My New Art

I'm not sure if it's "art" but that's another discussion.  It's a wall decal, fancy word for sticker.  

This Weekend

Despite the funny pictures of my Dad on a motorcycle, it wasn't the strongest weekend.  It might seem like the adjective, strongest, isn't a natural choice for describing a weekend.  Well, maybe with some description the word choice will make sense.

I had my first horse show in almost two months this weekend.  Since that show, Pebble back in July, I've jumped very little.  Well, that's not true.  I've jumped but not big.  Over these two months I can only think of 3 times where I've jumped over 3'3".  

With all of this, I think rusty might be an understatement for how I rode.  

Thursday Stella was wild.  Friday I was so off I couldn't find my nose on my face, let alone a distance to a jump. Saturday I just bumped down to the lower division, 10cm, and found some mojo back.  Later that day, I got to jump over my normal height, 1.30 meters, and though I wasn't stellar, held my own considering the disaster of the day before. 

Am I back to my old self in terms of my riding, no.  Can I be? yes, soon hopefully.  Until then I guess I practice. 

Apple Jack's Day with Dad

We're working on doing some last minute fixes on my house before my house warming.  Apple Jacks and I were having some trouble with the big slider, to the point we called re-enforcements, Dad.  

Once Dad came down, we all realized there were some parts that needed to be picked up from the hardware store.  What a great opportunity for Apple Jacks to take Dad on his motorcycle!

Dad's fist is in the air.  He made it back alive!

"How do I get this off?!"

Oh, yes, my dad, Mr. Tough Guy

Here they are, after the parts have been retrieved, using cooking spray and the drill, trying to get a new hole in the frame of the sliding door. At least Apple Jacks gets to use his Dremal Tool!

Fishing the Lower Sac

Dad, Tao, Ian, and I got in the car in the darkness of 6am to head up to Redding to go fishing.  It turned out to a be a beautiful day to be on the river, high 70's low 80's light breeze.  It was just the four of us in two boats each with a guide, Me and Dad with the main guide, and Tao and Ian with Chris.  Right off the bat i caught a fish, a rare thing to happen so quickly.  It was a fat sucker fish, but still a fish that made it all the way to the boat.  The day continued and Dad kept losing his fish before he could reel them into the boat.  

The highlight of the day was when I caught a Steelhead.  It took me 10-15 min to reel it in.  It kept running and fighting.  This was the first time I caught a fish with fight like this.  When I finally got it to the boat we had floated quite a bit away for Tao and Ian's boat and Ian was the only one with a camera, so he has to long distance shot of me landing this 7 pound fish.  

This is what it looked like, a bit brighter, and head a bit uglier.  But it was a big fish.  I'm use to landing maybe a 12ft rainbow this was twice as big and weight at least 3 times as much.  It was cool.

In the front yard this morning

Here is the whole family, Dad, Mom and Baby.  

Don't diss the picture quality, it's though a window with a flash.

The Arcade

Last night a small group of friends and I wen to an arcade.  They were very excited to play "Hyperbowl",  bowling game where you spin a suspended bowling ball though a "course" to hit the pins.  We stupidly picked the expert level, Tokyo. We had to get our ball though a Tokyo street. We did have the advantage that the street was straight, but we had the disadvantage of maneuvering around cars, buses, and motorcycles.  There was also a time limit to get to the pins.  

The true challenge was that you had to smack the ball around to get it to roll along the course.  As Apple Jacks said after he bowled only about half his frames, "I feel like I've been clapping nonstop at a concert." 

But he got his revenge.  He got Ms. J and I on a horse racing game.  That wasn't the sneaky part.  He some how got us to pick the longest distance around the track.  To say it was exhausting is an understatement.  Ms. J and I were humping and bumping and rocking these "horses" back and forth for maybe 90 seconds, but it felt like 5 min. We were both out of breath and Ms. Jen even felt like she was going to vomit from the  exertion. She did beat me, but in my defense, its nothing like riding a real horse.  All is all, between bowling and the horse racing, it was quite a work out.

Some More PIcs for Ms. E's wedding

Here we are.  My first close friend to get married. I'm so so so very happy for her!

 

Someone had to fluff the dress properly

Apple Jacks dancing with Bella, a daughter of Ms. E's best friend

My speech... it was a little nerve racking but it went well