Crooks Family, A bakers Dozen :)

We are moving! Many of you already know this, but the time has finally come for us to announce our move to our clients, which means it can now be public knowledge. Mike is a local here having lived in Western Washington his whole life. I have lived here for 16 years. We are both very ready for this move. The last decade has been the best decade in both of our lives, and Mike says he thinks the next ten will be even better! Hope he's correct :-) He usually is though so I have good reason to believe him.

We are making this move for a few different reasons, the first and foremost being for our family. This area (Bellevue/Kirkland) has grown and changed dramatically in the last decade. What used to be a lovely small town area has grown into a city, and the huge economic growth around here has had a major impact on the area, both positive and negative. While our business, like so many, has benefited from the economic growth, the Bellevue society scene has gotten to us.  Mike and I also own and operate a huge horse business over here with an 80 client riding school and a couple of different board and training programs. We are both feeling run a little ragged between the business, our own horses, and most importantly our children. We needed to find somewhere to move to where the pace of life can slow down to where we are not running at breakneck speed to get through the day. Well we are happy to say we have found that place!

We also need to be in a place where we have the time and energy to focus on our horses. We plan on making a business out of training and selling young show jumpers as we both enjoy young horses, while really trying to focus on the Grand Prix horse(s). Our travel and horse show life will continue as normal as we hope to build stronger Grand Prix horses with the wonderful new sponsor we have. Mike barely has time to ride at our current stables as he is so busy running the place and teaching. The move will enable Mike to do what he is so gifted at, and loves, working with young horses. Mike will continue to work with and train Samia, a great long term client and owner of Jennifer's young mare Chablis, and we may try to pick up a new client or two in Sandpoint, but we also may chose not too:-) We'll just go with the flow.

We have been looking for a few years now for a place to live where the people have more old fashioned family values, where our children will grow up seeing that you need to give, in order to get back, and where they will have roll models in areas such as work ethic. We have looked for a town where we will  know our neighbor, and they will be there to help in a pinch. We in turn will be there for them, all 9 of us :-)  A town where the kids can run around outside with their friends building forts (like I did as a kid) and playing outside instead of going to the mall. Where they can blaze around bareback on their ponies and join pony club and just have fun! Sandpoint appears to be that town. We have been going to Sandpoint for years, and the more we go, the longer we want to stay. Finally, last summer, we decided we wanted to stay forever! Sandpoint is also a very out-doorsie town, and that will fit us like a glove. The kids can't wait to spend the weekends skiing at Schweitzer Mountain, and the summers boating on Lake Pend Oreille and hiking and camping. Neither can we! If that sounds good to you too, please come visit us as we are building a guest apartment and really look forward to visits from our friends!

We bought a 37 acre piece of land at a great price (thanks Michael:-) and even became good friends with our real estate agent Michael and his wife Laura (yes they were still our friends after the property closed.....),Hey, we though, a house and some friends, all in one week! Cool! Anyway, the new "Stella Farm" will be in Sandpoint, ID. We are in the process of building our 16 horse barn (downsizing from 60 stalls here), our indoor and outdoor arenas, and some nice pastures. We even get to install a eurociser for the horses which we've wanted forever! 

We will make the big move of 7 children (lauren and Sean will always have rooms and be welcome as well), 5 dogs, 1 cat, 1 frog, 16 horses, and a whole lot of stuff, at the end of August. We are feeling very lucky as our wonderful nanny Jennifer and her husband Cameron, and our groom (aka. our extra daughter) Jenna will be moving with us to Sandpoint. Having them make the move with us is wonderful as it will ease the transition for the kids and the horses greatly, not to mention for Mike and I. We found a wonderful school in Sandpoint where all the children have been accepted and are looking forward to attending. As most of you know, Kai and Holly have repaired cleft lip/palates that caused them to have speech difficulties. They both need specialized speech therapy from a speech pathologist who is trained for cleft kids, well the icing on the cake is that Sandpoint has a speech pathologist who is on the national Cleft Palate board and is excellent! Things just keep falling into place for us there!

While we are very ready to move, we are also very sad to leave the people and places we love around here. I'm not going there tonight though as this is my "We're Moving YAY" announcement. Later in the summer will be my "Oh my gosh this is real and I'm getting very sad to leave" message, but that one is for later. Tonight, we are just looking forward to the next decade of our lives in Sandpoint!

Best Wishes for a wonderful summer to you all!

Jennifer and Mike

Catherine, Ciara, Hunter, Ruby, Kai, Sophie, and Holly!

PS.The pictures below are one we have taken in Sandpoint in the last 7 months.