Very Busy - Sick - Big Snake

It has been a CRAZY week to say the least. Sunday our rodeo was cancelled. There was a tractor pull at the arena the day before and a lady was killed. Her husband was competing in the tractor pull. She went out to talk to him and the light changed to green. The other driver never saw her. Very sad!

Then, Sunday night around 1 am I woke up very sick. I was up and down the whole night. When morning came I knew there was no way I was going to work. I went to the doctor first thing and she gave me a shot and told me to go back to bed. Yes Ma'am...no problem....I had a virus...Anyhow, so that's what I did. Ryan took care of Shelby, went to work and did a bunch of yard work while I laid in bed, useless.

Monday night it rained and rained and rained in Houston. You may have seen it on the news that we were basically under water. Living so far out we didn't get near the rain and we have the fields and big ditches for the rain to go in. So, we got the rain we needed, but no flooding. But, because of the rain, FBISD (my district) was closed for the day. I was really thankful cause I still didn't feel like a 100% and really needed that day.

Unfortunately Ryan woke up sick on Tuesday. So, he took his turn on the couch/bed while Shelby and I did our business. I dropped her off at the babysitters for a few hours while I ran to town to do the many errands I don't normally get to do such as get my tires rotated, get my ring cleaned, get some stuff at the grocery store and eat out.

When Shelby and I got home Ryan was still sick so we did some stuff around the house and fed the horses. We also washed Twister. By then she had enough of being in her stroller so we went back inside.

Wednesday Ryan and I were both up and running....well, not running, but you know what I mean. Anyhow, it was a pretty normal day. I had TAKS testing and he had his normal work load. Wednesday evening was eventful though! We washed 4 horses and I took Badger for a ride in the pasture. That's when the real adventure happened!

I was strolling out of the back of the barn and started to head out to the back pasture when I saw a BBBBIIIIIIGGGG snake. I mean BIIIIGGGG! I went back and told Ryan. He comes out with 1/2 of a hand post hold digger. I was thinking "Are you kidding me? You are going to kill THAT snake with that 1/2 of a very old and dull post hole digger?" Ok, you are the man after all. So off I went to take care of Shelby while he did his manly duties. Of course, I had to watch the adventure so I picked around the corner of the barn just in time to see him pull the post hole digger from the head of the snake and the ground he drove it into only to see the snake spin around and jump towards him. WOW, that was scary. I figured it was a cotton mouth, which is a venomous snake and can really do some damage. Seeing it bounce back towards Ryan was not a good sight! Fortunately, Ryan and his ratty, old post hole digger won the battle and the snake was dead. I have added pictures so you can see how BBBIIIIGGG the snake was (over 5 ft long) and how ratty the post hole digger was. Needless to say, Ryan now has a gun stored in the barn!

You can click on the pictures to enlarge and see how big this thing was!

Oh, I almost forgot! Ryan was at the vets office earlier in the day. They had a momma cat and 3 kittens that needed a home. So, we decided to bring them home and put them in our barn. Momma cat is a wonderful mom and is VERY protective! She is super friendly, but she will get after the dog and the male cats. LOL She chased our friendly male cat, Fritz, out of our barn twice last night. We are happy to have her and her babies. With the excitement of the snake, I forgot to take pictures of her so I'll try to remember to do that soon. She is a tiger cat with white socks. She has a black kitten, a white and grey kitten and a tiger kitten. They still have their eyes open. I am sure Shelby will enjoy playing with them this summer.

I've also realized it really isn't good to have two animal lovers in the same household. It becomes a zoo! HA!

Ramsey and Weekend

I got an email this picture this morning. I thought it was pretty good and wanted to share.

Well, the Dave Ramsey Webinar was a success. We only had 15 or so people at our church, but it still went well. I hope those who attended enjoyed it and felt it was worth the trip and time away from home.

Monica and Leslie, the girls who work in the nursery at the church were very excited to get Shelby. They LOVE little children and right now she's the youngest one. So, they always look forward to holding her and playing with her. We are so blessed to have such wonderful people to help us with Shelby!!!

I'm sure the girls are very excited about the arrival of Ismael and Amber's baby boy, Levi. He was born earlier this week. I can't wait to see him! I want to go visit, but want them to settle into their new life with Levi.

This weekend we have the Wharton County Reunion Rodeo on Sunday. Pam has offered to help us out with Shelby since we both will be competing. Her help will be greatly appreciated. Ryan is going to heel on Twister, our paint horse. He hasn't heeled in a long time, so he is excited and nervous! I will run barrels on Badger. Badger doesn't run well in this arena so I plan to push and kick a lot. I hope we can show improvement. It is supposedly not real competitive so hopefully I'll come home with a check. We'll see...It sure would help me out for the week.

I'm sure glad it is Friday. It has been a busy week and our house reflects it. It will be good to do the never ending tasks of cleaning kitchen, living room, our room and laundry. And, with all the rain we got last weekend, Ryan is chomping at the bit to mow the lawn. I hate that we had to buy that lawn mower but it sure is nice to know all that land can be mowed in less than an hour. We need all the time saving jobs we can get!

Our Baby Girl

Here are some fun pics we took of her and us last night.

Here's a video of her in her bouncy seat that rocks. This is what she does inbetween bites. It makes it fun.

NM Boudrie's Puppy

I don't really have any news, but Nancy sent me some fun pictures of their new puppy, Cowgirl. It was her first experience with snow.

Pictures of Shelby

This is my favorite picture of her...Unfortunately her Easter dress was too small. Her Grandma Nancy bought it for her, but bought a 0-3 months...so I only got to take pictures of her and then had to take it off since we couldn't button up the back of it. That's ok, we were out of town and didn't even go to church on Easter so it all worked out.

Click on her link to see even more pictures of her that were taken Easter weekend.

This is another fav of mine...it was taken after I made my run on Saturday. Her shirt says "Will Rope for Candy"...I love it!

Here is a video of her playing in her entertainment center. She loves it! Notice how she knows her name. She just starting looking at me when I said her name a week or two ago. It's awesome how she knows her name!

This is a video of her with her dress on. I uploaded it by accident so decided to keep it on here so I had it uploaded already.

Easter Bunny & Barrel Run

I don't think I need to say much about this picture. Isn't it cute??? I know I'm bias, but it's still adorable! I had no intentions of getting pictures because I ran out of time and I didn't know where to go to get her picture. So, we lucked out when Walmart had someone taking pictures there. Her shirt says "Will Rope for Candy"....so fitting...hahaha...just not very Easter-y....oh well....She is a cowgirl after all!

Shelby is now 6 months old and doing all sorts of cute things. She is trying to stand and is starting to learn how to sit on her own. Her back is still not strong enough, but she's getting closer. She rolls around everywhere and will roll away from you if you look away briefly. She is nothing but smiles and enjoys life to the fullest. She, of course, also loves the horses. Twister, my paint horse, loves her too. He always wants to see Shelby and lets her pull on his nose wiskers and lets her pet him and squeal with excitement. It's awesome! I will take pictures and video of the two of them. I believe they are going to make an awesome team in another few years. It's amazing how the meanest horse in the pasture is the sweetest with us. Twister was my first horse down here and has a special place in my heart. So, he won't ever go anywhere. I would love to see him and Shelby become a team and share the bond I share with him already.

Here's my video from Saturday's run. I was hoping to post Sunday's run too, but my tape is screwed up on my video camera and I can't get it to download without having lines go through it. I wanted to show off my mad skills on the 3rd barrel. I was turning the 3rd barrel and I realized my rein was too long and Badger was going to go wide. So, I was holding the rein on the turn with my left hand and I reached down with my right hand to pull it harder so he would turn sharper. It worked and I didn't lose my balance! Yea!

I also worked Badger last night. We are still turning wider than I would like and I believe we could take off 3/10 of a second or so if I could get him to turn just a little tighter. This is risky (could hit the barrel and get a no time) but I believe it will pay off in the end. So, we worked on that last night. He did AWESOME. I have two barrel races this weekend and I can't wait to see how it turns out for us!

Yesterday Ryan took 'my' Romeo to work him on cows. He is still very green and so I was anxious to hear how he did. Ryan called me throughout the day to tell me something I already knew. That my horse was awesome! :) He worked great on the cows and was starting to cut them and go after them in the pens. Now he's in love with the horse too. I have a feeling we'll be fighting over him. Hahaha....perhaps he is our perfect mix....quick and caddy to make a great barrel horse, and big with strong bones for a heading (roping) horse. Time will tell!

Ryan also took his Mom's horse, Shiner, and used him to gather cattle. Ryan said Shiner did great as well. I was proud of him too. He is all racing blood, so we were curious to see how he'd do with the cattle. Ryan said he even started nipping at the cows...which is good...so Ryan is looking forward to working him more this year as well.

Great Race

This was a great weekend of barrel racing. I have never been to a WRAPN3 productions and I was impressed on how it was run. Crazy how much barrel racing can take place in 3 short days!

Badger and I did well and we were consistant 16.767 on Saturday and 16.775 on Sunday. We placed 3rd in the Open 3D for a $302 check and then we placed 1st in the 2D Adult incentive for a check of $93 on Saturday. Sunday we placed 2nd in the 2D Adult incentive for a check of $50. So, not a bad weekend.

In barrel racing it gets down to the thousandths of a second...for example...I missed out on an additional $300 by 0.027 of a second. I missed out on another $471 by 0.305 seconds. Amazing isn't it?

Anyway you look at it I can't complain. I came home with money in a very TOUGH barrel race. A lot of the pros were there....including many world champions, futurity and derby champions. Badger was only 7/10 of a second off of some of the toughest competition in the country. So, I was very proud of both of us.

We have decided to get him back into swimming. He needs to lose around 50-75 lbs. I think if he loses that we can be a lot tougher with the competition.

Shelby did great with her first night away from home. She is teething so it made things a little more challenging. She cowgirled up and slept in her play pen where the horses go. We have a walk through door that leads to the horse part of our trailer. I cleaned it out and put Badger in the last stall of the trailer on our way up to the barrel race so Shelby would have a clean place to sleep that night. My friend, Sandy, said that made us official Rodeo Trash! HA

We went to bed like normal (8 PM) on Saturday and slept great til 12 AM. Then she woke up screaming....poor thing...I'm pretty sure she had a belly ache. She would settle down when we would sit her up but as soon as we laid her down she would start to cry again. So, we gave her some tummy medicine and that seemed to be the trick. After about 20 min. she settled down and was keeping us up in our bed so we put her back in her play pen so we could get some rest and she would go to sleep. Ryan said she woke up two more times cause she spit her pacifier out. I never heard it her...other than that she slept til 7:30 AM.

It was also a challenge for us. Wow do you have to pack a lot of things when you are packing up a horse and child! We talked about getting a larger trailer, but priced them and decided we could make ours work. Hopefully it will get easier as we figure out what we need and don't need! I really like these WRAPN3 barrel races so I hope to attend more of them.

Well, time to get back to work so I will write more later...I also will post pics and videos of our weekend sometime soon with details of both.