Kris' Broken Toe

Here's a lovely shot of my broken toe later in the evening after it happened. Around 6:30 pm or so, I was getting something upstairs, when I tripped over Jared's EFY suitcase (which we had, of course, asked him to put away multiple times). When I looked down to see how bad it was, my fourth toe was bent sideways toward my pinkie toe. I decided that was a bad thing and asked Brittany to take me to the instacare.

I was x-rayed and it showed that the proximal phalanx (that bone closest to the web of the toes) was broken diagonally and slipped a little. So I had two extremely painful shots at the base of my toe to numb it and the doctor reduced the fracture (straightened it out) and buddy-taped it. I also have a really pretty black shoe with a velcro closure that protects it when I walk.

Needless to say, the kids are doing all the housework now. This will, hopefully, continue on after I am all better. This is definitely causing problems for my horseback riding, waterskiing and 4-wheeling.

Brittany's Allergy Tests

Brittany went and had allergy testing done because she wants to have allergy shots. They did a full test on her back, and she is extremely allergic to cats, very allergic to dogs and horses, and somewhat allergic to grass (the kind we have in our yard, of course) and one type of weed. She is supposed to start her shots sometime next week.

Horse Lessons

Here I am learning to post (no hands!) while my teacher lunges Dixie. And yes, it is as hot as it looks in this photo.

Not a great photo, but there we are. Dixie has been sore on her front feet because of her past laminitis, but we had her shod the other day and she is doing much better!

Another horse ride

Here's Kiersten's friend, Adah, on Dixie. It's fun to take the little kids for these rides; they think it's so exciting!

A Lawn Lesson

We learned our lesson about waiting two weeks to mow the lawn. It rained almost the whole time we were gone and was hot the rest of the time. Brittany took about 4 hours to mow the back yard. I think she went over 4-foot sections three or four times each. Here it is in progress. Also, the grass had all gone to seed, so I didn't want to put it in my garden, so we filled up two garbage cans and about 8 black garbage bags!

Jared's Braces are Off!

Jared got his new camera when we got home from CA, and he also got his braces off!!! As you can see, he is extremely happy.

Here's the new smile!

Riding Dixie

This is our friend, Jessica, and her daughter, Eleanore. Jessica is livin' the dream of owning a horse through and with me. We are taking lessons together and taking turns with the feeding. This is Eleanore's first time getting to ride Dixie.

Eleanore is exactly the same age as Kiersten; they were born about 1-2 hours apart!

The kids like to ride, but they are getting kind of bored with being led in the pasture. Kiersten is using her winter boots for riding.

The Warner Bros Water Tower!

On our way home, we had to stop in Burbank for gas and a potty break, and we happened to be right near the Warner Bros Studio! We managed to get this photo from the car.

Fashion Show

Kiersten really likes to shop. And try on all the clothes. She thought the armful of bracelets was fun, but heavy.

And since I am now a cowgirl, I tried on some hats. This one was too big, though.

How I spent my summer vacation

Most days we were able to watch dolphins playing in the ocean near the beach. There were surfers almost every day, too. Lots of the paddleboarders!

What's a vacation without watching TV? The TV was mounted in the upper corner of the kids' bedroom, and Kiersten decided it was comfortable to lay like this and watch!

This is how Jared spent the last week of the vacation. I guess the first week was fun, but the second one got a little long! He just wanted to go home and see his friends!!

Mark stayed over the weekend with us and we took the Amtrak train on Sunday up to San Luis Obispo and had lunch, then rode it back down to Santa Barbara. It was really fun, since most of us had never ridden a train before!

Tanner got this skeleton that he ordered from the chiropractor just before we left home. He loves how it moves. It's name is Mr. Thrifty, but he found out that it is actually a girl skeleton. He brought it with him on the train.

Buried treasures!

Tanner the Merman

Jared built the merman tail for Tanner

 

Tanner buried Kiersten next

 

Scooter likes to chase all the people and dogs, so he was on a leash the whole time. He had fun digging in the sand under the chairs.

I don't know how they can stand to be buried like this. Sand everywhere!!

Love the braids sticking out sideways!!

Vacation!

We spent lots of time just reading and hanging out. Kiersten and Tanner had fun in the sand some of the time. It was pretty cloudy most days, June Gloom in California!

Just enjoying the sand

It's pretty fun to have Scooter on our trip. Here's Brittany taking him for a morning walk on the beach! Today we mostly just relaxed, ate, read and slept. Ah, vacation!!

Ladybugs, sandcastles, and kites, oh my!

There were ladybugs all over the beach! Apparently this usually happens in April because of warm weather and/or Santa Ana winds blowing them this way. I don't know if they have been here since April, but there are millions of them!

This is the Harry Potter sandcastle that Kiersten and I made. The tallest pointy tower is Dumbledore's office, and in the second picture, the rock on the right is Hagrid's hut, which Dumbledore can reach by just going down those stairs and along the path. You can't see it very well, but on the left of the second picture, that flat area is the Quidditch pitch. There was going to be a lake out by Hagrid's hut, but we were on the dry part of the beach and figured the water would just get absorbed too quickly. Kiersten made the cool doors.

Jared tried to get the kite strings attached properly so we could fly the stunt kite. Here is the result. I am not bitter.

Really. I am not. We (I) spent about five hours total untangling this string (yes, I know we could have just gotten some more, but it was a pride issue). I cannot tell you how satisfying it was when we finally got it all untangled and attached to the kite! We tried to fly it this morning, but the wind wasn't strong enough. I'm sure we'll get another chance before we go home!