Wedding Shower

With my oldest daughter getting married soon I am learning more about the wedding scene in the 21st century.   Instead of bridal showers for the bride and women friends and family, we now have wedding showers.  That means the men can come too.  I'm not too sure J thought he should be going.  But after assuring  him several times that my brother would be there he finally relented. 

 V's Maid of Honor Jordan, did a wonderful job planning and directing the festivities.  She had some fun games lined up and there was plenty of good food.

 On the gift opening Mike dug right in.

 There was lots of chattering and laughing throughout the afternoon.

 V's house was packed with about 30 friends and family.

 Did I mention that Mike really liked the gifts?

 V was a beautiful bride to be.

And she got some time to catch up and chat with her bride's maids.  

36 more days to go. 

Labor Day Weekend

Like everyone else, between work and vacation, it's been busy.  This year J and I took off to Mount Roger's with our saddle club for camping and trail riding.  

We got a great spot this time and were even able to use the picket line so we didn't have to have the horses tied to the trailer.  Without them clanging and banging we even got some sleep at night.   We also took our old grill so we could cook hamburgers for supper and bacon and eggs for breakfast.  Best we have eaten on a trail ride too.

As anyone that has hiked or ridden on Mount Rogers knows, it's pretty rocky up there.  Friday, J and I were a little late getting there so we rode by ourselves for a couple of hours.  

The next day we went in a group of 8.  Otoelene was a dream until she saw the long horn cattle. She freaked out!  Between that and the campers at the scales with the tents, fires and Frisbees, I had to get off and lead her until we were out of sight of it all.  It was so unlike her because I work the cattle on her here all the time. 

Anyway, the views were stunning. 

The weather was nice, 70s in the day 40's to 50's at night.  

Don't tell anyone we took this trail. 

We ended up riding about 6 hours the second day.  

Then Sunday we went back out with 8 others but then split off with 2 when we realized they weren't riding to the top again.  Otoelene did better with the cattle.  I don't think they surprised her as bad and we kept our distance.  We did get into bees twice however. 

Brother did good for the most part.  A few episodes of mind lost but J handled it all well.  At 5 and 6  ours were the youngest horses out of the 16 there.  Sunday we rode for another 7 hours.  All back in one piece so another great weekend. 

Then Monday, since she had the day off, I went wedding dress shopping with V.  Success!  We bought a dress and I think it was even reasonably priced.  She was beautiful in everything she tried on so it just came down to what she liked better.  And what she liked was one that fit the best so it will need very little in the alteration department.  Now we can get to work on the rest of the wedding details.  

Children, Goats, and Horses

Sunday was a pretty eventful day.  We got a surprise visit from E Saturday night.  She is taking a P/F class and she needed to make 2 quilt blocks and had no fabric, tools or instructions.  So Sunday morning was spent with sewing lessons. 

Before she left, she wanted to visit with the baby goats.  Well, who wouldn't want to see such cuteness.

Then J and I loaded up Otoelene and Brother for the first trail ride on the season.  Brother was a little "looky" at the start but settled down and did fine.

He did balk at this tree across the trail and Otoelene had to lead the way through.

Brother decided it was no big deal after that.

 J made a few adjustments before heading back down the mountain.

 We did spot this handsome fellow.  He had quite the wing span as he took off down the trail.

Then it was 2 miles up the gravel road for the home stretch.  8.5 miles in the leisurely pace of 2 3/4 hours.  When we are condition for the endurance ride we do it in 1 1/4 hours.

Then when we got home, this message was greeting me on my ipad.  Looks like we will be getting a son-in-law.   They went hiking and he proposed at their lunch stop.  I wonder if V even remembers the rest of the hike.