Froggin'!

Last night we went "Froggin'" at our friends' house after dark. I used to love frogs! Loved catching them, holding them, and protecting them from my brother who threatened to skip 'em like stones across Bass Lake, where I first fell in love with these slimy amphibians.

So last night was a rite of passage.

Here's Brody with his bucket of tadpoles, which he is still calling "tagpoles." I've corrected him over and over but he simply won't let go of it. Finally he said, "Maybe tadpoles grow up into frogs, but tagpoles grow up to be toads!"

more horses

Caleb

Brody

Young Asher Beau

BROTHERS!

Their Mama

down on the farm...

Cutest Cowpokes

Here are our darling boys at their horse back riding lessons last week. Brody (5) called them "horse backing lessons." Makes sense to me. While Caleb has taken lessons before, those had been on full grown ponies. This was the first time all three of them mounted and rode horses. At age three Asher was joyful and confident. Brody acted cool and had no trouble kicking the beast to get him to giddy-up and go. And Caleb swelled with pride to finally be living his dream of riding horses at an actual ranch.

We found a wonderful teacher up here in Northern California who is giving them a laid back environment to simply fall in love with these magnificent animals.

Yee Haw!

Mutton Bustin' Champion!

We've been talking about Lake County's Rodeo for over a month now, especially the Mutton Bustin' Competition for children under 50 pounds. It's like Bull riding, or riding a buckin' bronco bareback, except they ride a full grown, sheered sheep. To tell you the truth, we didn't expect Caleb or Asher to be interested, but we thought it was right up Brody's alley. To our surprise he said, "no." This morning, however, around 9am we were talking about going to the rodeo tonight, and Brody told us he was ready to ride the sheep. I immediately made a few calls and signed him up.

We ran to the local Ag Store (this is farm country, people) and got Brody his first pair or wranglers and a pair of real riding boots. We also picked up a belt with a shiny little buckle. By the end of the night we had to exchange the purchased buckle with a man-sized belt buckle that read "Lake County Mutton Buster Champion - 2011"

His store bought buckle above.

His hard earned Mutton Buster Champion Buckle below!

Papa Danna and Cousin Alex were with us for the rodeo fun this evening.

Nana said they should have announced Brody's family

all the way from Texas was in the stands tonight.

All ready to ride!

Brothers and Buckles

Brody usually doesn't like people looking at him. After he won and before we hit the stadium bandstands I warned him, "people are going to be looking at you, be friendly and smile and say thank you. They're just excited for you." Here he is walking amongst his fans.

So Far This Summer...

So far we've been swimming, gone skiing, inner-tubed, ridden sea doos, seen fire works and watched a demolition derby that had us laughing for days, gone horse back riding (or "horse backing" as Brody called it), been bowling, to the movie theatre, gone to Summer camps, had guests, bbq'd and slept hard. Here are some pictures of our water play...