Horsing around

Saturday and Sunday, April 4 & 5 was General Conference weekend. We've made listening to the conference a tradition in our home. The tradition starts with Mom's cinnamon rolls in the morning on Saturday. Then we listen to conference on the computer while we all hang out together in the computer room. Mom always works on scrapbooking pages, the kids color or play with their toys, and Dad usually surfs the internet. Of course there's always a little time before conference begins and in between the two sessions where we try to do something fun. This year, the farm where Clarissa takes her riding lessons was having an Open House that day, so Mom took the kids over there while Dad worked on building more garden boxes.

Here's Amber with her friend Alyson. It was a little chilly that day, so Amber and Aly were happy to just sit on hay and have the barn block the wind. The other kids jumped on the trampoline or played in the sandbox while they waited for their turns on the horse.

This is Jared riding Babydoll. Grace is leading her. Grace is Clarissa's riding teacher. She is the sweetest, most mature 15 year old and does a really good job working with the kids. Babydoll is a gentle horse who also works well with the children.

Clarissa is advancing in her lessons quite well. She has started to learn how to post while Babydoll is trotting. She loves when Babydoll trots because it's so bumpy.

Krystal waited patiently for her turn and did great. She's been on ponies before, but Babydoll is much taller. She didn't seem scared at all. My first thought was, "Looks like we'll have two girls taking lessons soon."

They had several different activities set up for the kids to do. One of them was trying to lasso the bull. Our girls decided that riding the bull was more fun; then Amber felt like she got her ride in too.

It was a great weekend. Chris got a lot done outside and Jen completed 14 scrapbook pages. We really enjoyed hearing from our prophet, Thomas S. Monson and the other leaders of the church as well.