Ride for Life 2016

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Last weekend was a busy weekend! Hubby, Abug, and I were able to participate once again in the Ride for Life to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. With the sale of our house, it was kind of iffy leading up to the week if we’d be able to go or not. It depended a lot on if we got moved, etc. We were mostly moved (minus the garage, we did that this week) so we decided to take a weekend off from life and go to the ride!

Jared had his camper down there so we had a place to sleep, they took a horse for Abug and me to ride (why we didn’t take one of ours, who knows, maybe that last minute decision of actually going), and away we went. Earlier in the week we discussed what we were going to eat Friday and Saturday night. I mentioned Chicken and Noodles for Friday night. Deb said if we had that, we needed mashed potatoes. So the idea was born.

Thursday night I made up 4 batches of homemade noodles, then woke up Friday morning and my little helper and I went to work making Chicken and Noodles, Mashed Potatoes, and 2 pans of Biscuits. One pan was for us to eat Saturday morning, which oddly enough we wound up eating Friday night with dinner and the second pan was for the baked sale auction Friday night.

About noon or so we headed toward the campground. My husband was annoyed with me because I accidentally forgot my grandma’s cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls for the baked sale auction so we had to back track a bit. Other than he was annoyed it was a good thing we did, I’ll tell you why in a minute! But also, it started raining around noon, at times flat out pouring.

This picture was taken around 4-4:30 and as you can tell it’s raining and the sun is out. Now the old wives tale my grandma told me was if it’s raining and the sun is out, it’ll rain tomorrow. It didn’t though. Whew we missed that!

Abug and I walked up to the pavilion where we left hubby. With it raining and the sun out, someone suggested that there must be a rainbow somewhere. I ran outside and around the corner and sure enough, there was a big, gorgeous, full rainbow. I’m not sure most of us had seen one quite that close. I told Grady that the end was in his horse pen (looks that way) so since there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that must mean his horses are a pot of gold. He just looked at me.

Before the auction we ate dinner. Then we all headed down to the baked goods auction to see what was up for auction. It was posted that the auction started at 6. We were told it started at 6:30. It didn’t officially start until 7.

This cake looked amazing and that cutting board. It went for like $60 or $70, I don’t remember the final amount.

This is grandma’s strawberry preserves. OMG they are amazing. This jar went for $35. I’d say worth every penny!

Grandma’s dinner rolls with some strawberry preserves went for $37.50 and her cinnamon rolls went for $45.

SW made cowboy bark. Before the auction I had the opportunity to sample some, and we even bid on it. She had 6 jars. The first jars went for $15. Now usually, later items of the same thing go for less, but not in this case. The second 2 jars went for $20. And the last set of 2 jars went for $25. That was a piece. So 2 at $15, 2 at $20 and 2 at $25. I think people started sampling it and realizing just how good it actually was.

My biscuits in this cast iron skillet with some of grandma’s preserves went for $92.50. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. In the spring I sold a chocolate chip cookie in a cast iron skillet for $135… lol. I’m fairly certain this was the second highest selling item.

This was a caramel apple pie in a cast iron pie plate. This was the highest selling item. It went for $100. The lady who made this, Tracy also did the cake and did a creme brulee cheesecake. She also drew a picture and something else for this. I was teasing her on Facebook asking if there was anything she couldn’t do. She told me Math. Then I had to give her fits because I saw her counting money for the Ride for Life (she’s a committee member) and asked if we should be worried. She laughed and said she could do basic math :).

Most times the only pictures taken of me are selfies. Oh well. Why I’m not smiling who the heck knows. Like my hat?

I swear this is a moon. I’m fairly certain we must have had a full moon somewhere around this night. I’m not exactly sure when it was though but dang, is this not gorgeous. And the fog and smoke up in the trees. It was breath taking and sadly my photo doesn’t even do it justice.

The next morning we woke up to a fog in the air. It felt almost as if it was going to be a cool morning/day and we wondered if it was going to rain. It never did and it warmed up significantly.

No, she’s not really drinking that, but she thought she was. She said she wanted coffee. The bottle was empty when we gave it to her but she was satisfied.

The kid loves to ride, did I or have I ever mentioned that? She could hardly wait for us to get our horses saddled and get on. She and I rode Karen’s gelding Rogue.

There were 3 legs to the ride, roughly 2 hours to 2 1/2 hours a piece. She only made the first leg of the ride because we were in Jared’s saddle and she couldn’t get comfortable. Hubby and Jared didn’t ride, so she went back to camp with them. They apparently went to the store and hung out. Jared even got her to take a daytime nap, which NEVER happens these days.

I’m fairly certain this might be Rogue’s first selfie? haha. Anyway at one point on the trip, there was a guy who was talking to me and making mention that I was riding an Appaloosa. Now my dad always gives Karen fits that Rogue has Measles. So when that guy was saying something to me, at one point I told him he better steer clear or he might wind up with Measles. I thought he was going to fall off his horse laughing at me. What makes it even better is he probably didn’t know/realize this isn’t my horse. I do want to mention though that Rogue is an awesome horse and Karen did a great job training him. So even for all the jabs she might get, this is a pretty cool horse!

Once we got back to camp, it was time to start thinking about the Duck Race. Hubby and Jared went to selling ducks after they started the fire for our dinner. Well the fire burned out and I got blamed =P. I wanted to watch the duck race but I also wanted a shower. Duck race was supposed to be at 4:30. By 5 it hadn’t started and I really wanted a shower so I went and showered.

When I was done, they came back from the duck race. Our friend Chris won the race. They then cleaned up, started a fire, and we went to cooking. I love to cut up onions. No joke. Seriously. So I got the job of slicing up 4 onions and then I started cooking them. Jared was afraid I went to cooking them too soon because we didn’t even have the fire ready for steaks, but it turned out, everything got done right about the same time and it was amazing!

We then wandered up to the auction. Abug found some friends to play with during the auction. I think we walked away with a guitar and some apple treats for the horses. 40#’s of apple treats that is… shhhh we’re not crazy, I swear.

Friday night/Saturday morning we woke up to a cold camper, so Saturday night/Sunday morning they turned on the space heater. Okay… we woke up to a warm camper. It was actually nice but Hubby and Jared complained about being hot. As I looked out the window, I saw the sky on fire. That sunset was bound to be gorgeous! I said I should grab my camera and go take pictures. Hubby was like, go pee first. haha… I was like do I have time or will I lose the sunset? He said I don’t know. I took my chances and went pee. So the answer is, you’ll lose the sky on fire opportunity, but there were still beautiful skies. OMG!

There were hay bales in this field. There was one that was probably 2 feet tall maybe and I sat up on it waiting for the sunrise to happen. It looked like it was going to be amazing.

Then the clouds ate the sunrise and I didn’t even get a sunrise photo.

By this time, we were all awake and sitting around a fire. We were like, we’re hungry, but no one brought breakfast food. We decided to cut up the steak and potatoes left over from the night before, and eat them for breakfast. Grady kept joking that breakfast tasted like dinner :). And the smells. Oh the smells. They were AMAZING I wish there was such thing as smellavision like Rachael Ray says, or smellacomputer?