Silver Spring Fountain

We've done this before, of course, but the kids were begging to do this again after a Sunday morning at Kenilworth Gardens and then Eastern Market. I had a great time at Kenilworth Gardens, even found a leaf for a hat. Because those lotus leaves are BIG.

I had a hard time getting action shots of Q7 because she never stood still long enough. C8 loved just parking herself in the water so I was able to get some crazy ones of her.

 

There seems to be nothing better than getting soaking sopping dripping wet in the middle of town. We actually hadn't been for over a year, maybe two, and Q7 got there and commented that she had a picture in her mind of the fountain tiles as a rainbow. I think she was a little disappointed that it wasn't a rainbow, more of a swirl of blues with a sun-splash of yellows, but not so disappointed that she didn't go in.

Gymkana!

guest blogger Q7.

Gymkana was fun but we had to do cartwheels every morning but I mostly liked mostly everything. Birdcages were fun, especially on circuit (on the rings) not on daddy.

Cartwheels are horrible! I was bad at them. I was good at circuit.

Circuit is when we go on:

uneven bars (a high bar and a low bar together),


the rings (I bet you know about those),  

a moon bounce,


and parallel bars (parallel bars are two bars that are shortish and you do a little walk -- like a straight hare, a human hand walk, a kitten, and stuff like that on them).


The trampoline was super fun.

C8 liked the trampoline and balance beam best ... here she is!

New things

C8 is the same age that I was when I got glasses. Only she has one near-sighted eye and one far-sighted eye. Q7 also tested into glasses but she begged so much the eye doctor said she could wait 6 months and get her vision tested again to see if she still needs them. Fine. C8 didn't fuss at all during the exam, she even started talking about how she'd need glasses, etc. So we thought she was OK with it. Until we went to pick them up on Friday.

First she tried not going to the eye doctor's to pick up the glasses until I said we were going to Yogi Castle afterwards to celebrate getting glasses. When we got there she barely put them on when she tore them off again.  She had to try them on to make sure they fit correctly. She did not like that. She could barely stand to look at herself in the mirror.  But she did it. Until we left the store then the tears and crying started, so we had to go home instead of Yogi Castle.

Eventually, though, we got C8 to wear the glasses for some time here and there, and we did go out to dinner to celebrate. We had to take pictures on the sly. But look how cute!

The next day we got another sneaky shot at Udvar-Hazy  on Saturday ... even cuter when she isn't pouting.

I've told her she doesn't need to wear them to Gymkana this week and next, but by August 1, 2013 she should be wearing them full time.

W got a dose of Glasses-Reality when she was waving and yelling "Hi Lillian! Hi Lillian!" from the pool yesterday to a girl who was definitely NOT Lillian. I am not sure the lesson sunk in, but C44 and I took note of it.

Fourth of July Bike Parade

Is this just a rerun of last July? No. But the last few things I've posted about sure feel like it! We did the bike parade last year. But it was HOTTER. And we had two lovely visitors. And our AC was broken. Thank goodness the AC wasn't broken this year, but no guests. Although in June we had some AC issues while visitors were here. But back to the point at hand. Fourth of July bike parade at the pool!

Favorite Rides

My favorite ride at French Broad River Dude Ranch was the gallop or canter up the mountain. Freaky scary fast exhilarating. I didn't fall off (which was very good). I had to try out to make sure I could do it. I just passed, and I'm so glad I did. It was very fun to race up the mountain. Princess was more than happy to gallop up the mountain. No pictures of me doing that, of course, since the rest of the family was on a different ride, and anybody riding with us could NOT have taken a picture and lived to tell the tale.

Now, C44's favorite ride was the white trail, because it had a great view, and it was a nice ride with Q7. I also enjoyed that ride, but I did it when everybody else was doing the tubing. But   the cattle drive was also a favorite because he was riding Mars instead of Barron. Barron went at his own slow pace. Mars was more spirited and C44 was able to ride back and forth a bit more. There are, of course, no pictures of C44 on the cattle drive, since he was taking the pictures. Here is Q7 on the cattle drive, though.

My favorite ride for C8 was at the Kids Rodeo. She -- like Q7 -- rode Faith through cones, and did a few other things ... this was the last race:



She was SCARED! As you can hear! But, she stayed on!

I'm also not sure what Q7's favorite ride was, but here she is at the cattle penning. And yes, I'm sorry, I'm a horrible videographer. You see the ground and the horses legs as much as Q7. Possibly more.



Fabulous time (C8, Q7, and Wrangler Mel)

Fabulous horses (here is Love, Princess, and Charlie and Destiny)

 

On Horses

Most of what you do at the dude ranch is two rides a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon (unless you opt to do a tubing or a white water rafting ride on certain days .... breaks up the horsey monotony) and then some evening activity ... including cow penning, square dancing, music, and the kids rodeo. But two rides a day was really enough. But they change it up between trail rides and moving cows, so it wasn't boring.

That plus and just saddling up, cooling down, and giving treats to horses was enough to make nearly anybody pretty comfortable around horses. These guys are Arabians, they weren't so big (I mean, big enough, but not intimidating big). But if you ever didn't know where Q7 was ... all you had to do was look out at the stables or pastures and you'd pretty much be assured of finding her.

 

Everybody was expected to collect their own horse from the pasture and saddle him/her (you learn how in HRS:101). This is all well and good for adult-sized people, but for the 7-8-9 year olds they did get help lifting that saddle over their heads and onto the backs of the horses. It was actually quite amusing to watch Q7 attempt to spin around and lift the saddle onto Lightning's back.

There was also plenty of waiting around time, during which we got some family photos.

Here, C8 wouldn't wear her cowboy hat.

Q7 playing in the hay:

With Ninoo:

And ... I think this was at the cow penning. C8 did this last year, but chose not to this year because Faith (the horse available for her to ride at the cattle penning) "doesn't move" she said. More on that at the Kids Rodeo ...

Dude ranch ... again!

Last July we went to the French Broad River Dude Ranch ... and it was wicked fun. So back again this year.

We left Tuesday night, against Q7's wishes, to stay at a Hampton Inn on the way down, get some swimming in at the hotel pool, and go to a cave the next morning. Of course, by K-Street in DC we already had to stop to let C8 use a bathroom. As if traffic wasn't annoying enough, we had to find a place to pee in downtown DC! I think we stopped three more times after that, so you can imagine how long it took to get to the hotel. A long time. But we did, and it was fine. After the C8-coveted breakfast buffet (worst breakfast buffet ever), and an hour of swimming we took off and headed for Dixie Caverns.

Caves are not necessarily my thing. They start talking about earthquakes and I start thinking about getting crushed between the boulder above you and the rock below you. To be honest, it wasn't really the girls thing either, but I'm not exactly sure why. But C44 was very keen to go to one ... although probably he'd have preferred a cave that wasn't Dixie Caverns. The gift shop was supremely kistch-y and had really great mood rings, but we probably could have chosen a better first cave. But it was cool as long as I wasn't thinking about the ceiling caving in.

By 4:15 or so we'd reached the ranch. The girls and I of course knew what to expect, but this was the first view for C44:

We hooked up with family and after checking in Q7 and A9 immediately set off with the wranglers to feed the horses:

And that was the end of our first day. We sat around a corral and got the talk (HRS 101 How to Ride a Horse: French Broad River Style), then the day was pretty much over. Next up: Riding!

Last view of the day: