We are home again and loving it! The Oaks (the show in CA) was terrific. Its such a great show for the kids as its near the beach, Sea World, And Legoland! We spent time at all 3 places which the kids loved, pictures soon.... The horses were super as well. Uryadi won the Grand Prix and Tin Tin was second. Uryadi is Mike's baby so he was so proud! We've has her since she was 4, and this was her first big win, so it was very special. Tin Tin is a new ride and we were finally able to be in sinc enough to put everything together and jump double clear, so I was pleased with that. All in all, it was a good trip for kids, parents, and horses!

Our adoption is slowly moving along, and we are as inpatient as ever to get Jonah (decided on Jonah as his name instead of Jaxon) home. He will be 3 in September, and we hope to have him home before then! Right now we are waiting for a court date, which we should hear about in the next couple of weeks. Ethiopia is in the process implementing a new rule requiring both parents to travel for the court date which we hope won't go into effect until after our court date as Mike and I can't imagine leaving all the kids home while we both go to Ethiopia. That would be very very hard, especially for Mahlia, so we are praying that they hold off on this new rule a bit longer!

We are off again in a couple of weeks to Thunderbird (my favorite show) and then on to Spruce! As always, we are loving being home, but we all love Thunderbird and Spruce so we'll be ready to head out again in a couple of weeks.

Happy Spring!

Well we're back in Sandpoint for a couple of weeks, post HITS Thermal, pre The Oaks. We were all down in Thermal (a horse show in southern CA, for my non horsey friends) for the better part of 6 weeks. As you can see from the pic's, we hit Legoland, Sea World, and our favorite Living Desert Zoo during our time down there. We also had visits from Granny O and G-Pa and Carollyne which were wonderful! The competition was good, not great, but good, so I can't complain :) The horses all came back better for having been there, especially the younger horses. Our Grand Prix horses are new rides for me, so it takes a while to 'click' at this level. Patience is not one of my strengths, but I'm working on it.....! The kids love to be at the shows though, which is great. We have some great friends who we meet up with during the 12-16 weeks a year we compete, and the kids have grown up with some wonderful people and friends who are now truly family (see Janet, in the pic's below:) Janet runs the Grand Prix ring at the shows, as well as keeps her eyes on all the riders kids! It makes being at the shows like being with family, and that's pretty cool really.

As much as we enjoy being 'on the road', its true that there is no place like home...... We were all dying to get home, and ended up leaving a week early b/c we just couldn't be away any longer! Schweitzer was calling (see the first picture:)! And we all missed our Sandpoint friends, and our home here, which we all love :-) We drive to the shows, and the southern CA shows are a 3 day drive, with 7 kids..... We got home 2 weeks ago, and we hit the road and head back down next week. Argh! I'm not looking forward to the drive :( But, we are headed to a lovely competition, and hey, Janet and our other good friends will be there, so life is good!

And one more thing......did you notice the count down to Jaxon above?

Yup, here we go again :-) Jaxon is 2 and living in Ethiopia, we hope to have him home late summer/early fall. Wish us luck please!

Happy Spring!

Blessings,

Jennifer

Well here we are down in southern California until mid March! We've been here a week and all is groovy. The kids have settled in well, they always do :-) Its fun for us all to see our "horse show friends" after the winter off. We've already been to our favorite zoo (The Living Desert) and we head to Legoland on Monday, wahoo! Sophie had her 7th birthday yesterday and she celebrated with family, friends at the show, and a Princess and the Frog cake, yum! The horses just started competing and the competition year has started well. The Grand Prix horses are just getting going and young Camillo won his first class today which we were very happy with as his owners were there, and they were so proud! I don't think I've ever put pic's of the horses on the blog, so here they are.

More soon.

Peace and Love,

Jennifer