Trails for Kids 2016

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{WARNING: Picture Overload… again…}

So what we were up to this last weekend? Well it involved friends, camping, and horses. What more could you ask for? Hubby took Thursday off and he and Jared worked on moving horses, trailers, stuff down to Underwood’s Crag O’Lea in Pineville, MO, for the weekends adventures. I met Karen after I got out of school and picked up Abug and she got off work, then we headed down.

The evenings meal consisted of Steak and potatoes. A good kind of hearty meal :).

Then our friends Tony & Stephanie couldn’t get power to their camper, so the men went to work trying to rewire the box and figure out why. And just like that (you know like 20 minutes later, not bad) they had power. Woot woot! Nothing like rewiring by flashlight. Tony had a flashlight on his head and every time he’d look away hubby would grumble at him because he took the light.

Then we wandered down to the tent. I guess I should tell you this weekend was Trails for Kids. It is to raise money for the Tri-County CP Center.

Once we got to the tent, we checked out the lighting that hubby/Grady/Jared/Jason helped wire up. There was a dance floor so I turned on baby girls favorite song, “Girl Crush” and she and daddy danced. Then Jared tried to teach her how to break dance.

Friday morning our plans were breakfast and then to hit the trails. We had Bacon and Eggs and steak left over from Thursday night. They got out tortillas and cheese and made breakfast burritos. I knew Jared came into the camper looking for cheese but it wasn’t until my second burrito that I actually found the cheese. I made the comment I thought cheese would make it better, but it really didn’t. And if you look at the plate of bacon, a few pieces are burnt to a crisp… I had them on my second burrito. I wound up not eating the whole thing. The burnt bacon was not so yummy but the other bacon was excellent! We also had hubby’s candied jalapeños. YUM!

So funny story… Baby girl was eating bacon and eggs, mainly eggs. She had a couple helpings of eggs and on her last helping, she had one bite left. Karen nor I could get her to eat that one last bite so I told her if she would eat that last bite, we could ride. She ran to Karen, gobbled up that last bite and then drug me to the horse pens. We laughed and laughed. Sadly we had to go back up to camp and help clean up before we could ride.

Then it was time to head down and saddle up horses. Abug had a friend close to her age this weekend that we rode with. ER (her initials…ha) was about to turn 5. They had so much fun and kept each other entertained while the adults got the horses out and saddled. Aloha doesn’t like Karen’s horse Rogue. It’s kind of funny… I’m not sure if it is because he’s an Appaloosa or what the deal is… but they don’t play well together. They learned to this weekend though.

On our ride on Friday we ran across this tree. I’m sure there is a story, we just don’t know what that story is…

Abug rode with her daddy on Friday as he rode Aloha. I’m sure she could have ridden Blonde Barbie with me, but Aloha is about as bomb proof as they come for kids horses so we just felt more comfortable with her riding Aloha. Eventually Jared asked if Abug wanted to ride with him and she said yes, then she fell asleep in Uncle J’s arms. He rode with her asleep for at least 30 minutes.

We got back to camp around lunch time and just scrounged for lunch. Eventually we decided to take the horses down to the water. On the ride that morning, Barbie wasn’t real sure about water, so they decided to take her into the creek/river and get her more exposure. I’ll admit my butt was raw and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hit rocks if she bucked with the water (not that I thought she would) so Jared volunteered to ride her into the water. She did excellent.

Then we went back to the trailer/pen area and fed horses. Abug, ER, and I held Blonde Barbie outside the pens while all the other horses were separated so they could eat. Eventually Deb and SW got there so Abug went up to the campers with them. Hubby went to the campers too to work on dinner before the Friday night baked goods auction. We had Fajitas.

These were some of the most expensive baked goods I have seen. haha. So this cookie here is just a chocolate chip cookie I baked in a new cast iron skillet. Mine was the last to sell and I figured that sales would go down and it wouldn’t even bring the $20 I had in the skillet. Um… I’m pretty sure we had to pick my jaw up off the ground when my cookie sold for $135. No joke.

Also a special thanks goes out… So they had a 50/50 pot. You pay for tickets and half the money raised goes to the winner and half goes to the CP Center. They sold $800 worth of tickets so the winner got $400. She donated $200 back to the CP Center. Awesome!!

And on a side note, Saturday night while sitting at the item auction, the people sitting next to SW were talking about my cookie and how they couldn’t believe that just a chocolate chip cookie could bring that much money. Note to the wise… be careful what you say because you never know who is sitting around listening… I’ll admit, I couldn’t believe it either but…..

After the auction I went around and gathered up pictures, because that’s what I do. I passed Abug, Deb, and SW a few times. Abug was leading Pete yelling, “Come on Pete, Come on Pete.” We laughed and laughed. She had so much fun.

After Friday nights auction, there was karaoke.

So the real reason for us to all come together was the Trails for Kids. It is a fundraiser to raise money for the local CP Center.

Saturday morning’s view! Beautiful!! Our breakfast was quick because we were to go out on the first trail ride of the day that left at 9am. Deb bought breakfast burritos from SAMs and that’s what we all ate. They really are good. Thank you Deb for breakfast!!

Harriett brought Abug this blanket. How gorgeous is this? Abug loves it too. And it is sooooooo warm! Abug is a little protective of this blanket. She let grandma borrow it but not mommy….

And while I was getting ready on Saturday morning I saw this. Not your typical crock pot huh? haha.

On these rides, the Missouri Governors Mounted Guard is on duty :). Horses were saddled by this time, we were all just waiting for 9am.

I let hubby take Blonde Barbie on Saturday and Abug and I took Aloha. About 30 minutes in to the 3ish hour ride, Abug fell asleep and I got to carry the sleeping baby. She slept for 30 minutes to an hour, then woke up and chattered the rest of the ride.

When we got back from the ride, I started studying for Comps until Abug and I took a nap. The weather was gorgeous! Around 3:30 or so, Memaw showed up and we went down to the water and she and Abug played, throwing rocks into the water. Memaw thinks they had to have thrown at least 100 rocks into the water. We were waiting for the duck race. Sadly hubby didn’t win this year... oh well you win some, you lose some ;). They gave hubby waders and he was the duck dumper. I guess the waders leaked and he got soaked. haha.

Now here’s the exciting part of the duck race. They had around 500 ducks to sell. They sold every one of them. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen!

Then we had the item auction. Sadly it started before 6pm (when it was supposed to) so by the time we got up to the tent, we missed out on auction items as well as having bad seating. So I didn’t know half of what sold. Hubby got a pencil drawing from our friend Robyn Cook donated and it brought about $250, then I donated a painting (I didn’t do it!) and it brought $150.

After the auction Kinsey Sadler put on a free concert. She helped raise even more money.

Sunday morning breakfast was a use up breakfast. We added all kinds of things from the previous evenings meals and made the best eggs and bacon and whatever. Tortillas were thrown in as well. YUM! I think the eggs were better Sunday than Friday and they were good Friday. Karen and I had to wake Abug up around 9 or she’d still have been asleep.

Abug still was ready to ride so we saddled up horses and just the girls went out for a short (couple hour) ride. Then we went back to camp and packed up. Finally we went down and loaded horses up. Abug was STILL wanting to ride (after 3 days at 2-3 hours a piece) so we put her on Rogue bareback as we were saddling horses. (fyi, there is a person just outside this picture just making sure nothing happened to her…. not that we were worried but.)