I have pictures below of the five of us in funeral finery. Sorry about the quality of the pictures. We had so little time to prepare for the funeral. Polly died on a Monday, the funeral was on Tuesday evening and the interment was on Wednesday morning. We managed to find appropriate clothing for all, but also managed to forget a camera. Anyway, it's not often you'll see us all dressed up, so we took advantage of the sad occasion to take some pictures on Paul's Blackberry.
The last month has brought us beginnings too. Like the beginning of Amelia getting into the pantry. Or the beginnings of her climbing the stairs. She has since been clocked at 14 seconds for the short flight (6 stairs). We hope she doesn't choose to climb the larger staircase just yet.
Then there was the wondrous beginning marked by the celebration of Easter. And celebrate we did. On April 3rd, Easter Eve if you will, our church held the annual Easter Egg Hunt. This is the first year that we were here to help AND it didn't get rained out. We almost got blown away, though.
Kristen and I snuck in a trail ride that morning, before high winds and thunderstorms were supposed to roll in. Later, as James and I were helping rope off sections of lawn at the local funeral home (our church grounds are too small to hold the hunt), we had a hard time keeping hold of the bags and boxes of eggs, registration forms and raffle tickets. Still, we managed quite well until the pastor said, "Go!" After that, you had to be able to fend for yourself.
Paul drove Amelia down for the hunt. We carried her off to one side and set her in front of an egg. Well, she didn't much like the grass, so we had to set her closer to the egg before she would pay attention to it. We tried again when Vicki, the pastor's wife, gave us another egg. Same result. She did like playing with the eggs and the basket, once we got them all within reach.
Later, at home, we feasted on roast beef, held our own egg hunt (and gift hunt) and in general enjoyed the day together. Easter morning, Kristen and James drove in town to attend church services with their step-dad and then have Easter dinner with their mom, in between her home health aid shifts. Meanwhile, Paul, Amelia and I went to church and then hosted Cindra, Rich, Jennifer and Ken for our Easter get-together. Ken and Jennifer brought Amelia a really cute stuffed lamb. Overall, it was a great day and wondrous celebration of Jesus' resurrection.
on Sunday, April 11th, Kristen, her friend Autumn and her mom Terri accompanied Amelia and me to the annual Equine Affaire in Columbus at the State Fairgrounds, which sort of marks the beginning of show season and horse activities for the year. We watched the Extreme Cowboy Race finals (http://extremecowboyassociation.com/), cheering on the cowgirl who got second and third with her Appaloosa and her Paint. She happens to be the trainer who is working with our blacksmith's young horse.
One of the main reasons we attended the Affaire was to watch Cindra's horse Henry participate in a couple of clinics. Cindra got to ride him on Saturday for a clinic with Craig Cameron (see site above). Sunday's clinics were with Scot Hanson, who used to train police horses (http://www.horsethink.com/). Since Scot was using Henry as a demo, Cindra got to watch the clinic with the rest of us. Of course, we went shopping and just had to buy Amelia a soft and cuddly version of Henry for her to bring home.
Wow! Looking back, it seems a lot happened in the last three weeks. I hope you have time to look at and enjoy the pictures.
Teri
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