Summer Horsing Around

Yesterday we picked up the younger child from her two-week girls' riding camp at Black River Farm and Ranch.

It was her second year attending a session, and she had another fantastic time.

On pickup day, the camp puts on a show with all the girls participating in their riding groups.

It begins with a parade around the ring.

The various groups demonstrate what they've learned over the two weeks.

From basic riding:

Vaulting (acrobatics on horse back). Did I mention the horse is moving as they do this?

Jumping:

Leah's Riding group demonstrated bareback skills:

Yes, all 4 hooves are in the air as the horse canters merrily along. She did great and was very poised and handled the horse well the whole time.

Leah received the award for most improved returning rider - out of 500 returning girls.

After the show she took us around the camp and we got to meet her friends and her favorite horses:

The mini donkeys were ridiculously cute:

We then took her out to lunch and drove on home. We're still working on the camp laundry today. She had a great time and wants to return next year.

Number 1 Child Returns

Abby returned from sleep-over camp yesterday. We picked her up from the bus and she wanted to head straight home.

At 25 days, it was the longest time she's been away from home.

She had a great time, met new friends from all over the US and Canada, and had such a good experience that she wants to go back next year.

I think she actually grew a few inches while she was away and likely gained some more wisdom as well and lost a baby tooth while she was there.

The first thing she did on returning home after hugging the Jett was to give her bookshelf a hug.

That's my girl.

After that was a hot shower for her, and a festive welcome home meal.

This was followed by the washing of tons of camp laundry.

She had a glowing review of the camp, its activities, her new friends, and most especially its awesome counselors that now Leah is all fired up to go with her next year.

Kids Home From Camp

This week saw the kids away at sleep-over camp for their first time.

A six-day session at Girl Scout camp, with them at the same location but Abby doing outdoor cooking and Leah doing horseback riding, so they would only see each other at mealtimes when the whole camp came together.

We dropped them off last Sunday, right as it began to rain, which was a bit of a concern as they were staying in heavy canvas tents on raised wooden platforms. After we drove away a massive storm hit our area, causing us more consternation especially as we couldn't get in contact with the camp. It then rained into the next day, and was unseasonably cold up until yesterday.

We shouldn't have worried. The Girl Scouts moved them into cabins for that night and even though their stuff got wet they were fine. They moved back to the tents where their main complaint was the tons of daddy long-leg spiders that swarmed them every night. Other than that they did great, they met friends and did tons of activities except that swimming was cancelled due to the cold weather.

We received a letter in the mail from Abby four days after camp started detailing how much fun she's having and her activities and that Leah was fine too.

So we picked them up yesterday and they had a great time want to go back for more. They met a ton of new friends, learned a lot of camp songs and had great times doing their activities.

It's a good thing we signed them up for the next session. So we're doing laundry, cleaning all their gear and getting them ready for the 4-day session that starts tomorrow afternoon where Abby will be learning outdoor survival skills and Leah will do art explosion. Should be fun.