riding with them).  He is an incredible natural talent and I'm sure he'll be a terrific equestrian if he chooses to be.  He has been riding Sophie's pony Skye, but prefers to take out big ole Alise (Skye is a tiny little pony, Alise is a HUGE draft horse).  We've been searching for another schooling horse online and invariably it turns into me searching for my dream horse (a Friesian by the way... ever since I met Daen back in '94 I've had my heart set on riding one!).  I found a couple barns that have videos of their horses for sale.  Xander and I watch them often and we both get that "ohhh" and "ahhhh" thing going when the horses go trotting by!  By the way, I'm hoping to actually go look at a Friesian gelding soon.  He costs the earth but he's gorgeous and I can't resist looking :)

I've started working with Fantine again with moderate success.  I've decided to slow down and start over from the beginning with her.  Currently we're working on lots of trust issues with her.  She does not like people at all, but I've been working with her everyday, bribing her with treats and she's getting to the point where she doesn't try to run away when I get near her.  My goal each time I mess with her is simply to get a hand on her without her freaking out.  At this point I can run my hand down her neck and across her face so long as she's eating a treat.  I've managed to touch her once without a treat at all, but I think that may have been accidental :)  She's coming along, but she's had so much trauma that it's amazing that she lets us near her at all.  She is a truly beautiful horse and I hate that she's been so sorely used by the human drug system.  Don't get me started....

In other family news Kelly did finally have the new baby.  We were wondering if the blessed event would ever happen as she kept getting bumped, but finally Myra Jean made her entrance on August 21!  They named her for M and Kelly's M, but we're all having a hard time coming up with what to call her as calling anyone by M's name feels weird.  Kind of like calling someone by my own name.  I guess it comes from not running into people with that name often.  Currently we're referring to her as MJ.  She's very cute and looks alot like my brother, although I can see lots of Kelly too.  We haven't gone up to see them yet, but hopefully that will work out soon! 

Sophie's started her schooling again.  We've been doing lots of reviews and have just started doing the "real" stuff again.  She's eager, but we're having some focusing issues, as she wants to do things her own way or not at all.  I think we've just got to get back into the rhythm we were in and then things will be fine.  Jim's started back to school as well, which has helped Sophie get into the mindset that it's school-time.  Hopefully things will get smoother soon!

What else?  I have gobs of pictures that I need to post but I'll need to resize and upload them.  Look for a photo post soon!