Summer wrap up

We had a busy summer.  

We haven't gone to Vegas for the Better Software Conference for a couple of years, but we went this year the week after school let out.  Instead of limiting ourselves to one big show, we did two big ones and a little one.  We saw The Beatles Cirque du Soleil show, the Blue Man show, and an animal show.  The last one was a little disappointing, maybe our kids are too old.

The end of June was our third annual trip to Oregon.  The first year was so magical, the 2nd year was a little frustrating, partly because nothing could match the magic of the first year, but this year was solidly lovely.  Some of us made it all the way to the top of the mountain we hiked, the little girls actually got Red to boogie board with them, we just had a great time.

Right after we got back from Oregon I drove Blondie to Wyoming for her first real Horse Trial.  She bobbled her dressage and was 8th of 8 girls in her division, which was very disappointing for her. They did Cross Country the 2nd day and she jumped the wrong jump - she jumped the higher one next to the one she should have jumped, and was given a "Technical Elimination."  However there was some miscommunication with the judges and they didn't stop her like they should have, and she was able to continue on and finish the course.  It was complete serendipity in our favor.  Because it was a "technical" elimination she was able to petition to ride in the final round on the last day, so she got to ride the show jumping round, which was fun.  She learned a lot.  Blondie was of course hugely disappointed to be eliminated, but she took some comfort in the fact that five of the twelve riders in the group we came with from Park City were also eliminated, and only 2 of the 8 girls in her division ended up finishing, all the rest were eliminated.  It was a tough course, but she did well and had a great time all in all.
This is the first time she's had to compete in full on eventing clothes with the jacket and light pants and tall boots.

While Blondie and I were in Wyoming, Hubby flew to Dallas with Red to pick up his new car.  He has been wanting to move up from the Passat for a long time, and has been looking for easily a year to find what car he wanted.  He finally settled on a particular BMW and found one that matched and had to go pick it up.  I have kind of put up with this because 1) we are calling this his mid-life crisis 2) he did earn it, sort of, by publishing his book.  However I have been kind of mocking him, maybe quietly, I hope gently, because the car he settled on is a 2 door convertible.  I have pointed out that we live in PARK CITY next to a SKI RESORT and he has TWO CHILDREN.  He was undaunted.  I voted we keep the Passat and he could just drive that to and from the airport, and garage the BMW.  HIs reply was most weeks he'd only drive it to and from the airport.  He does make a good point.

And then I drove the car.  It is so much fun to drive, I had to shut up about it and while he's been in Australia this week I have been driving the BMW on all my errands except to the barn.  I will not drive that to the barn.

We were going to go to Australia and New Zealand with Hubby but when we came back from the horse trials we talked and since my passport had expired, the girls' expire in September, and we hadn't bought tickets, and the whole trip would be wedged between a church girls camp and going back to school and we'd only have about seven days non-travel time to do this, it was just getting less and less appealing.  So we decided not to go.

I had three big projects to work on this summer.

1) Paint Blondie's room.  The sample color patch has been on her wall for over a year.  But I told her I'm not just going to clean up her room, clean out her room, and paint it, without some help from her. It's a decent but not monumental mess in there.  She hasn't seemed to want it bad enough to clean her room.  So it didn't get done this summer.

2) Clean out the garage.  We bought a work table for one wall to hold tools and stuff and put peg board on the wall, but the organization and clean up part was started but not really finished.

3) Finish up landscaping the front yard and plant the grass.  This involved relocating some plants that I had planted too close to the existing grass line, and moving the grass line back much further back toward the house, and removing a whole bunch of Bishop's Weed and planting the grass in the space to fill it in.  I ACTUALLY DID THIS!!!  The grass is planted and little tufts are starting to come up.  

School started last week.  Red is on the early bus, and leaves the house at 6:40 am.  Blondie is on the late bus, and leaves the house at 8:26 am.  I have found that there area several hours in the morning that I didn't even know existed.  I am certainly not naturally an outrageously driven or productive person, and I do not feel compelled to pack something into every minute of the day, but I have found this time in the morning to be a great time to get some things done so I have less guilt when I get less done in the rest of the day as I often do.

Red is quite happy with her classes, she got most of the electives she requested and has been enjoying school well enough.  She'd rather stay home, of course, but she is resigned to it, she has some friends, and she is okay.  Blondie was devastated that she does not have any of the friends she made last year in any of her classes this year.  There are people she knows, but her little circle of friends are not in her classes.  She is much less concerned with the actual classes themselves, for her it's mostly about her friends.  Since she's been going for a couple days now I have discovered she does have friends in some of the classes, she tells me stories about this person or that person in her class who she knows, and I think she'll be fine.  

The Fall Pumpkin horse show is this weekend.  I should in fact be packing the car instead of blogging.  I guess I better go do that.